RapVerse.com Community - How to tune your mic

Here you go, made with my own blood sweat and tears:

Q: Why tune?
A: Because you mic didn’t come built specifically around your voice. You can make your recordings sound far better and finally take control of what your voice sounds like, beyond your delivery. Do I really need to say more?

Nope. So lets get into…

• How to begin Tuning:

Open up your program of choice, lay a vocal track, then find within your program “EQ” or “Equalize” for that specific layer only, not the entire song. If you can’t find it, use your head – check the help file. Once you have that open, you’ll see a screen that in one way or another will look a lot like this:

Before we start, I’d like to make it clear that the program I utilized in this image is completely irrelevant. ALL programs or mixing boards will work 100% the exact same way. It makes no difference if there are 10 bands to tune or 1000 bands, one program or the next, because a frequency is universal. I used 31 bands for clearer illustration, but similar (though less specific) results can be had using anything under this amount. “Bands” are just the amount of divisions of the range 20Hz to 20,000Hz or 20Hz to 20KHz.

The frequencies in the image are separated and color coordinated. For the bobos out there, it’s not going to be color coded in any program you’ll see in real life. Notice that the sections are not divided equally.

Red = “Lows” or Low frequencies <---You're very familliar with this range already. It's known as "Bass"
Yellow = “Mids”
Green = “Highs” <---You're very familliar with this range already. It's known as "Treble"

You've seen how this works for music. Now you'll see how this applies to your voice.

This is all well and good, but...to be honest, it’s useless without first…

• Knowing your Vocal Range!! – aka “How to not waste your time!”

First up, before we get into the lows and highs and all that, understand that every mic will need to be tuned according to the specific voice of the person using it and in some cases, even by track. That voice you have has a range of sounds (called Frequencies) it can make strongly, and everything else it either can’t make, or sounds like ass when you try to go there. You’ll know what I mean the next time you try to bust out your Mariah Carrey high notes in the shower. That’s called your “vocal range” (aka “VR”) and your vocal range is the reason you’re tuning in the first place. NOTE: ALL voices utilize multiple frequencies at all times, and no one only uses 1.

• Average Male Vocal Range: Once you get past puberty, your vocal range will be located somewhere between the 100Hz-1.25KHz frequency range which is about half of the lows and half of the mids. This is where the “warmth/body” of your voice (professionally known as “timbre”<--you wont have to remember this) can be increased to make your bitch ass voice sound a lot less stringy and weak and sound more hearty and manly!! The sucky part is that if you have a voice like Billy D Williams, Apexx, or Barry White, if you turn your warmth up TOO high, it becomes “muddy” and the accuracy of what you’re saying will turn out to something along the lines of a nice warm glass of liquid shit. Words will start to melt together and all people will hear is the bassy rumblings of your voice, which is great when you’re with your lady – NOT when you’re on the mic. So never forget, there is a “too much”. If you want to keep (or put) your voice in the lower ranges, keep away from shouting and getting rowdy on the mic since that makes your vocal output more high pitched. Turn down your mic’s line-in volume by 2-4dB’s to make your voice volume automatically dip and therefore deeper into the lows.

- For the most part guys, you can ignore the highs. You’ll only need to address the highs for particular letters and to “open up” your voice which we’ll get into shortly.

• Average Female Vocal Range: By the time you first realize that boys want to have sex with you, your voice will be somewhere around the 250Hz to 4Khz range. Your voices “lows” are a males “mids”. Tuning your mids and highs becomes reaaaaallllyyy important, because it’s easy to make a female vocalist sound high pitched which has a great way of making people set fire to their radios. Watch for tracks where you’re excited and shouting because that drives your vocal output further on the high side. Turn down your mic’s line-in volume by 2-4dB’s to make your voice volume automatically lower and therefore steer your voice safely into the mids.

• If you have a voice that you wouldn’t consider “average” (be honest with your self you conceited bastard!) then you’ll have to tune purely by ear and develop what your specific range is which is highly advisable anyway. This “average voice” is just my estimation from where most peoples voices have fallen in my history of tuning vocals. It’s not some industry standard or anything to my knowledge so don’t go hang your self if your voice doesn’t fall within “normal” specs. Now enough with the jibba jabba and law-suit avoidance, on to the fun part!

As a rule of thumb, If for any reason you have to go over 12dB’s, you’re either:

1: Tuning the wrong frequency for the sound you want.
2: Tuning in a frequency that your voice doesn’t use.
3: You’re in need of a mic that has ability to pick up that frequency far better.

Turning DOWN a frequency would mean you utilize this range, but you want that to be heard less. No frequency should be maxed out in either direction, it’s a sure fire sign that one of the three above are happening. –12dB would be the cut-off point here.

• Lows: Are all bass. It’s what makes people “feel” your voice rather than just hear it. If you have a bassy voice, this is going to be where the “body” and “warmth” are tuned. Females can get some warmth from this range too, but since your voice doesn’t make many sounds there, it won’t be nearly as effective for you as it would be for a male who’s voice lives there. As a matter of fact ladies, you may be tuning a frequency lower than what you’re using at all, in which case, you won’t hear any change to the sound.

