Singing loud is sometimes necessary, that is her voice? I don't know I
haven't heard it! If she sings just in a room does she sound good when
belting out? Singing loud doesn't damage your voice if it's done with proper
technique, and if it sounds good... And face it some people have loud
voices. What she needs to do is learn proper mic technique. Back off the mic
for the loud parts. If her mic technique is making her look like those
birds...there is something wrong here. you can have like a loud phrase where
you back off. is she singing soft loud soft loud in the space of a second? I
highly doubt it!

Sometimes even for the loud parts lower the gain on the pre! Ride the gain
if you need to. Know when she belts out to do this. Also the 414 B-uls is a
very "jumpy" for dynamics like that. I got the Jim williams mod and it
became really smoother, almost sounding like there was soft compression
going on, it wasn't as "jumpy". I noticed a really big difference for that
with his mod. or use a different mic. the 414 uls is not forgiving for jumpy
dynamics. Tube mics are better for jumpy dynamics it will sound smoother.
then go into a good compressor. You don't mention your vocal chain! Use
compression when recording her or even limiting just to tame the loud passes
and compress more at mixdown.

A combo of all of these things should help.


"EADGBE" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am recording a female vocalist in my home studio. She is a
14-year-old with comparatively little professional studio experience.

Her mother wants her to do a vocal demo so she can have something to
market herself with.

The problem is that this girl has NO control over her dynamics. When
she sings softly or at a moderate level, I can record her fine, with a
nice clean signal and good presence. But the problem is that this girl
rarely STAYS at that moderate level. She likes to get EXTREMELY
dramatic with her singing, especially on the higher notes, where she
just BELTS it out, easily overloading my mic and preamp! She seems to
think that in order to reach ANY high note, you have to fill your lungs
to capacity and let your voice fly out with enough volume and force to
flatten Hiroshima! I'm not kidding--this girl is L-O-U-D.

This is driving me crazy, because I cannot seem to get her to stop
doing this, and it's making it very difficult for me to get a "clean"
take. This girl has been pumped full of ego-inflating praise, thanks to
her mom, and the girl disregards my suggestions--she's kind of got the
beginnings of "diva-itis" and seems to think she knows all about
singing already. I frankly think that her mom has instructed her to
sing as loud as possible in order to be more "impressive", and she's
taken this to heart.

During our session, I kept having to move her further away from the mic
(AKG 414) in order to minimize the distortion, but then her voice lost
a lot of definition and sounded noticeably less distinct in the mix. I
was trying everything to get a nice "up front" sound for all of her
different volume levels. Geez, I even had her lean in for the lower
parts and then straighten up for the loud parts! She looked like one of
those goofy plastic birds you buy at a gift shop that rocks back and
forth and pretends to drink water!

What can I do to get a good recording out of this girl...or does she
simply need to get her vocal technique together before attempting to do
any more recording? She has a very good voice, but I have -never- had
so much trouble getting a good recording from a vocalist! Why does her
"acting" have to be so "over the top"?

Or is there something technical that I can/should do? I'm fully
prepared to take any blame for this problem, but I am inclined to think
that a singer should have better control over dynamics than this girl
has. What do you all think?