Recording

In the recording studio the current vogue is for the singer to be very close to the microphone. This helps to cut down on unwanted background noise from other instruments or 'spill' from headphones and also reduces the acoustic ambience of the room.

Given today's increasingly cheap technology such as digital and convolution reverbs you would think that it's best to get as 'dry' a recording as possible and then 'wet' it (a term for adding reverberation or other effects) with artificial reverb at the mix stage rather than to struggle with overly 'wet' recordings that are impossible to get back to a 'dry' state without obvious artefacts.
The problem with close mic'ing is that it's always a very intimate sound, every tongue, lip-smacking and breathing sound is picked up by the microphone and if the microphone is looking upwards towards the nose it can also sound a bit more nasal in tone.

The contribution of the chest cavity to a vocal sound shouldn't be under estimated, it helps to warm up the sound, so backing off the microphone by several feet will help to achieve this. This makes sense really, when you think about how you normally listen to singers, you hear them in the room, not right next to them.

The problem with putting the microphone further away is that you hear more of the room's acoustics and in a small studio or vocal booth it can sound 'boxy'. To reduce this effect you'll need to hang sound absorbent materials such as curtains or duvets behind the singer in particular, since this is where the microphone is picking up most of its sound, and on other walls until you have a suitably 'dry' sound.

Microphone
There is no particular microphone you should use when recording lead vocals unless your vocalist has a very quiet voice, in which case you'll probably have to use a condenser microphone to avoid too much hiss being recorded.

If the singer has a very sibilant sound then you might like to experiment with a ribbon or dynamic microphone to reduce the high frequncies. Make sure you use a good windshield with a ribbon microphone as it's prone to damage when blasts of air hit the diaphragm.

Usually a cardioid pattern is selected to avoid picking up unwanted sounds from behind the microphone, but it's also worth experimenting with pickup patterns e.g. omni to see if you like a bit of the natural acoustic of the room to be recorded as well. The cardioid microphone works by combining two diaphragms which cause some out of phase artefacts, so in fact the most natural pickup pattern is the omni pattern. Ultimately you have to use your ears to decide what works best.
If the microphone has a bass roll-off switch then you should be able to use 75hz to help reduce any mechanical knocks to the stand or foot tapping on the floor. Use of the 150hz postion risks making the sound bass-light. It's worth putting a carpet under the stand and the singer's position if there isn't one there already.

If you decide to position the microphone several feet away from the singer you might need to put up another microphone with a windshield infront of it close to the singer, they will think that they are using it. This prevents them from getting ever closer to the real microphone, which they will, inspite of your instructions.

You could record both microphones on separate tracks and decide which one you like best later, alternatively use both of them, the close one for quiet sections and the distant one for the loud sections.

Different microphones suit different singers so experiment a bit while they get used to the track. Put out a handful of microphones if you have them and listen to each one to find out which is the best, then remove the ones you don't like along with their stands to avoid cluttering the studio.

Conditions
Making a singer feel comfortable is very important. A song usually succeeds or fails on the strength of the vocal, the listener needs to empathise with the vocal. If the singer feels good then they will give a better performance than if there are technical problems i.e. they don't like what they are hearing in the headphones. It might be a good idea to offer to screen them away from the control room, since the sight of people chatting or laughing on the other side of the control room window can be unnerving for first time vocalists, they might think you're laughing at them, no matter what you say to reassure them on the talk-back system.

There is a certain amount of psychology involved in getting a good vocal performance, some singers know what to do and when they've achieved it, others need lots of encouragement and directing. Sometimes you'll just have to accept that the singer's not in best form on that day and arrange another time to record.

Make sure that the singer has a comfortable balance between their voice and the backing track and a good overall level i.e. not too loud or quiet and perhaps a bit of reverberation or other effects on their voice. Use 'closed-back' headphones to reduce 'spill' of the backing track onto the microphone.
Some singers like to use just one side of the headphones to hear the track and listen to themselves clean with the other ear. Make sure that they keep the un-used headphone completely in contact with their head to avoid spill. There are single sided headphones available or you can pan the mix to or at the headphone amplifier on one side only.

If you're in a home studio ideally you will have access to a separate room for the vocalist, if not you'll have to record vocals in the same room as all the recording gear, so you'll have to wear closed back headphones and mute the speakers during takes. Be aware of machinery noise getting to the microphone, use an absorbent screen between the equipment and the microphone if you can.

Mixer/pre amplifier settings
Whether you use a mixer's microphone channel with a patched in compressor/limiter or a separate 'voice channel' (pre-amplifier, compressor/limiter and sometimes equalisation) it's best to record vocals without too much processing i.e. equalisation and compression, just concentrate on avoiding hiss (too low a level, particularly if recording on analogue tape) or distortion (too high a level, particularly if recording digitally) since both are difficult, if not impossible, to remove afterwards.

You can use compression but only at low ratios, and/or a limiter set at a high threshold to stop the loudest moments from distorting. Don't record effects (unless it's on a separate track) or use an electronic gate, leave these to the mixing stage. Like overly wet signals, heavily compressed tracks can't be uncompressed.

If you have enough spare tracks record all the takes, including the warm-up ones, since this might be when the best performance is given before the 'recording light' goes on. Some vocalists do suffer from nerves when they think they're going for a real take but are at ease when they think it's just a rehearsal. Also the early takes are usually the best ones before the singer's voice gets tired. Later you can compile the best bits from various takes onto one track.

