how to keep vocals from peaking when recording?

C

CLyons27

Guest
it seems that whenever im recording the artists voice is peaking no matter how far away he/she is from the mic. how do i solve this?
 
soundcheck first, get the artist to sing/flow as loud as they can, an adjust accordingly. Just make sure your not redding out.
 
More than that - When they're *REALLY* loud, you should be getting peaks of *maybe* -12 or -10dBFS. Tops.

If you're anywhere near the red, you're around 18dB into the headroom on the preamp. The "bulk" of the signal should ride around -18dBFS (which is around 0dBVU, which is where the gear is designed to run).
 
so yall are saying let them get really loud and set the mic so it doesn't peak when they are really loud and record at that level???
 
Generally, yes. You want the *REALLY* loud transients to hit at *maybe* -12dBFS or so - That's pushing it pretty hard at the preamp, but assuming he's only going to hit that a couple times, it probably won't be the end of the world.
 
i got this rode nt1a and it seem like when somebody get loud it sounds funny. it sound like it wants to distort but it doesn't and it sounds like it takes time to recover. i'm going to try to do that but i still plan on buying an avalon 737 and a neumann tlm within the next month. i think that signal chain might eliminate some of the problems, not the bad performance problems but the mic and preamp problems.
 
Only to add because the main issue was resolved up top (turn down the mic and/or pre-amp...)

But make sure your artist realizes that he/she DOES NOT have to yell. I always tell my artists there's a big difference between stressing your words/ speaking them with feelings/ making me believe it... and yelling. There's a big difference. If that's how you deliver your best performace, fine I'll turn down the levels... but beyond that... calm down...lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top