Recording Vocals? You're Using Headphones WRONG 

This guy is a terrific singer wow

Should be mandatory viewing for anyone engineering a vocal recording. No better way to get your singer comfortable than letting him/her go from a whisper to a scream without a concern.

Honestly, you have remarkable range and it’s crazy how relaxed you are when executing it, thanks for the information, very helpful.

Chris, thanks for putting the time and work into your channel. I loved this video and found it extremely helpful! Keep it up, you’re helping the community!

I think this is one of the rarest of the rare videos where technology is being demonstrated with a real time use case. Buddy, you've got an amazing clarity & Range to your voice.. This was a very interesting video. Many thanks for making it.

I've been following recording techniques here and on other RU-vid channels for several years. This was one of the very the first times where I tried the recommended technique and immediately got marked improvements on recording a vocal. Excellent advice! Thank you so much.

omg your ad-libbing in this is amazing! Awesome voice :)

Chris you have an outstanding voice. And these tips help take some of the pressure off. Graham and Chris, thanks for everything.

This video was EXACTLY what I needed as I have been feeling stumped with recording vocals. Thank you 🙏

THIS SIR, was an EXCELLENT video. THANK YOU! I've been trying to get my headphone mix dialed in for MONTHS! and have asked previous producers I've worked with etc. I'm using Logic Pro and Original Blue Baby Bottle and Apollo Twin interface. I have all the tools but just haven't been comfy cozy yet. YOU GET IT. I love the way you described everything from the vocalists point of view and understanding we go off of FEEL. Your pipes are great! I am also rangy and dynamic so again... so helpful and can't wait to try your tips.

Wow, Chris! Great video, and your voice sounds unbelievable!! Thanks for this!

This was very eye and ear opening! While I've been singing pretty much my whole life (I'm 51) I've never really thought about recording until recently as I've begun learning guitar. New subscriber.

Awesome video. Thank you so much for sharing those super helpful tips!

Thanks, Chris! I've been wrestling with getting this working, and out of all the videos I've watched, yours is the first to address the vocal chain *in the cans* and how to get the singer comfortable. I'm still working on getting the details, but it's fighting me less. The K-240s were a brilliant suggestion and saved me from the vacuum of my HD 280 Pros, and best part, I still had a pair in a drawer, working perfectly after 35 years, that I bought back when because they were cheap and flat. 😄

Chris, your channel is a necessity in my life, thank you.

This video is so helpful and you explain it so clear and easy to understand. Thank you so much Chris 😊

Thank you. It amazes me that this topic isn’t talked about much more! I think I’m gonna give those AKG’s a try.

I've loved Sony MDR-7506s for more than 20 years. I'm comfortable in every way with them and "know" them. I also have an old pair of AKG K141s that I never liked all that much. I guess it's time to really give the AKGs a chance. Chris Liepe hasn't steered me wrong once yet and I have a feeling this will keep his winning streak! Thank you Graham! (And Chris!)

On my life you and gram are twins but with different parents. Great addition to the team and I’m very gracious you’re here. Thanks for the tips.

You sound absolutely great :O Thanks for the tut

Wow!!! What a great voice. The tips about recording are also great, but your voice is AWESOME.

as a fellow voice coach...just wanted to say..your voice is amazing!

Hey Chris! I was going down a rabbit hole looking for videos on the best headphones when tracking vocals and stumbled on your video. Like a lot of vocalists, I tend to wear only one side when tracking vocals so I can hear the room better. Most videos give terrible reviews of the AKG 240’s, but I took a leap of faith and picked them up. GAME-CHANGER! I can’t believe the difference it made in not only my comfort, but my performance. Thank you for making this video man, I’m forever grateful 🙌🏻

Wonderful fantastic instructions and tutorials! Thank you for sharing this!

This was exactly what I needed to watch thank you so much for making it ... 🎶🎧🎙️

Very helpful! I'm doing a session where it takes me a lot of setting up so I am glad to get my vocal chain sorted simply and easily beforehand! Thank you for the great information in a clear way!

Awesome vocals Chris. Thanks for the content. I'm not a singer, but rather a voice actor and deal with many of the same challenges as singers when in the studio.

