How do I make my mic louder without losing quality?

G-Prynce

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If I use the microphone boost past 20db, it starts getting all distorted at higher levels. Any help? And also, how loud are usual studio mics? Do they lower the instrumental when someone raps/sings over?
 
If I use the microphone boost past 20db, it starts getting all distorted at higher levels. Any help? And also, how loud are usual studio mics? Do they lower the instrumental when someone raps/sings over?

Different microphones can handle different sound pressure levels before they distort. For this reason you use certain types of microphones for certain sound sources so that you can get good signal levels at little noise. So it's a matter of choice of microphone.
 
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If I use the microphone boost past 20db, it starts getting all distorted at higher levels. Any help? And also, how loud are usual studio mics? Do they lower the instrumental when someone raps/sings over?

When you boost the mic gain too high and get distortion, you are generally getting it from one of two places. Either you are actually clipping the internal electronics of the preamp (which can occur at numerous different points within the preamp), or you are clipping the A/D converter by going over -0dBFS (to be fair though, it is not uncommon for inexpensive converters to clip their own analog electronics before the signal reaches what would be -0dBFS... or at least start suffering from extreme non-linearity). I would consider it highly unlikely that your voice is simply too loud for the microphone as almost all modern condensers and non-ribbon dynamic mics can handle just about anything the human voice can generally throw at them.

So the question then becomes what you are suspecting. Do you simply need to turn down the instrumental? Generally, in the pro world when we record vocals to multitracked music, the volume of that music is considerably lower than what you would hear on a commercial CD. 'Beat-makers' generally mix their instrumentals they sell to this same commercial CD volume. So when encountering a situation where an engineer has to record the singer to a premixed and premastered instrumental (your typical situation with beat 'leases' and such) we ALWAYS turn down the music. I typically turn the instrumental down about 12dB - 14dB. Then I record the vocal. Your overall mix will be very quiet, as it should. You can turn the volume back up during mastering, or you can slap a mastering limiter on your mixbuss if you want to go the shortcut rout. In my example of turning the instrumental down 12dB, you would generally need about 12 dB of gain from the limiter to get you back to where you originally were, assuming that's the commercial volume you want.
 
I would consider it highly unlikely that your voice is simply too loud for the microphone as almost all modern condensers and non-ribbon dynamic mics can handle just about anything the human voice can generally throw at them.
It's not so common but does happen. I've had a couple Nuemann 149's that would break up because of high sound pressure, even from loud vocals. Engaging a pad on the mic or using an external pad will take care of it. Using optimal gain structure through the chain from source to destination is key.
 
When you boost the mic gain too high and get distortion, you are generally getting it from one of two places. Either you are actually clipping the internal electronics of the preamp (which can occur at numerous different points within the preamp), or you are clipping the A/D converter by going over -0dBFS (to be fair though, it is not uncommon for inexpensive converters to clip their own analog electronics before the signal reaches what would be -0dBFS... or at least start suffering from extreme non-linearity). I would consider it highly unlikely that your voice is simply too loud for the microphone as almost all modern condensers and non-ribbon dynamic mics can handle just about anything the human voice can generally throw at them.

So the question then becomes what you are suspecting. Do you simply need to turn down the instrumental? Generally, in the pro world when we record vocals to multitracked music, the volume of that music is considerably lower than what you would hear on a commercial CD. 'Beat-makers' generally mix their instrumentals they sell to this same commercial CD volume. So when encountering a situation where an engineer has to record the singer to a premixed and premastered instrumental (your typical situation with beat 'leases' and such) we ALWAYS turn down the music. I typically turn the instrumental down about 12dB - 14dB. Then I record the vocal. Your overall mix will be very quiet, as it should. You can turn the volume back up during mastering, or you can slap a mastering limiter on your mixbuss if you want to go the shortcut rout. In my example of turning the instrumental down 12dB, you would generally need about 12 dB of gain from the limiter to get you back to where you originally were, assuming that's the commercial volume you want.

Thanks a lot! So I'll turn the beat down quite substantially and then raise it however much is needed at the mastering stage?
 
Thanks a lot! So I'll turn the beat down quite substantially and then raise it however much is needed at the mastering stage?

Not incredibly correct. If you first lower the volume on some tracks and then raise the volume later on other tracks containing the same content, you bring up the noise floor. It is correct that you can lower the volume first and then raise it later on using the same volume faders and re-gain staging the signal, but it does produce a lot of overhead for you, you lose time, so try to make it work as soon as possible instead so that you do not start to depend on later processes. All of this can be done right away and not only this, but more importantly handling the transients of it all.
 
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Not incredibly correct. If you first lower the volume on some tracks and then raise the volume later on other tracks containing the same content, you bring up the noise floor. It is correct that you can lower the volume first and then raise it later on using the same volume faders and re-gain staging the signal, but it does produce a lot of overhead for you, you lose time, so try to make it work as soon as possible instead so that you do not start to depend on later processes. All of this can be done right away and not only this, but more importantly handling the transients of it all.

The part about the noise floor is completely false assuming 32 bit floating point processing in the DAW (and even an older 32bit FIXED point DAW the noise floor is so insanely low that any added noise from the boost at the end would be almost immeasurable let alone something you could hear).

The rest of your post... I'm still trying to figure out what the heck you are talking about.
 
The part about the noise floor is completely false assuming 32 bit floating point processing in the DAW (and even an older 32bit FIXED point DAW the noise floor is so insanely low that any added noise from the boost at the end would be almost immeasurable let alone something you could hear).

Point missed. You need to consider the noise floor of the audio including the noise produced by effects, not the DAW's inherent noise floor. The frequencies in the audio stream are to some degree signal from the sound source and to some degree noise from various noise sources as it returns from the last gain stage in the chain. When that is gained, the noise is boosted with it. It can for instance be noise produced by a tape saturation plugin run too hot in the beginning of the signal chain or noise coming inherently from a compressor, or simply just noise coming from the recording and becoming too loud as a result of gaining the output of a compressed signal. Gaining the signal brings up the noise present at that gain stage.
 
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use a mic input instead of a line level input on your soundcard. OR use a DI box inbetween mic and the soundcard OR use a small console that has mic inputs.
 
Point missed. You need to consider the noise floor of the audio including the noise produced by effects, not the DAW's inherent noise floor. The frequencies in the audio stream are to some degree signal from the sound source and to some degree noise from various noise sources as it returns from the last gain stage in the chain. When that is gained, the noise is boosted with it. It can for instance be noise produced by a tape saturation plugin run too hot in the beginning of the signal chain or noise coming inherently from a compressor, or simply just noise coming from the recording and becoming too loud as a result of gaining the output of a compressed signal. Gaining the signal brings up the noise present at that gain stage.

Okay, you are just trolling me at this point right? Because for the life of me I cannot take you seriously.
 
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