ey yo. do some of you guys recomment some cool mics or tecniques to record a vocals than I would be grateful. Sound ala Black Lips, Ty segall Oh Sees, Pebbles, Back From the grave. I tried to put a drive on the vocals after in pro tools. did'nt sound so real.. any ideas?

Hi Axel,

I'd go with a basic but decent quality vocal mic, like a Shure SM58 or equivalent.  But instead of distorting the vocals while recording, I'd record clean, setting my levels so I don't go in the red, and shoot for capturing the best raw vocal performance I could.  

Then I'd route that pristine vocal track thru any of the cool dirtying contraptions mentioned, and record that separately.  Then I could experiment at will, comparing apples to apples, to find what works best. 

When THEE DIRTYBEATS recorded its ep, we did something similar, in that we handled the processing of the vocals as an entirely separate step.  We first recorded all the instruments live as a band, straight through, using a scratch track for the vocals, and later replaced the scratch track with more focused, better-recorded vocal performances.  Vocal effects like overdrive, compression, and reverb were added after the fact, during mixing.  

Hope this helps,

Andras

THEE DIRTYBEATS - 100% maximum vintage garage

http://www.theedirtybeats.com

thanks lad! I will post the song in the thread when Im satisfied. stay tuned!

Been chasing the perfect setup for distorted vocals for quite sometime.  Tried so many different setups, some work better than others. Pro studio engineers rarely discuss at length their setups to achieve distorted vocals.  Most articles regarding this are at best rather vague.  So, here's some of the things I've done.

As mentioned previously, one of the best and relatively simple approaches is a mic (cheap or not) direct into an analog recorder.  Serious input gain...good results.  Usually, I get it to near total nastiness, and cut input gain on the recorder, just a hair.

Also mentioned early is doubling vocal takes, two or more separate vocal takes. You can take a cleaner approach to get more definition, and get more frequency response in this setup.  Cause the more distortion ratio, the less frequency EQ range you are working with as a result.  Therefore, knowing where the range of heavily distorted vocals fall in the spectrum of frequency is rather important when mixing with guitar.  Trying to create headroom for distorted vocals with guitar can be troublesome...

You can also try to blend one heavily distorted vocal with another vocal take of cleaner less distortion.

Here are other ideas:

Reamping clean vocals to a guitar amp. Or singing directly into amp, with distortion.  Older the amp, usually the better.  Tube amp usually work the best, but I've had success with late 60s, 70s solid state budget amps.  Amps I can recommend: Bassman, Twin Reverb, 70s MusicMan, 60s Silvertone.  Bullet mic or harp mics work great...hand placement around bullet mic adds to this effect. Might have to use a de-esser. Mic placement is key in both vocal mic or micing the amp.  EQ on amp is your friend!

Using guitar pedals can work, but noise issues can really deter this method.  Avoid anything too new!!! Well not, necessarily...Or anything with a wall wart power adapter...ground hum kinda kills it.  But, I've used old fuzz pedals, Rat Pedals, SansAmp Bass Driver.  Mixed results.  ****If you find any setup to your satisfaction---write down and take pictures of your settings. Because, not being able to achieve the setup again really can kill a day in the studio.

A Really cool thing that you might be able to find at a yard sale, flea market etc. are budget mixers from 70s/80s with built in fuzz/ reverb/tremolo/echo.  Pretty sure some of the Mummies stuff were done with this method.  Even radio shack brand mixers from this era sound pretty good for distorted vocals.

Again, as mentioned earlier, Tape delay/echo/ reverb stand alone units can really add to the thickness of a narrow vocal recording.  You can do it direct or reamp a vocal take.  Both work, but sometimes its better to achieve this after the fact, unless you have a setup that is working great while recording

Hope this helps!  Have Fun!

A fisher price kids singalong toy, cassette type with mic,  battery power. record what comes out of that little speaker. pure lo-fi.

thanks for awesome guides guys!

Here's a few things:

Use tape to record vocals with if possible (even a cassette recorder)

Record them in a room with natural reverb/echo - try the toilet and bathroom.

Go on ebay,gumtree.etc and find some old mics. Ones that originally came from reel to reel setups can work.

I know the oh sees use a machine called the space echo by roland. It's a tape echo/delay machine.

You can also try singing two or more takes as identical as possible.

This is something I've been messing with for a little while now with mixed results. The easiest and potentially more expensive way to get dirty lo-fi vocals is to buy a harmonica microphone like the Shure green bullet or similar and plug that into a guitar amp or PA. I know through watching their live videos that Thee Oh Sees use this method and I believe specifically this mic. The good thing about this method is that the mic's signal is already matched for amp use so you don't have to worry about volume or impedance issues. Another way is to use the effects loop on your mixer and plug in some guitar effects pedals into it. I've also done this without an effects loop by sending the headphone out to pedals and then putting that back into a separate channel but be careful about feedback. The last way I'll mention is to wire the speaker end of an old telephone handset either directly to a 1/4" cable or to a 1/4" jack and then plug that into an amp or PA. I've seen this used to great effect before, the wiring is super simple and usually requires little to no sodder and it's cheap! I just purchased a NOS speaker element from ebay for five bucks shipping included last week. Good luck!

Yo!
All you need is a cheap mic (SM58 copy or cheaper) plugged into a guitar amp.
Then you mic the amp with a regular mic, and there you go, dirty vocals.
Hope it helps.
Cheers!