SM57 in the control room = awesome vocals

[adoucette]

I had/have the opportunity to work with a very respectable producer by the name of Flood, and he gave me a little tip when it came to tracking vocals Bono style.. 57/58 in the control room, crank up the headphones and go with it.

I tried this. I changed it up a bit, used a SM57, put a wind guard on with an elastic and plugged it straight into the pre. To give a little more vibe I put the mic on a straight stand and cranked up the mic pre. I compressed on the way in with some slight touches of EQ, mostly a boost of about 2 db at 320 hz and 3 db at 10k shelving to give a little more 'cut' and 'sharpness' to the vocal.

SOUNDS GREAT!

I got such a great performance out of the singer, he gets right into it and rips out some wicked vocal takes.

When it comes to rock, this is the ultimate to track lead vocals. Until now ive always used a big impressive condenser all set up nice and proper, but this record didnt call for it, it called for raw, live and aggressive. the big mic is simply intrusive and makes them feel to much like they are in the studio. of course im not saying it doesnt work also, just different techniques.

Just thought i would share.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

[wesarvin]

I'll probably get flack for this, but I totally agree. It really depends on the singer, but I've gotten some of the best vocal takes from a 57 right in the control room!

[adoucette]

the singer is still going "...uhh so... we got that vocal from that mic...? i still cant believe it.."

[dbjp]

Interesting.
I thought the point of recording in the control room (apart from the acoustics perhaps) was that you have the sound coming out of the monitors (everything except the vocal), so no headphones. At least that's what I thought Bono did.
As for the SM57's, tons and tons of people use it for vocals (especially rock). I love 'em.

[adoucette]

you could always flip one speaker out of phase, it cancels out most of the bleed from the monitors and reduces it to that of what you would get from headphones. Its the trick they use to record large choirs but dont have headphones for everyone. Set up a PA, flip the hot and cold on one of the speakers, and crank it up!

I used headphones because he prefered.

[dbjp]

Originally Posted by adoucette

you could always flip one speaker out of phase, it cancels out most of the bleed from the monitors and reduces it to that of what you would get from headphones. Its the trick they use to record large choirs but dont have headphones for everyone. Set up a PA, flip the hot and cold on one of the speakers, and crank it up!

Interesting! I'll have to give that a try.

I used headphones because he prefered.

Ah, I see.

[bcgood]

Yep, 57 in front of my left monitor directly behind it is my favorite vocals set up. I think it's much more natural to sing without headphones cupped around one or both of your ears. My favorite distance from the 57 is around a foot with my pop screen in between.

[adoucette]

Wow a foot? I found it too roomy for me for this genre.. I had him pretty much eating the mic the entire time until he hit the high notes, then it was all about mic control. Its nice to let the singer do what they do naturally rather than doing tonnes of compression

[RCM - Ronan]

Glad you got turned on to this method of vocal tracking. Its really fun and not all the tough to sort out in the mix. Great performances beat "proper" micing every day of the week.

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by adoucette

Wow a foot? I found it too roomy for me for this genre.. I had him pretty much eating the mic the entire time until he hit the high notes, then it was all about mic control. Its nice to let the singer do what they do naturally rather than doing tonnes of compression

Yea a foot sounds a lot more natural and helps control excessive S's and plosives. It also reduces any proximity effect and thus sounds much brighter. With a really good pre and proper eq, (The 57 takes eq very, well much better than condensers) this set up can sound very nice. Like Ronan was alluding to, capturing the best possible vocal performance is paramount.

[Jack Ruston]

Now try an RE20.

J

[Svens]

Originally Posted by rcm

Great performances beat "proper" micing every day of the week.

There you go, +1.

[Brad McGowan]

Pop one of those TAB Funkenwerk transformers in your SM57 and I think you'll even be more impressed for vocals.

A good one for the ladies is the RE15/RE16.

