Reconfiguration and Less Than Vox
I'm tracking vocals for a song tentatively titled "Less Than", one of my few songs with vocals. Can't wait to be done so I can share it with you; it's a major departure from my usual ambient, laid-back experimentation. More aggressive and industrial thanks to the analog sizzle of the JX-3P I picked up last year. I've been screwing around with the song for over a year, and this glacial pace bothers me. Hopefully things will speed up now that my music gear has been moved from the bedroom to the living room -- since I see it, it's in my mind instead of being an afterthought before bed.
I will say that a walk-in closet, especially one that contains a small hot water heater (don't ask...it's part of the apartment), is a hot, stuffy place to record vocals. After 20 minutes, opening the door to ventilate is a necessity. I have the water heater, a large flat panel, an incandescent bulb overhead, and a firewire audio interface to keep me toasty. Kinda like a Swedish sauna; just add sweat glands.
This is the first time I've actually used my Audio Technica AT4040 condenser mic. Its sound is crystal-clear compared to the Shure SM58 I used to track the scratch vocals, so the sound has a greater amount of clarity and presence. The dry mix still sounds a little thin and flat compared to the rest of the mix, but I can add EQ and effects to breathe life into them later. The closet-as-isolation-booth has a big effect on that, but it's the best I can do. The floor is carpet, the wall behind me is lined with a blanket to deaden some of the reflections, and another wall is lined with hanging clothes, but the small-room reflections inside are probably muddying up the sound. I'll have a better listen when I'm at my mixing desk. I may consider moving the mobile recording setup to the tile bathroom to grab some of the louder parts during the chorus; the natural reverb might save the day.
I've given up on requiring an absolutely silent apartment before I consider pressing Record. At my old apartment, it may've been possible, but the new place is naturally noisy, so I have to work around that in any way possible. Since the A/C compressors for my apartment and the one downstairs are over my bedroom, there's a part-time 60Hz hum (with overtones) in the apartment. Occasionally there's extra hum in the closet, bleeding over from the bathroom vent fan downstairs. And since there's a water heater in the closet, sometimes there's the sound of running pipes. All these collude to make an inhospitable recording environment. But there are tricks. One is patience and timing; there's always a more-quiet moment coming up. Two is singing loudly so you can pull back the fader and reduce the noise floor. Three is to use a noise gate on your mic input; set the threshhold somewhere above the ambient noise and it won't get recorded during the silent parts between lines. And four (most importantly), try to put up blankets, carpet, clothing, turn off fans, close doors, close curtains and windows, move your audio workstation out of the closet and use extension cables, anything to reduce the sound of "air" and reverberations so the only upper midrange frequencies recorded are from your voice instead of the environment.
Hopefully I can have this stuff recorded and mixed soon so I can move along to the next song to fixate upon. Keep me honest and nudge me on occasion, willya?