A Rap Artists Recording CheckList

Hey, what’s good? JJ from SpitSickBeats (SSB) here.

I have been at audio engineering since 2002 with trial and error and mad books since then. The info below is from that experience.

Most recording techniques are universal per genre. However, rap artists deliver vocals more animated then country or rock singers usually, with more hand movements and animated movements to gel with the rhyme deliveries.

This means that even if you follow the check list for each recording session you may over see and self administer, you have to customize the process based on your hand and body movement as the main consideration.

Below are proven tips and reminders.

“A Rap artists recording check list”.

1. Comfortability: Set the distance from your body, mouth to about a half a foot or closer, from your vocal delivery zone. You should have a wind stopper/a mic screen just close enough to your nose that you don’t hit it and corrupt a take with the noise of hitting it. Once you run thru practise takes you will see where to position the mic stand holding the mic.
2. Use a mic stand with a heavy base, a popper stopper/wind screen to reduce sibilance interference and reduce post editing of your “p’s” and “s” sounds.
3. Volume/Input: Check, then recheck and practice run some takes to gauge if your recording levels are too loud/hot and reduce them to the consider loud parts and quite parts in your delivery of the vocals. Remember it’s better to record a little quiter then too loud.
4. Mixer/Audio interfaces need to have a vocal pre-amp which now a days, most USB mixers/interfaces come with one already, just read the manual/specifications. Google prices and specs to meet your goals. Most range $300 and up for a decent one.
5. Vocal booth? Or closet, use blankets, audio acoustic foam, cement glue to keep them up or clips or nails for heavy moving curtains is an option, depending on budget. I went to home depot for blue chip board and cement glued baby blue custom acoustic foam to the roof, and 4 walls, to have a door entry panel with a handle. It came to about $700 CAD in the 2008 era. I still use it. Research your options, just google “vocal booths” cuz some are mad expensive, and some ppl share there custom cheaper options like above I touched on regarding blankets, foam, closet use, and some use showers/curtains and egg cartons. Some just go with a capsule foam unit u clamp to the mic stand but to each their own. Most serious audio engineers prefer treated rooms/booths. Test what ever you choose at the end when set up.
6. Think like a recording engineer, and go thru process of elimination with your software, hardware, plug-ins and google is your best friend per issue. Forums are usually slow to respond but can help finding solutions. Read the manuals, think outside ya box and trouble shoot, reinstall, confirm compatible hard ware issues and is mic cord plugged in? Sometimes it’s the smallest dumbest human errors like recording with volume meter off or a wrong button hit by a visitor or you. Keep an open mind, and act like u don’t know it all and you will constant check your start and end routines like a pro engineer.
7. Effects: Record with no effects. Some engineers use the pre-amp and compression/limiter physical boxes and some learn how to route via software/DAW’s. I went thru those scenarios and have simplified each take down to just not recording too loud. Compressors deal with that but are not needed if you know your levels and body distance. Or you can get advance and do courses to get fancy routing audio chains and go that complicated route when my tried and tested and proven simple scenario is just fine, lol. WORD!
8. Projecting ones voice goes loud and soft. So when going loud, move ya head back a bit to not clip the volume threshold and avoid loosing that take due to distortion. For soft vocal parts, move in close to the mic screen. Experiment, practice.
9. Practice before recording. Just standing with lyrics on ya phone or paper, usually comes off as forced and less fluid and too choppy.
10. Get use to sitting as an engineer before and in between you switching hats and mind frames to then go into booth to record and put ya vocal delivering hat on.
11. Vocal take naming: Name ya vocal takes with the date and song part name “SpitSick-1.19.21-V1-Tk1a” V stands for Verse 1, date is numbered and “Tk” means take 1. Come up with similar custom options and then back ya shit up man, lol. SSB has not lost many takes due to old crashes occuring.
12. External vs internal or old DVD-R’s the more back ups the better and sooner the better too. It’s so upsetting to loose ya hard work.
13. ENDURANCE: This comes with practice and time. Some can project they vocals in chunks like a work out set of 2-5 min’s at a time, some artists go for 10 min’s straight. Some are old school spoiled brats wanting punch in after punch in and can’t be independent or open minded enough to utilize the golden info SPITSICKBEATS – JJ is dropping here. U save mad cash over just one year and tons over decades as it takes decades of endurance in this biz. Find how long you last in the booth with quality delivered takes. Then schedule/work around it.
14. Ambience: Figuring out the lighting, mood, smells, etc… helps most artists get into the vibe and perform smoother. I know some like to stretch, or blaze one. Some artists like to be naked and in a dimly lit room, lol. I know an engineer who said Sisqo recorded with noisey jewellery on and it was an editing nightmare. The point is, when you know what ambience and such you need, the quicker and better it will be for you.

Also regarding how to avoid boring vocal deliveries and to achieve voice nuances…

Thanks for reading. Good luck. Breath and have fun. It’s about the journey and not just blowing up, lol. Rome wasn’t built in day.

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Salute.

JJ – SpitSickBeats.com