After last month’s look at recording guitars, drums and bass, it’s time to look at the most important instrument of all, the human voice

If there’s one element of any track that should demand the majority of your focus, it’s the vocal. The vocal, over and above anything else, draws the attention of the ear and thus is the first thing anyone listens to. An underwhelming vocal gives a poor first impression of the whole track from which there’s usually no coming back.

The first and most important aspect of a vocal is the performance. If a singer delivers a passionate and believable performance, you can get away with imperfections in tuning or sound quality – but if they’re slightly timid in their performance, poor tuning, tone and timing are made all the more apparent. Getting the best performance out of a singer involves many considerations – psychological, aesthetic, technical, physical – and a good producer will cover all these areas, building confidence, setting the right ambience, offering advice and generally guiding the performer through what can be a very nerve-wracking task.

Then there’s the technical side of the vocal to think about. Picking a mic and preamp to suit the singer, getting a headphone balance they can comfortably sing with and getting a goodquality signal in the can are all vital.

Once you’ve captured a good performance, you then have a lot of post-production processing to get through: compiling a definitive vocal from all your source takes and editing it into a smooth performance, making any tuning and timing tweaks that might be necessary to improve the result, and a host of other more minor considerations.

When you have your perfect lead vocal, the next thing to think about is backing vocals. A double-track vocal to the lead can add strength and size when needed; harmonies also add a sense of depth and musicality that works in certain situations, and counter-melodies can really imprint a song. As Brian Eno likes to point out, 90% of hit records have backing vocals, while 90% of non-hit records don’t.

Preparing the singer to perform

As the producer or engineer, recording the vocal is just one small step in a whole number of tasks that you have to carry out in order to achieve your goal of a finished record. For the singer, however, it’s their moment and, as such, it’s huge. Very rarely do you come across a singer who’s keen to get in the recording room and sing. On the whole, singers are nervous, insecure and fraught with self-doubt – and that’s the more confident ones. There can be a complex set of psychological issues involved, so always approach a vocal recording sensitively, placing a calm focus on the singer, but not putting too much importance on the situation. There’s nothing worse for a session than an anxious producer: you’re the one who should be radiating calm and serenity, which the singer can feed off.

Your job is to create the best environment for the singer to perform in. One important consideration, especially in a band situation, is who should and shouldn’t be present for the session. Some singers like the banter of a whole group – it can help to dissipate the intensity. The more nervous ones will feel too pressured with everyone watching. It’s up to you as producer to read the situation and, if necessary, ask everyone else to leave the room while you’re recording. You can get others back in to the control room once a few passes have been recorded to discuss the merits and way forward, if you feel so democratically inclined; or you can get them back in once you’ve comped the vocal and present the finished article.