Really great advice you are sharing. Thank you so much.

Your videos have been instrumental in my music making journey you are quite literally a legend to me

Writing down everything to try in my homestudio. Thank you. NOt easy sometimes to feel comfortable recording vocals. BTW, your voice is amazing!! :0

very very precious video and tutorial. love you

Great advice, and WHAT A VOICE!!!!

Wow this was really good and throughout. This will really help me record vocals.

Wow, that tip about improvisation has really helped me a lot! First time on this channel, greetings from Kyiv!

Congrats, what a voice.... and amazing tips, thx

Great point with the tonal click track. Now that I'm thinking about it, I almost feel like little pink noise clicks with the transient rolled off would be ideal.

Wow!!! I'm just learning this stuff for recording at home, and this was an AMAZING video! I love to sing, and am going through lots of stuff about using my DAW of choice (Logic Pro).

fantastic, clear and very informative content !

Thank you so much, great advise and amazing voice.

Absolutely Brilliant, Thank You For Being You & Sharing Your Gifts To Help Educate Me & The Wider World With Honest Humble Love. I Pray God Continues To Bless, Protect & Inspire You Always & Forever

So that’s how they do it..Thank you for sharing your awesome! video

This was so helpful; thank you! I’ve been stressing about headphone bleed, AND about how my singing suffers when I try to record because I can’t friggin hear myself in the room and suddenly everything is strained. Now I have a plan and am actually excited to record.

Came here to watch you teach me how to record vocals properly and now what I want you to teach me is how to sing hahah btw great videos, found you today and watched some, and I subscribed, love the way you talk about these things

It really worked for me. Thank you so much.

Very interesting ! I test that as soon as possible. Thanks a lot !

Thanks Chris this was very helpful!

Dude this is awesome!!!, thank you so much. Helps out soooo much. Great trick 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

Sir, that was really helpful. Thank you.

Very helpful info. Thank you!

Thank you for this very useful video🎧🎤🎼🤗

ive been watching a few of your videos lately. i decided i wanted to start recording vocals, my wife got me a shure sm58. ive just used some decent in ear headphones. i noticed i had a lot better control or awareness of my voice when i didnt have them in. so this video helped a lot, and made a lot of sense. i think the most important thing im missing is a good set of headphones

Thank you, bro. You are an Amazing vocalist also !

Thanks! Now i just need a more isolated space to learn singing without disturbing the neighbors 👌🏻

Hi good people! Chris...this video is awesome,thank you! I think the bottom line is just to get comfortable so you can do your best performance,with or without the effects,whatever makes you happy is the best solution. One more thing is very important-how loud your vocals are in relation to the song because if your voice is too quiet you start to compensate and eventually hurt your throat...if you set it louder then you should-then you start to sing too softly which can ruin your performance in the opposite way...so be careful about the volume. Cheers,greetings from Croatia!

Holy god, your voice is beautiful & thanks for the guide.

I bought those AKG K240 headphones about a week ago for a totally different purpose in mind for using them, but after watching this I'm extra stoked I got them. The same day I picked up the Yamaha HPH-MT8's for tracking. I'll give the AKG a test run with vocals later today.

Something I had started doing is throwing up a stereo pair of mics in the room when recording vocals, positioned as if recording drum overheads or rooms, and feeding those just into my monitor mix. My brain locks onto pitch far more accurately, and you can control the exact blend of room in your ears without having to worry about the right kind of bleed or using reverb plugins and having to think about latency, etc. Seems to work really well if you happen to have a pair. I use SDCs, but I'm sure it wouldn't matter what kind.

Great content! Tres helpful.

Wow, thanks--this is really helpful. Hadn't thought of the benefit of having the eighth note delay keep your voice in front of you for longer notes--brilliant! And great singing (obviously! lol), I really like your voice.

Dang that track and vocals in the beginning! 😳👌🏻

Great advice from an excellent vocalist!

Love this. Super helpful.