If the singer isn't giving a suitably powerful performance it might be because they are hearing too much of their own voice. Reduce the volume of their voice in the headphones and then they will sing louder and hopefully with more feeling.

Try to have as near a finished a mix of the backing track as possible for the singer to listen to, then they will have a good idea of where they fit into the mix and you will be able to hear if the track is too busy in parts, rhythmically or frequency wise.

Vocal projection

Proper voice projection requires a combination of exercises to refine your breathing and voice technique to increase your vocal clarity. Here are some of the most effective ways

The diaphragm is a muscle located between the abdominal and thoracic cavities. The diaphragm is responsible for pushing out air that is sufficient enough to project the sounds you make, so exercising the diaphragm is crucial to vocal projection. There are many ways you can do this. One of the easiest for beginners is to take as much air into your lungs as possible, breathing deeply until they are filled. Slowly exhale, letting the air out, then try again. Do this several times. When you feel you're taking enough air into your lungs, begin singing a single note. Unless you're already accustomed to using your diaphragm to push the air from your lungs, your voice will sound weak and the note will falter. You're probably singing from your throat, which doesn't allow you to project your voice at all, and can do damage to your throat. Fill your lungs by breathing in through your nose and mouth simultaneously, then concentrate on the area just beneath your ribs, where the diaphragm is located. Keep working at it until you are using that muscle to push the air from your lungs.

Controlled Breathing
•Controlled breathing exercises can help make using your diaphragm more natural. Try deep, slow breathing exercises to accomplish this. Breathe in through your nose and fill your lungs, then breathe out slowly. Quickly releasing your breath doesn't give the diaphragm time to think about what it needs to do. Breathing out very slowly will force your diaphragm to take control and prevent the breath from escaping. Mastering this technique helps give you control over your diaphragm and strengthens too. Do not suck your stomach in after performing this exercise. Allow it to come in slowly and naturally. Sucking your stomach in is a sign that you are not using your diaphragm properly. The belly should remain relaxed while you take in air, but not forced out. The exhalation should be more like allowing the air to gently release, not actually pushing out either.
Place the palm of your hand under your rib cage, then place your other hand at the same level but on your back. Now breath and make sure the distance between your two hands increases as much as you can. If you breathe and your shoulders move up, then you are doing it wrong, your shoulders shouldn’t move. The upper part of your belly should move forward.

This increases your lung capacity and with the diaphragm muscle you can control how fast you want to let the air out.

Pitch and Resonance:
Now that you know how to breathe you have to use that breathing to resonate your voice in your chest. Your objective will be to find the perfect pitch in which your chest vibrates the most.

Place your hand on your chest, but not like the previous exercise, this time place it at heart level. Now breathe with your diaphragm and say Ooooh! with a high pitch as if you were imitating the voice of a girl and drop it down until the lowest pitch you have and then up again like an ambulance. Pay attention to the vibration on your chest, and there will be a specific pitch level in which you feel more vibration than the others. That is your optimum pitch, the more vibration you can achieve the better. As a general rule, the optimum pitch will be lower than the one you use right now.

Volume and Projection:

Now you only have to differentiate between projection and volume. When you use your diaphragm you project, and it can be loud or soft, and people will hear you over any other noise that is going on, like music in a nightclub or your friends talking at the same time in a heated conversation. They will hear you and the most probable thing is that they will stop talking to pay attention to you.

Volume on the other hand is only loud and it’s annoying to everyone, it means yelling, screaming and not using your diaphragm. You can actually hurt your vocal chords like this. If you’ve gone to a club and by the end of the night you can’t speak, then you are not projecting.

First you have to know what your optimum pitch is by doing the exercise I wrote above, make sure your chest vibrates a lot. Say “Ooooooooh!” maintaining that pitch for a while and then immediately start saying something, just count to 10 or say whatever is going on in your mind, but focus on maintaining the same pitch and vibration you just discovered. You might sound like a robot at the beginning but that’s why we have the concept of “color’.

Color:

Color is what makes your conversation interesting. For storytelling this is something you should focus on, it’s essential. This implies accentuation of words while speaking, through changes in pitch and/or volume, this way you can give different meanings to a same phrase, for example look at the difference between saying “YOU must see that movie” and “You MUST see that movie” or “You must see THAT movie”. Pausing is another aspect of color, if you read a whole paragraph in a public presentation without pausing, it’s possible that no one will get your idea and the same thing happens if you make a pause every 2 words.

Make a list of phrases like the one I just mentioned in the previous paragraph, read it many times and accentuate a different word each time.

•YOU must see that movie
•You MUST see that movie
•You must SEE that movie
•You must see THAT movie
•You must see that MOVIE
You can accentuate the words by adding volume, by increasing pitch, or by pausing half a second when you say that word, or any combination of the three.


Scale Exercises
•Singing scales is not only excellent ear training, but scales can be used to practice vocal projection. Start on the first note of the scale you want to sing, breathe deeply through your nose and mouth simultaneously, and begin singing the scale, pushing each note out progressively louder. Use the air and diaphragm: Never push with your throat. Practice releasing your breath slowly and evenly behind each note in the scale. By the time you reach the last note, it should be loud, clear and solid. If your voice is cracking, you aren't using your diaphragm to push the notes, or taking in enough air to sustain the notes. Try this same exercise lying on your back with your hands on your waist and your fingers positioned right at your navel. If you are using your diaphragm properly, you will be able to feel vibration beneath your fingertips.