5 Vocal Recording Tips for Home Studios

Recording vocals at home can be frustrating if your space is not treated or your signal chain is not dialed in. Here are five tips we use at Glitch Studios that translate to any environment:

1. Treat your room first. Hang moving blankets, use a reflection filter, or record in a closet full of clothes. Killing reflections is more important than having an expensive mic.
2. Get close to the mic. 6-8 inches is the sweet spot for most condensers. Too far and you pick up room noise. Too close and you get proximity effect muddiness.
3. Use a pop filter. Always. No exceptions. Plosives are nearly impossible to fix in post without artifacts.
4. Record at 24-bit, 48kHz. This gives you enough headroom and quality without bloating your file sizes.
5. Do multiple takes. Even if the first take feels good, do three more. You will almost always find a better performance or be able to comp the best parts together.