Here, we have collected a few tips to help our lead singers to record their singing.
Table of Contents
1. Equipment needed
To record your voice, you need a microphone, some recording software, and headphones.
Concerning microphones, we have found that the internal microphone of your computer is entirely adequate for voice recording in our amateur setting. Unless you really plan to set up your own small home recording studio, buying a standard professional microphone like the Shure SM58 (~$100) is unnecessary.
Concerning software, the simplest choice is GarageBand. It's already installed on every recent Mac and it's easy to use. For those with older Macs, Audacity is a free alternative.
Any headphone will do for the next tip:
2. Use headphones
You will probably want to hear the accompaniment and/or melody while recording your vocals. Use headphones for that. For if you use loudspeakers to play it, there is a good chance that the microphone will pick up not just your voice but some of the accompaniment, too; we better avoid that.
3. Avoid clipping
Clipping is probably the most vexing stumbling block that aspiring singers run into when making their first recording. Fortunately, it is not difficult to avoid once understood.
Here's an example of what a heavily clipped recording looks like:
The waveforms look like rectangular blocks, as if someone had used his hedge trimmer and cut away ("clipped") everything above a certain height. The recording will features weird crackles and will sound metallic. This is neigh impossible to correct, so make sure your recording doesn't clip.
To avoid clipping, lower the input level in System Preferences > Audio by dragging the slider to the left.
As you sing or speak into the microphone, the blue dots will appear and disappear. The further they go to the right, the louder your recording will be. Clipping happens when they go all the way to the right, you will need to decrease the input level when that happens.
Here's an example of how a good recording should look like
While it seems to be a mystery how these jagged bubbles can be the representation of a beautiful sound, they don't look like trimmed hedges and hence don't feature the dreaded clipping.
Here yet another example of how a recording can look like:
There doesn't seem to be anything there at all. But there is, it's just a very quiet recording. (If you look closely, you might even notice two very small bumps). While not optimal, this is far easier to correct than clipping, we can simply order the computer to play it louder in the final song. Increasing the input level in System Preferences > Audio before recording the song also helps.
4. Sing loud
I somewhere picked up the story that in professional recording studios, some sound engineers play a very loud accompaniment to the singer's headphones so that she has to sing to the fullest in order to hear herself. I think that's a good idea to try even in an amateur setting.
It is very easy to change sound volume afterwards, i.e. whether it will be quiet or loud in the final song. But we can't change the articulation which makes a timid voice so different from a booming voice and vice-versa.
5. On singing to a melody
Finding the right notes can be much easier if the melody is playing while you sing.
Note, however, that a melody track is just a help for recording, it will not appear in the final mix. In other words, your voice will be the heart and soul of the song, the other instruments have but a supporting role and will not play the melody in unison with you. Thus, unlike in a life performance, a studio setting does allow you to "cheat" and hear the melody even if the audience won't.
Therefore, you may want to play the melody rather quietly, so as to get a feel for how it will sound when your voice is on its own. Use the slider next to the track to adjust the volume. You can also mute the melody track entirely and listen to your recording without the melody playing.
Also, you may want to choose an instrument for the melody whose timbre is closest to the human voice, like a flute, viola or saxophone, as those are easiest to sing with in unison.
6. Practice timing
Singing notes at the right time may prove rather tricky since one does not play the accompaniment oneself.
Trying to get the timing right by singing after the melody track usually doesn't work so well, you'll always be a tad late or even surprised by it. The best way is to memorize the rhythm (for instance by reading it from the score) and to practice it without the melody track playing. The metronome in GarageBand and the accompaniment are great references, but ultimately, the beat has to come from "within you", you have to anticipate it. Tapping the main beat with your foot can help tremendously.