Ableton Forum

I'm recording spoken voice for meditation and hypnotherapy, and I want to get a very very soft tone, a very peaceful and gentle sound, the sort of tone you hear on backing vocals or strings sometimes.
How can I get this softness, either in a low-tech way or with effects?
Maybe some material in front of the mic? (SM58)
Or some type of ambient recording?
Any ideas to try would be appreciated. [/b]

I'd suggest starting with this:

You want the mic very hot and mic'ed very close.

On the track the mic is coming into, try the moderate or drastic compression setting on Compressor II.

On that track, send 100% to a return set to 'pre', which has similar compression followed by a simple delay 'linked' where each channel has around 40ms of delay, followed by a reverb with a short decay time. You might try a gated reverb, but this can sound a bit too artificial.

You may also need to apply a limiter on both or either.

Adjust the levels between the input track and the send-- you may find having more of the send track sounds like what you want.

an SM58 isn't really optimal for what you're going for, though it will obviously suffice if that's what you've got.

do you have access to a condenser? a good condenser and a good mic pre will do the trick.


i did a lot of recording this weekend with a condenser mic and my preamps from the presonus firebox... i LOVE the preamps on it. they sound fantastic!

yeah. a large diaphram condenser is what you want. even one of those studio projects c1 mics will do what you want. shit you need one of these mics ANYWAYS. just buy one.

make sure you put a "popper stopper" between your mouth and the mic. get very very very close, like less than an inch. try not to breath into the mic-if you breathe, do it at an agle away from the mic.

also, you can make a popper stopper out of a hanger and pantyhose.

yourmom wrote:yeah. a large diaphram condenser is what you want. even one of those studio projects c1 mics will do what you want. shit you need one of these mics ANYWAYS. just buy one.

I did think this and avoided suggesting you need to buy something lest you become discouraged (and you would definitely need the pop stop/screen), but of course you should listen to your mom.

With a sm58, I think it is very very easy to get the sound you want.

Just talk with the mic touching your lips - literaily touching the lips - and speak very very soft, in a very low voice, with lots of air, like - almost in a whisper.

Don't use a pop-filter.
Still, try to do the p's and t's away from the mic.



Hepha Luemp

Hepha Luemp wrote:With a sm58, I think it is very very easy to get the sound you want.

Just talk with the mic touching your lips - literaily touching the lips - and speak very very soft, in a very low voice, with lots of air, like - almost in a whisper.

Don't use a pop-filter.
Still, try to do the p's and t's away from the mic.



Hepha Luemp

and it is also worth giving a listen to mythical creatures

Start with the Voice! If you've found the 'soft' voice, you're already 90% there.

Avoid Whiskey drinkers.

And use your best mic with a pop shield- I use a Neumann TLM103, which although is a budget Neumann - is ***MUCH*** more accurate and sensitive than the SM58's (which is better as a Stage Mic anyway).

+ multiple takes always helps to 'warm up'!

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, especially Mikemc. Please send any other ideas you may have. I'm trying them all!

It's interesting how many of you said to use a condenser mic. I hired the Oktava MK319 recently for a day, because a shop here said that was what I needed. It picked up every tiny detail with such clarity, but sounded very harsh, too crisp and clear. I want something more fuzzy and soft, like recording onto tape.

I'm going to experiment with recording further from the mic, with natural ambience in a variety of settings. Talking quietly in the bath is pretty good. Have any of you tried that?

Gabriel wrote:Thanks everyone for your suggestions, especially Mikemc. Please send any other ideas you may have. I'm trying them all!

It's interesting how many of you said to use a condenser mic. I hired the Oktava MK319 recently for a day, because a shop here said that was what I needed. It picked up every tiny detail with such clarity, but sounded very harsh, too crisp and clear. I want something more fuzzy and soft, like recording onto tape.

I'm going to experiment with recording further from the mic, with natural ambience in a variety of settings. Talking quietly in the bath is pretty good. Have any of you tried that?

So, you didn't try what I suggested?

Maybe you though I was kidding, well, I was not..

But you'll probably try what I suggested when ever other suggestion fails to work!



Hepha Luemp

Go stereo and eliminate all noise as much as possible with:

A very quiet stereo mic pre.

A quiet coincident stereo condencer mic.

A very very very quiet room with very little ambience.

The stereo mic about a foot away with a popper stopper.

Post recording, compress and check out some pleasant barely audible ambience fx.

Oh yes, and be prepared to de-ess. It will bring you closer. The rest is your own tone.

I've identified two lead vocals on well-known songs that are (roughly) what I'm after: the first verse of Good Vibrations (Beach Boys) and the first verse of You Can't Hurry Love (Supremes). How do you think they recorded those? Which effects did they use?

Dear Knotkranky,
Can you suggest some ideas as to what you mean by "barely audible ambient effects." I need more detail, please.

Gabriel wrote:I've identified two lead vocals on well-known songs that are (roughly) what I'm after: the first verse of Good Vibrations (Beach Boys) and the first verse of You Can't Hurry Love (Supremes). How do you think they recorded those? Which effects did they use?

Dear Knotkranky,
Can you suggest some ideas as to what you mean by "barely audible ambient effects." I need more detail, please.

I'm a little confused because your topic post said spoken word and hypnotherapy stuff for a peaceful intimate recording.

Umm, for the Beach boys and Supreme's vibe there isn't much you can do. Capturing 40 year old recordings is tough and never comes out the same, so don't even try. Just do what they did, which is, to do it with what you have.

What did they use? An educated guesstimation:

U47 > Tube pre..V72 or API in an 8 buss tube console > 4 or 8 trk ampex Tube analog multitrak.

FX could be a chamber reverb which is an empty tiled room with a speaker in it from a send on the console and a mic returning the room to the console.

And/or slap back echo from an Ampex mono tube tape machine.

All this with pultec eq's Fairchild compressors etc, fed to a mono or two track Ampex tube master tape machine.

See what I mean.

And all they did was throw up a mic and got to work.