Home studio setup for high quality vocals.
Each room is different, and when it comes to making a home studio setup for high quality vocals, it’s important to ask yourself some questions about the factors that can reduce the quality of your vocal recordings:
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Question: Is my computer noise affecting my recording quality?
Answer: If you have a noisy fan or a noisy laptop, all this noise will interfere with the recording quality. Make a test and listen with attention if you can hear a background fan noise, and in case, do something to place your microphone far from that computer, ideally in another room. If your room is small, you can use as many pillows as you have to cover the computer while recording. This will reduce (the thicker the pillows are, the better) the noise of the computer fan. You can find almost all our certified credits on Muso.Ai (under my personal account there’s the majority of credits) to have an idea of our work.
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Question: Is my microphone good enough for a professional recording quality?
Answer: Your airpod microphone is not good for professional recording quality; mixing and mastering can do nothing to increase an earbud quality recording, I’m sorry. Make a little investment with a $70 mic and you already have a decent recording. If you have a non-treated room, aim for a dynamic microphone. I know you are attracted by those big studio mics (condenser mic with a large diaphragm), but those are really sensitive, and with your wonderful voice they will catch as well a big amount of wonderful noises, even from out of your window. The next question is connected to this one.
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Question: Is my room good for professional vocal recording quality?
Answer: If your room has a window, without isolation, on a noisy street, recording will likely have all that traffic noise. Change room if possible. As well, if your room has no acoustic treatment, you will hear your room reverberation inside of the recordings. Ideally, vocal recording has to be dry or almost dry, but if your recordings seem to come from a large bathroom or a concrete tunnel, consider buying some absorbing panels or fill your room (the cheap way) with pillows, mattresses, and other absorbing mass. You can as well buy those “cages” for your mic that help to isolate the microphone from the room reverb (find some here).
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Question: Am I recording in the right place of the room?
Answer: Test different recording positions, in particular the room corners, but this is not a strict law. Try the same phrase recorded in different places of the room, and choose the position that sounds cleaner to your ears. Your ears are the most important judge, ask the most out of them, and be exigent with yourself.
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Question: How can I reduce the noises of my recordings?
Answer: Use a shockmount, if your microphone can mount one, and always use a pop shield (some here) to reduce the plosive letters like P, D, T that make an “explosion” sound and really ruin the recording quality. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for the best distance, but I always suggest to put the pop shield not parallel to the microphone, at half an open hand distance from the microphone while singing at one open hand distance from the microphone.
I’ll be back with more Question – Answers, if you have any, don’t hesitate to ask (below the links)!
For more info about our online mixing and mastering services, here’s the page! Ask me any question on how to set your home studio setup for high quality vocals here!
Marco
Topic: Home studio setup for high quality vocals
