Vocals
The standard mics for vocals are condensers and dynamics. As a general rule, condenser mics will sound a lot brighter than dynamic mics... This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the sound you are going for. Condensers are also a lot more sensitive so they will pick up a lot more of the rooms sound (reflections from the sound bouncing off the walls). If your room has bad sounding acoustics, it will be picked up by the mic. Dynamics on the other hand are more mellow and darker sounding. A dynamic mic will likely sound “muffled” in comparison to a condenser. It won’t pick up as much of the room sound because they aren’t as sensitive as the condenser mics. Ribbon mics are
very sensitive but a lot darker than condensers. As mentioned above,
ribbon mics can be easily damaged by blasts of air, so be sure to use a good pop filter with ribbon mics. When choosing a mic, try to audition as many different types of mics as you can before buying so you can find a mic that will fit the sound you want.
A great vocalist will typically have great mic control as well. They will know when to get up close to the mic and when to back away. So the mic placement will change as they get louder or softer because they will change their distance from the mic or even turn their head away from the mic if they're really belting it. Unfortunately, this is not always the case with the singers we will get in our little "home studios" (or even when recording ourselves
).... In this case we will usually just have to set a certain distance and angle of the mic and let the singer go nuts.
There are a lot of different techniques depending on the style of song and they type of vocals you want to fit with the song. Soft songs will usually call for "intimate" vocals with the singer just a few inches away from the mic to get a soft and "breathy" quality to the vocals. Whereas rock will by farther back so it's not so breathy when they are belting our the vocals. Putting the mic at an angle to the vocals (so their voice isn't hitting the capsule head on) can also change the sound and reduce plosives.
Plosives are are an important factor to keep in mind when recording vocals. Plosives are large blasts of air caused by certain consonants, such as "p", "t", "k", etc. So instead of getting an even sound when singing the word "pop", it may come out like
Po
P with the "p" sounds louder than the "o" sound due to the greater blast of air this consonant produces. Good miking techniques, a pop filter, and a good vocalist can help drastically reduce these plosives. Sometimes though, the plosives will have to be removed later with the help of de-essing plugins or even editing the plosives by hand.
Another thing to keep in mind is
proximity effect, which is the increase in bass as the mic gets closer to the source. This can be used to your advantage because if you are going for a warm and bassy sound, then placing a mic up close to the source is one way to achieve this. Different types of mics will have different amount of proximity effect (and some not at all) depending on the microphone pattern, so experimenting with different mics and placement is necessary.