Gimme Shelter Recording Project - Vocal Recording

With the instrumentation done at this point there was only the vocals to record in. For this I decided to again use the Tascam desk as there would only be one input channel for the recording and the Tascams functionality would be better suited personally for the session.

Although I had originally planned to use a condenser mix for the vocal recording, the microphone I decided n was the shure SM7B as this is an excellent mix for dry vocals in situations such as podcast recordings. Also because it maintains a very flat frequency response as well as a reduced dynamics range response mainly in comparison to a condenser mic, resulting in what almost resembled compression through the SM7B, with the dynamic range remaining tight which was essential for this track, as the vocals themselves are dynamic with louder and quieter sections needing to be evenly balanced.

A condenser would have emphasised these level differences to a point which would have made for difficult balancing later in the mixing stage, the dynamic proved to be the better choice in the end as this mic proved to be good for reducing the dynamic range in the recording, as there was also no accidental clipping and the signal itself being very manageable from the get-go unlike If I’d done it with a condenser mic which again may have resulted in large dynamic range which would have been difficult to compress and tighten up to the same degree while maintaining the effects I wanted in post.

Setting up the desk, the instrumentation tracks were playing back on layer 2 and sent via aux 1-2 to the headphone mix 1, sent via the stage-box / tie-lines to the live-room and headphones. The audio coming into the desk came in on layer 1 CH 11 and out on layer 2 for mixing in.