Brad

[adoucette]

Originally Posted by Brad McGowan

Pop one of those TAB Funkenwerk transformers in your SM57 and I think you'll even be more impressed for vocals.

A good one for the ladies is the RE15/RE16.

Brad

A what? What does it do?

[PMoshay]

U2 (SM58) & Nirvana........... worked for them too!

It's just music...... do whatever you have to to make it have more emotion, people are more moved by emotional music than fancy our highbrow recording techniques.

[Brad McGowan]

Originally Posted by adoucette

A what? What does it do?

TAB-Funkenwerk Transformer Modfor SM57 and SM58 Microphones
SM57 Microphone with TAB-Funkenwerk Transformer

[Jidis]

Be careful where he/she goes with it. Years ago I tracked my uncle's band with a scratch 57 vocal in the CR and wasted about twenty minutes crawling around the tracking room trying to find this low level buzz that kicked in on the phones "once in a while". Overlooked the obvious. Turned out it was from him moving around on the couch and the dynamic picking up crap from a big CRT I had. Guess we're much safer now with the LCDs though.

[Han]

Originally Posted by Jack Ruston

Now try an RE20.

J

+1, or a Beyer M88 for example. I can't understand this 57/58 admiration, because Bono and Kurt used it? And does Kurt sound awesome?

Indeed the 57 isn't a bad mic, but once you've tried an M88 the 57 will remain in the closet.

[jchadstopherhuez]

sm7.

in front of the speakers.

mix contains all the stuff that WILL end up on the record...nothing that we do not want to have on the record.

bleed...? who cares....its all gonna be there anyway....so a bit of the music sits behind the vocal on the vocal track.

alot of singers are WAY more into this than being placed behind glass in a padded room.

works for me too.

best,

jchristopherhughes

[Brad McGowan]

Yep! That's how I've been doing it lately at my place. Screw the headphones. And bleed...whatever.

Brad

[the_man361]

working with flood - very cool!

[ampegfreak]

SM7
Vocalist infront of monitors... but dont turn the vocals on...

Will help with pitch as well...

[stcroix]

Can someone please explain to me how the phase trick works to cause the same amount of bleed as using cans?

Would you have to put the monitors perpendicular to each other, mono the mix then reverse the phase on one monitor for this to happen?

I really don't get how this would almost null the bleed?

Thanks

[ssaudio]

Place the mic in the middle of the monitors
Put one monitor out of phase
The sound from each monitor will hit the mic simultaneously but the summed signals will largely cancel

That's all there is to it, no need to change anything else - works an absolute charm

[engmix]

that's awesome you were able to work with flood. i was his tracking engineer on an album in the early 90's and learned some amazing things from him. since then i have been tracking vocals in the control room 90% of the time. he was the first engineer i watched use compression in a very musical way. he really opened my ears up in a big way.

what's he up to these days?

[stcroix]

I'm going to try this ssaudio,

So I dont need to adjust the placement of my speakers?

Just make sure the mic is exactly centered so the sound hits the mic at the same time?

Why do you need to change the phase on one speaker?

Thanks mate

[ssaudio]

Originally Posted by stcroix

Why do you need to change the phase on one speaker?

So that the signals from each individual speaker are out of phase (i.e. when in phase each speaker cone will move in the same direction at the same time as the other, out of phase they will still move simultaneously, but one will move forward whilst the other moves backwards). When two similar signals are out of phase they tend to cancel each other. In practice and in this instance, they won't completely, but they will cancel enough so as not to be obtrusive

Phase is a whole book in itself and it's a subject you really should read up on, but some simple experiments like this wee trick can go a long way to explaining it. You might also want to try micing a single object with 2 cardioid mics (the same type if possible). Put one mic a couple of feet from the object and don't move it. Then record both mics, but move the second mic to varying distances away from the object. Sum the two mics and listen to the differences moving the second mic has made

I hope that helps a wee bit

ps no, the only thing you need to do is reverse the polarity of one speaker. The more central the mic is the better the results