How to get that Pro sound quality

[Philly Kid]

Can any one point me in the right direction? I just bought a KSM44 condesor mic from Shure,an Art tube MPstudio V3 Preamp, and using MAGIX audio studio 10 deLuxe software for recording. My goal is to get as close as possible to commercial quality vocal recordings for hip hop and R&B songs. But my recordings are coming out very Trebley and not warm like I was expecting. Ive been playing with the knobs on this amp but getting nowhere. What am I doing wrong? How do I get that professional studio sound? Is it the mic?

[dagosto]

You got a nice mic there. The preamp is ok. In that price range I would recommend the Presonus BlueTube, but what you have is alright. The thing that stuck out to me in your set up is that you didn't list an audio interface. Are you plugging straight into your computer? If you are there is a good chance you are feeding the computers input too much level, causing it to peak even before it reaches the software. Recordings that peak like that can often be hard to listen too and could possibly sound trebely in certain cases.

Easy fix - try turning down the preamp output a bit and see if the recordings mellow out a bit. This may help but odds are the converters that change your recordings to digital are not very good anyway.

Real fix - Get yourself an audio interface from Maudio or Presonus. Check with Magix to see if they will work with your software.

Oh yeah, welcome to the board!

[Philly Kid]

Thanks for the input. What do you think of the Digidesign MBox 2 Audio Interface. http://www.zzounds.com/item--DGDMB2

[dagosto]

I think that would be a good way to go. It's your preamps and interface all in one. I'm not sure how easy it will be to jump from MAGIX to Pro-Tools but if you have figured out one then you should be able to figure out the other without too much trouble.

[dolivas]

if I was working around that price range I would rather get a Focusrite Saffire interface:


better preamps than the MBOX, doesn't lock you into using just ProTools, and it has hardware hosted plugins.

[hz37]

Originally Posted by Philly Kid

But my recordings are coming out very Trebley and not warm like I was expecting. Ive been playing with the knobs on this amp but getting nowhere. What am I doing wrong? How do I get that professional stunbdio sound? Is it the mic?

There's a lot of other things to consider...
- How's the vocalist?
- What kind of room are you recording in?
- Did you try a different (e.g. cheapo) microphone and did you get the same trebley sound?

I have an MBox (the first version) and I think it's pretty transparent. I use it with a Behringer B2 condenser mic and a Shure SM58 dynamic mic (you can tell I have no money from my choice of microphones), recording into Protools or Logic on a Mac. For hiphop/rnb-ish vocals both microphones into the MBox sound okay. I prefer the SM58 for the shouting male vocals and the B2 for the softer female voices. What helps me best to get anywhere near a commercial hophop/rnb sound is COMPRESS THE HELL OUT OF IT! One of my favorite vocal compressors is WaveHammer in Sony SoundForge (on the Windows PC). Its -6 dB limiting preset works pretty well and my peer listeners always compliment the vocal sound if it has been robbed of its dynamics by WaveHammer.

So my advise ...hmmm, first check your room! I recorded between two "slap echo" walls in my room and that was a nightmare which did all kinds of weirdness to the frequency response. Turning the vocalists 90 degrees with the curtains behind them worked a lot better. In my opinion the role of the pre-amp is sometimes a bit overrated. I recorded straight into my SoundBlaster live pc-card cheapo thing a few years ago and that sounded more hiphop than the efforts of a studio owner with an expensive GrooveTube tube mic into a Bellari pre-amp. The MBox is wonderful (and doesn't lock you into Protools btw, because it works fine with just about everything else, like Logic Audio). I would start to EQ and compress your vocals. Look at them with an analyzer if you will... maybe you need to roll off some of that high, or something in your recording chain emphasizes a weird peak that destroys your listening pleasure... You can really do a lot with some eq'ing and compressing. For male hiphop vocals try borrowing an SM58 or similar. Especially at close range, they sound great.

Good luck and have fun!


Hens Zimmerman