EADGBE wrote:
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.

A good lesson if you could manage it, would be to get her involved in a
stage production without any amplification (and preferably in a big
hall, doing shows on an intensive basis - ie 2 or so a day for a week).
Having to get the quiet singing the same distance as the boisterous
stuff will improve most peoples dynamics unless they really are
hopelessly bad singers.

If she is pushing her voice to high volume with a bad technique, she
will get a seriously sore throat in the first week as well, and you can
explain to her that a powerful voice does not mean loud, it means well
projected.

Voice coaching sounds like a must here as well. The lung filling to
reach the high notes is indicative of someone singing out of their
range, and forcing their voice to do things it is not cut out for. You
could try getting her some lower material to sing, or transpose the
material she has down a notch, and point out that being female does not
confer instant ability to sing in the Soprano vocal range. This tendency
if not addressed *will* ruin her voice very quickly.

Otherwise, get a good compressor and try not to let her get too close to
your mic's...:-)