Large diaphragm condenser, treated with two foam panels behind the mic, singer about 20cm away. Every take has a honky midrange thing around what sounds like 300-500Hz that I end up carving out with a big EQ cut, and then the vocal sounds thin. Room is 3x4m with a carpet, a bed and a wardrobe. Is this fixable at the source or am I stuck EQing forever?
Also try backing the singer off to 30-35cm and turning the preamp up. At 20cm you're getting a big dose of proximity effect and the mic's own low-mid lift, and lots of people fight the result with EQ without realising they created it. If the singer can't stay put at that distance, a bit of compression on the way in helps more than the closer position does.
Second this, and put a mark on the floor. Singers drift 10cm forward over a session and the tone changes with them.
One diagnostic: record the same line with the mic 20cm away and again at 1m, then compare. If the boxiness scales up with distance, it's the room. If it's roughly the same at both, it's the mic, the source or your chain.
Two foam panels is essentially no treatment. Thin foam absorbs from maybe 1kHz up, and your problem is two octaves below that. What actually works in a small bedroom is thick absorption, 10cm mineral wool panels or a stack of duvets, and you need enough of it that the room sounds noticeably dead when you clap.
Try the wardrobe. Genuinely. Open it, push the clothes to the sides, put the mic just outside facing in and the singer behind it. It's not a studio but it's the most absorptive surface in a bedroom by a mile and I've had usable vocals out of it.
That's the small enclosed space doing its own resonance thing. Works better in a deep wardrobe than a shallow one, so probably not yours.
Tried it out of curiosity. Less boxy, but a weird nasal thing instead. Might be my wardrobe.
@listening_lane · 3mo ago · 3 replies
Fixable at the source, and the fix is mostly about what's behind the singer rather than behind the mic. That boxiness is early reflection off the wall the singer is facing coming back into the mic a few milliseconds after the direct sound. Turn the whole setup so the singer faces into the room's longest dimension with the mic pointing at the most absorptive thing you own, put the two foam panels behind the singer instead, and hang a duvet on a stand about a metre in front of them. Foam behind the mic does very little for 300-500Hz anyway, it's too thin.
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@listening_lane · 3mo ago
Now try moving the whole rig off the centre of the room and away from the corner. Standing waves in a 3x4 room put a big lump right in that range.
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@dawless_dev · 3mo ago
Duvet in front, panels behind the singer, and it's already a different vocal. The 400Hz thing is maybe a third of what it was.
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