Vocal Recording 101: The Setup

Why learn to self-record?

More and more artists are doubling as their own producers in 2024. As access to recording equipment and resources have increased, it makes more sense logistically and cost-wise to record at home. At the very least, this is the case for demos, as you can always eventually take the idea to a traditional studio if you’re not getting what you want embodying your best bedroom producer.

There’s a certain sense of pride in knowing how to record yourself, or even take it a few steps further in production. Artists like Shakira, Kevin Parker, and Ariana Grande have been particularly lauded for their technical skills beyond the songwriting and performance aspects. What may start out as a vocalist’s necessity to make the cheap gear work can be incredibly valuable if their career takes off, as they can then bring a more all-around skillset to the studio with the world’s top producers.

However, getting started with self-recording can be both intimidating and frustrating, in particular for vocalists. The voice calls for proper isolation, and your ability to capture a performance can be impeded by background noise. Recording your voice isn’t as simple as recording an instrument part on a MIDI controller, which can be recorded no matter the location.

So let’s tackle those challenges and cover the basics to decide on and set up your equipment, properly isolate your vocals no matter your budget, and move on to the next steps of bringing your songs to life.

Step 1: Consider your recording location

Before looking into equipment, we recommend considering the space. Every room is unique in how it allows sound waves to absorb into or reflect off of its surfaces. Generally speaking, less reflection will allow for a cleaner recording, letting you do more FX and processing later.

We refer to this as a “dry” sound, or one that isn’t affected by reverberations. Think about the difference between singing in your closet and a cathedral. One is relatively dry, even without acoustic treatment, and the other is intentionally designed for sounds to echo and sustain.

The dryer your raw recording, the more control you have in the editing phase. To plan your home studio setup, start by:

1. Determining the room. If you have options, look for a space with the lowest ceilings possible, curtains, and non-bare walls.

2. Planning for where to place the singer. This should be neither in the direct center of the room or all the way in a corner.

3. Closing any windows, turning off any appliances like an air conditioner, and stuffing a towel at the base of any doors if there’s notable space between them and the floor.

4. Placing yourself in this area. Speak and sing, and hear how the room responds to you. Optionally, you can record a voice note on your phone and listen back.

How long did your voice bounce about before you can no longer hear it? Do you like the take, or do you need more isolation?

Step 2: Optional room treatment

The above exercise is just your starting point, and now you can consider how much you might want to further treat the room or consider alternatives.

There are a wide range of ways to improve a room for recording, on virtually any budget. Sweetwater’s acoustic treatment listings are a good example of just how many choices there are to treat professionally.

Some basic categories to know, if you are interested in going this route today or in the future:

• Acoustic Panels: Framed panels which are generally placed on walls to alter how sound interacts with that wall. Even artwork on canvases achieve some of what acoustic panels can be designed for, as blank walls are one of the most common pitfalls of home recording.

• Reflection: Refers to sound waves bouncing off of surfaces. This, mere milliseconds later, can be re-captured into a microphone and lessen the dryness of the recording. While some reflections are intentional, basic studio treatment intends to avoid too much of this.

• Diffusers: These generally have the purpose of scattering sound waves to reduce residual echo and reverb from other surfaces. Speaking of artwork, panels meant to diffuse are incredibly aesthetic. Many have wooden pegs installed to a base which are set up with varying shapes and depths. Long-term home project, anyone?

• Absorption Panel: These panels, unlike diffusers, are designed to capture and absorb sound. Therefore many professional studios have a combination of both absorption and diffusion going on. An absorption panel will likely have a relatively deep wooden or otherwise solid frame, generally filled with some sort of material to absorb sound, before wrapped up in fabric.

• Bass Trap: Possibly the easiest DIY option as it’s often made of textured foam, but less necessary for recording only. These pieces might appear spikey or with hard angles as it’s designed to lessen residual and lingering low-end frequencies while mixing with monitors. The lower the sound wave, the longer it takes to complete a cycle and be audible to us. Therefore placing bass traps, especially in corners of a room, can help ensure the only bass you’re hearing is what’s coming from a speaker in real-time.

DIY solutions for any of these treatments can help avoid the retailer price tags more so meant for professional studios. As an artist, this money is often better spent on your creator tools, a microphone (discussed below), and other resources for your career.

