recording settings using mic,preamp,compressor

[rayoung]

I have a cad E-200, an art tube mp preamp and an alesis 3630 compressor, i haven't any idea on the settings of these or the order or if i should use them all before laying vocal tracks. what would be the proper way to get a good vocal track and are these good pieces of equipment. Thanx!

 

[neilwight]

not too experienced with mics but you should run the mic into the pre amp, then run that into youre mixer if you have one, put the compressor on an effects buss on your mixer and then you can run the vocal through the compressor along with other sounds.
if not run the pre amp to the compresso then to whatever you are recording on.

 

[KasioRoks]

Try this:

Mic into pre-amp, pre-amp into compressor, compressor into desk (or sound-card or whatever. If you have insert points on your desk you can put the compressor on an insert on the channel you have the vocals on). Remember you can't undo the compression once it's recorded so you might want to be less than radical with your compressor settings. Try a ratio of 4:1. You'll have to get your singer in and play around with threshold and make-up levels to get some settings that give a good level. Personally, for recording vocals I wouldn't do what neil suggests - actually a don't really use compressors like that at all, but some people do like mixing up their drums that way. Anyway you may want to compress the vocals again when you come to mix-down so that they cut through the mix a bit better, but you can afford to mess around more then.

KasioRoks

 

[neilwight]

oops, thanks for highliting that up kasio, it may have caused rayoung some grief, i had meant that by sticking it on an effects buss he would also be able to run other sounds through the compressor aswell as his vocals but NOT at the same time. this would have saved having to swap over leads everytime he wanted to compress something else. guess it wasnt too clear.