To increase your warmth and body, simply turn your volume on that frequency up. Just make sure that as you’re turning your lows up that you aren’t also turning up any ‘booms’ associated with that freq.!! Listen for rumbling sounds, then avoid them by turning the volume down on the frequency that is manifesting the rumble. If you can’t avoid em, time to change your recording habits.

• Mids: Are the saving grace for anybody’s voice. Odds are, you don’t like your voice. ESPECIALLY if you just started recording on cheap equipment that’ll distort your voice and shock you right out of your comfort zone anyway. With the adjustment of the lower half of the mids, high-pitched and stringy voices can sound more leveled and solid. Those with nasal voices can sound like they blew their nose with virgin angel feathers by tuning the high side of the mids and clearing that all up. This is where your tone will be molded. Going too high in your mids will make your voice sound like it’s playing through an AM radio.

• Highs: Are where your sound is “opened up”, where people say “wow, that’s clear” and can see your mic’s accuracy (all the detail it picks up) , the crispness of your take, etc. If left un-messed-around-with, your tracks can sound like they were recorded inside a tin can or like you were recording from behind a door or from under your covers. All they’ll hear is bass, and they can hear that you’re saying something...but it sounds like a loud mumble. From 3.1Khz to 8Khz is where your sound can be opened up, like the others, by simply turning the volume for that frequency up. You’ll also notice other sounds becoming sharper like your S’s and T’s. Remember, don’t go overboard! The highs from the 8k-20k range are all S’s and T’s. Turning them up slightly will make those sounds clearer which could make someone with a lisp sound like they have none if tuned correctly, so you can imagine now what’s really possible here. Turning them up too high will result in “sizzle” which is where your’ S’s and T’s sound so sharp that they distort something awful. It’s difficult to describe, but the first time you hear it (and you will), you’ll know it. It goes without saying, but Sizzle = Bad.

• Putting it all together – aka “The Actual Tuning Process”:

Unless you have some reliable way of seeing into the future, tuning a mic is done AFTER the vocals are laid so you know what exists and what doesn’t. Tune ONLY while playing the vocals and adjusting the sliders individually and slowly to note the difference in sound. Tuning should be done by sound and what you want to amplify or reduce. For example, when looking at a flat EQ set like the one in the picture, I listen to the vocal take and say “okay, I want it to have more body, I want to open it up, sharpen the S’s and T’s, and pull some of that nasal action out”, then I proceed to do so like this:

“have more body…” = increasing the correct low end freq’s to the best volumes to accentuate and amplify the natural bass in their voice

“…open it up…” = increasing the vol on the high end frequencies to eliminate that muffled sound

“…sharpen the S’s and T’s…” = increasing the extremeties of the high freqs. I may turn these DOWN after opening up the vocs which will make them sharpen to an extent anyway. It’s usually just fine tuning at this point.

“…and pull out some of that nasal action out.” = increasing and decreasing the frequencies in the mids, increasing the clearer ones and decreasing the busted ones. Never turn any frequency in the mids all the way down, the voice will sound artificial, because it would be.

The aim is to make the tuned voice sound most life-like, rather than just a recording of a voice. You want people to feel like when you speak, you’re there with them speaking directly to them. Remember that mic tuning is the reason that singers like Brittney Spears even have a career, so just know that ANYONE can sound great and at the very least much better than they currently do. Brittany Spears also has a way more expensive mic than you do and a way more experienced engineer than you do, but the possibilities are still endless with ANY mic and a little know-how. The experienced engineer dosen’t know anything more than you do, he just has a better ear for it and more skills at getting the sound he wants. Once you realize that one mic can’t give you the sound that you’re aiming for (like more clarity, fuller lows, etc), that is the ONLY time you’ll need to buy a new Mic or alter your set-up. A $4000 U87 isn’t necessarily a better mic than a $400 GT55 if the GT55 is giving you the ideal sound you want!

Experience Speaking:

• As a suggestion, knowing your mic’s ‘frequency response’ (found on the Frequency Response Chart – FRC) will help a trained eye and ear tune more accurately and much more efficiently because they know what the mic is good at and what it isn’t. No mic (short of the aforementioned U87) is “good at everything”, just as no voice is good at everything.

• The more capable a mic is, the more time you’ll spend tuning it. Maximizing the sound of your voice isn’t a quick and easy process, and the more religious you are about it, the more time it will take you. Furthermore, it’s often an ongoing process to fine tune your presets as you continually record on them so don’t think of your presets as a “set it and forget it” affair.

• Presets from one mic WILL NOT fit another mic for many reasons, mainly the mic’s frequency response, sound in that recording environment and more. Changing mics always results in starting your presets from scratch and building them up.

• Presets from one voice WILL NOT fit another voice unless that voice is identical which is impossible even between twins.

That bout covers it. If you got any questions, comments, concerns, etc, you know what to do. Peace.

Apexx.