Step 3: The closet as a fallback, or signature

If none of the above is feeling right for you, there is the aforementioned closet; a cliche for a reason! Tucking yourself into your closet—especially if you have clothes hanging around you—will greatly limit the places where sound can reflect. This creates a very dry effect and a clean take that you can probably hear just by speaking.. Some swear by this as better than any DIY treatment, including draping an extra blanket over yourself and the microphone. Just make sure that the blanket or other clothes are not brushing against the microphone itself.

It may feel a bit silly, but it’s worth it for quality recording. And bonus: you’ll feel just like a kid in a fort again!

TIP: No matter where you record, a pop filter is a safe option to soften hard consonants which could peak the signal. While many clipping consonants can be smoothed out by an experienced engineer, they’re best to avoid in order to maintain the cleanest recording.

Step 4: Select a microphone

Now it’s time to consider your microphone. If you already have a starter mic, feel free to skip down to step 5 or use this section to plot your future, upgraded purchase!

Selecting a microphone is where you can start to really think about the nature of what you’re recording. What qualities do you want to bring out in your voice? Will your performance have a wide range in pitch and dynamics (volume), or will it be more in the realm of spoken word or sung very softly?

For this, you’ll want to consider frequency response, which indicates the range in Hertz (Hz) that the microphone is designed to capture. Many guides comparing microphones will include this as a key decision-maker along with price, cable connection, and polar patterns. If you boast anything like Ariana’s 4-octave range, you’ll want to opt for a wide frequency response. If you tend to stay in the mids without anything too extreme, you can worry less about this parameter as any vocal microphone should suffice.

A polar pattern refers to the directionality in which a sound is picked up. Some microphones are able to capture sounds coming from different directions at once. Eventually this created a demand for all-in-one products like iZotope’s Spire at the turn of the decade, but for the most part, the microphones you’ll consider should all look basically the same, and capture sound from only one direction at a time.

Since you’ll be aiming to capture one sound source immediately in front of the microphone, what you’ll want to prioritize at a minimum is a cardioid pattern. Many microphones, however, offer switchable patterns for more flexibility. This isn’t a necessity for your starter mic, but it’s not a bad perk to take advantage of! 

EXTRA: Dynamic v. condenser explained

There are two basic types of microphones: dynamic and condenser. The former is more durable and able to capture a wider range of sounds, which is why it’s quite popular for live music regardless of the sound source. It can take a beating, and be used in the loudest environments. While it’s less likely that you’ll choose a dynamic microphone to record vocals at home, there are some gems out there! This writer in particular loves using the vintage-look Shure Super 55. In my case, the need here was far more for podcasting and poetry performances than singing, which made it a perfect choice. To each their own.

For home recording as a vocalist, it’s most likely that you’ll opt for a condenser microphone. It requires a special boost of voltage, +48 to be exact and referred to as phantom power. So long as your interface can support phantom power, it will be worth the choice, as condensers unlock a much richer texture for you to work with in the editing process.

You may also opt to not use an interface at all, with many USB-powered microphones out there. For beginners wanting either USB or XLR connections, a few of the best brands to consider would be RODE, AKG, Blue, MXL, and Behringer.

Try not to get too overwhelmed with this first choice – it’s pretty hard to go wrong with these basic boxes checked. Yes, you may later decide on your true dream microphone, but for now it’s just important to give yourself the basic tool to begin your recording journey.

Step 5: Placement and sensitivity considerations

Once you have all of your gear set up, you know where you’re going to record to capture the purest sound, and you’ve warmed up, the last piece of technique to master is placement. While a cardioid condenser microphone is unidirectional, there are more factors to keep in mind. All of the following will affect the vocal take:

• Distance between the microphone and pop filter

• Distance between sound source (your voice) and the other side of the pop filter

• Angle of the sound source relative to the microphone’s diaphragm (found inside the wire-like casing of a microphone)

• Gain level of the individual channel (interface or in your software)

• Gain level of the master channel

The ultimate goal is to capture a smooth sound without overly aggressive consonants or breath, as well as volume. Have you ever noticed singers on stage move the microphone away from themselves as they go for their highest or loudest notes? This not only achieves style points, but it’s an important skill to learn both as a live performer and studio artist to maintain an even volume across the performance. The same mentality applies to recording.

Get started, make mistakes & have fun!

As you can guess, there is no one right way to record your voice. The recording tactics for Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’ needed to be significantly different from any of WILLOW’s pop-punk revival tracks.

The recording process attempts to bring us into the world of the creator, sometimes to make us feel like we’re in the room with them, and other times manipulating the sound into something other-worldly. This is where experimenting, being patient, and learning from your mistakes is the best approach.

But it all begins with a clean capture of your voice to edit from there.