Microphones - Vocals

Frequency Response:
- Frequency response of a microphone is good to bare in mind as this determines what you will record. If your choice of microphones is limited take in to consideration the characteristics of the voice.. is it a high pitched female or a deep booming male? ...some hiphop producers use bass drum mics to capture deep voices.

Type of Microphone:
- As a general rule condensor microphones will give the best quality, however there require a mixer that powers the mic or a bit of jiggery pokery with a DI box or mic preamp.
- In live situations (dependiing on style of music) a dynamic mic may be the better option.

Compression:
- Ideally all vocals should be recorded with a some level of compression, as I general rule I start with 5:1 ratio and tweek till it sounds and looks right but every recording is different so there are no real rules.

EQ:
- I recomend not applying any EQ to vocals while recording (fix it in the mix) unless there are problems with noisy mics or mixer. Its much easier to fix a vocal at a later point than to try and reintroduce bass/mid to a weak recording.

Effects:
- If recording a vocalist with effect, if possible, also record the untreated vocal... processed vocals might sound good now but at some point in the mix you might want to use another effect. (reverb, delay, vocoder etc)