[Neil C]

Hi,
I've always recording vocals using headphones for monitoring, and I have the vocals mixed at a good level so it can hear myself.

I recently tried recording without headphones with my near field monitors providing the backing. And whilst I clearly get some spill, I actual felt it sounded more open and possibly better.
 
I'm not sure quite why but it feels more natural and liberating and if the downside is outweighed by a better performance then for me it would be worth it. Going to try a bit more but would be interested in the views of others.
 
Neil

 
 

[Boydie]

I regularly say this, even as someone who "geeks out" about production...

... THE most important thing about recording is capturing the emotion and performance

I would take this over any spill

If the vocalist gives a better performance without headphones it should be done

However, I can't resist some geekery so here are some techniques you could try out...

This is a valid "tried & tested" technique so the following may help

A hand held dynamic mic (e.g. SM58) pointing directly away from the speakers may be your best approach, or a condenser mic with a polar pattern that has good rejection of sound from the rear

It will be best to sing "up close & personal" to the mic to help block the spill and also get a good vocal to spill ratio with a good vocal volume

This technique could be fun to try...

1 - set up your mic in the position you want it
2 - play back the song and record the spill the mic is picking up. You can stand in front of the mic but don't sing or say anything - you will then have a recorded track of the whole song being picked up by the mic - name this track "spill track"
3 - mute this track and save it for the clever bit later...
4 - record your vocals as you normally would using the speakers for the motor mix - do not change mic position and do not change the volume of the speakers - if you do need to delete your "spill track" and repeat steps 2 & 3

Here is the clever bit...

You will now have a "spill track" and your vocal take

Reverse the phase of the spill track and it will "cancel out" the spill picked up from your vocal takes - because the phase is reversed when the vocal track has a "peak" in the spill, the reversed phase "spill track" will have an exact matching "valley" so they will cancel each other out and the spill will be removed from your mix! - leaving only the vocal

This is theoretical (and I haven't tried it myself) but it should give you a much cleaner vocal take

I would be tempted to bounce/mix down the "inverted spill track" and your vocal track together to another track, which should cancel the spill and enable you to safely process the vocals (EQ etc.) without worrying about upsetting the phase relationship


You can achieve a similar thing by playing an identical MONO version of the mix panned hard left & right through the speakers and reverse the phase of one side

With careful mic placement between the speakers the monitor mixes will cancel each other out and you won't pick up the spill on the mic. However the monitor mix may sound a little weird to the singer with this phase cancellation so could actually put the singer off of their performance more than wearing headphones would - and they won't be able to move - so it does kinda defeat the object

[tone]

Great advice from Boydie as always. I thought I'd chip in and say that my singing is SO much better without headphones, that I intend on refusing ever recording with them again. In fact, it goes for any overdubbing/ recording. I use speakers for everything except acoustic guitar now, because hearing the song naturally allows more space for a good performance, not to mention time keeping. I don't know what it is about phones, but they suck the life out of me...

So yep, forget about bleed - any live recording has it in spades anyway, and learning to deal with it, or even take advantage of it will only make you a better producer in the long run.

[PaulAds]

Yeah...great advice there...

I sometimes do this...you can get a much better vibe going...and a "live" feel to recordings...and I find it helps me feel more involved in it all

Definitely worth trying 

[diademgrove]

Boydie's advice is so good I'm going to give it a whirl tonight before the football. I need to do a jam track, so it'll be a drum loop played through speakers with a rhythm guitar part added on. If it goes wrong I'll be back to find out why, fingers crossed that it will be perfect.

It'll be interesting to see how much leakage their is and what it does to the recording.

Thanks Boydie.

[diademgrove]

Update, it worked. Some slight bleed but nothing major. Tried singing over songs from my cd collection as well. That was weird but it didn't improve my intonation... unfortunately.

I'll try again tomorrow and see how I get on. I haven't used the reverse phrase trick as I didn't think I needed to.

Thanks again Boydie.

[ScottLevi]

I'll try again tomorrow and see how I get on. I haven't used the reverse phrase trick as I didn't think I needed to.

The reverse phase trick sounded like the coklest part! Would be cool hear a before / after of it.

It's a technique I've used before on a whole song and its instrumental to get an accapela version and it almost worked - never occured for this use but I'm sure it will be better than expected.

[MartynRich]

I've always always hated recording with headphones so I'm defo going to check out Boydie's trick. You do sing much better when you hear yourself naturally...I'll be getting into my studio again as soon as I'm back home.