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In article .com writes:

when recording a mono vocal audio track which contains a verse which is
'talking level' and then for the next part (chorus) contains shouting -
whats the best way to do this?

the problem is, i need to turn the gain right down on the mic to leave
enough headroom for the shout but i dont want to do the verse/chorus in
different takes - to keep the natural feeling element. this means
obviously my verse is really quiet. or if i have the gain up, i have to
stand back from the mic which means the shout isn't in-ur-face enough.

If that's the way it's sung, the way to preserve the natural feeling
is to record it that way. Allow sufficient headroom for the shouting
and then decide afterward if the verse is REALLY too quiet in relation
to the whole song.

You can always adjust levels after the recording. With today's tools,
it's easier than ever. But if you paint yourself into a corner by
letting the loud parts clip just so the meters (or waveform display)
will look good, you can't easily recover from that.

i've thought about a hardware compressor between the mic and track, but
am wondering if this is really necessary?

Sure, it's possible, and it's frequently done, but you have to listen
to what it's doing and make a judgement in real time on something that
you might have difficulty undoing later on. For instance, a compressor
that's not properly has a tendency to "breathe" when the gain comes up
to normal (not reduced) level in the transitions between the loud and
quiet parts, and this may be distracting. If you record that, it's
difficult to get rid of it.

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