What a voice! It makes me think of Cornell. I'm about to record new tracks but so disappointed by my beyerdynamic drummer for vocals... I'm thinking about buying the akg for a try on my sm7b. Thx for the tips! Music will save us all!

great info! Many thanks

Hey thanks man, that's spot on! I just recorded vocals yesterday (after many years, yep!) with a new pair of really tight headphones, and I heard very loudly and somewhat organically the very-low-end... and predominantly... which was distracting me from concentrating on delivering the right pitch (we don't hear the pitch very well in the lower-end)... I thought I needed to use the EQ to correct that, until I discovered it was physically resonating in my chest or in my upper-torso bones and it was heard mostly "bio-internally"... because of the tight headphones! So I searched YT today to find a confirmation of that problem and a solution. Your video confirmed the importance of hearing the actual direct room environment, and that is exactly what I have discovered yesterday! I learned from you that there are specific headphones for that purpose, thanks so much! I didn't know that, after all these years (I'm not a pro audio guy)...! I'll first try with my in-ear headphones that came with my old Samsung cellphone, then maybe purchase your semi-open AKG headphones. Very nice channel BTW!

Those headphones would have been perfect for me during my last recording session. Thanks for this video!

Thank you for this one🙏

Amazing voice with Great explanation

What I do myself, is use very isolating headphones, but then add loud room early reflections to the vocal and a bit to the click. It then sounds like you're in the room, and the vocals "pop out" of the mix in your head, allowing you to hear yourself and your pitch better, and get no bleed. Try it. It works.

Thanks for this, really useful. It’s new to me to add FX, I always sing without any plugins. And just add during post. But when you say “feel comfortable” when singing, yeah, that’s new to me. Will definitely try that. I always sacrifice comfort because I thought turning on a plugin while recording will overwhelm the daw 😆 Good thing I have exactly the same HP, I almost get rid of it bec I thought that was the cause the bad recording 😝

Thanks for such useful tips!

Your vocal is insane!

JST Howard Benson's plugin chain is pretty rad.. love your videos Chris , I've learned a ton from you.. 🙏👍

U dont need any effect wat a voc god gifted❤❤❤

This was amazingly informative. Thank you! My A/D converter (Steinberg UR-44) is USB 2.0, so I have to rely on direct monitoring. But, I have the capability/software to add compression, EQ, and reverb to my vocal monitor mix when tracking, with the option to include or omit these FX from the signal that goes into the DAW. BUT I never bothered with any of it. DUH! Instead, I usually record with one headphone on an ear and the other headphone on the back of my head so that I can hear myself in quieter passages. Not sure why it never occurred to me to decrease the dynamic range with compression before. I stopped the video for a couple of minutes and set up a signal chain with compression, EQ, and reverb using an SM57, and headphones over both ears. Amazing. Your vocal gymnastics are awesome, but the knowledge you shared today (and the last video on Recording Rev) equals your vocal chops. Thanks again.

Yooo you're one of the few who's intro music of themselves in the beginning is actually 🔥🔥🔥

I really enjoyed your video, I think I'm going to try these headphones ~ thanks!

You’re the only one that acknowledges this. This is my BIGGEST problem

Wow you have such a good voice man. And also a great speaking voice!

awesome concise helpful video thank you

Thank you Chris

Regarding the click...I use a kick drum...very helpful in eliminating any bleed.

Great tutorial!!!

My favorite is a single-sided closed-back headphone. Useless for anything other than monitoring during tracking, but perfect for that.

I would love to watch a tutorial on how you use the compressor on that awesome vocal performance in the beginning :)

Thanks for the great video! I just ordered the AKG K240 headphones based on your recommendation. I've been using the Vic Firth isolating headphones and not always feeling quite right while singing...taking one ear off, then changing my mind and putting it back on. Hopefully like you said, these will be a good balance and help me sing better. I've never tried compressing the vocal while I record, and I want to give that a try too. Sounds like a great approach. - - One thing I do that helps me a lot is dimming the lights. I like it so dark I can barely see the microphone. I like to try to get lost in the song, forget about my body and the room, envision what's going on in the story/song and become a part of it.

Bro... Your Vocals are ridiculously GOOD😎👍

Wonderful voice, good tips

Great tips!

You have the voice of an angel

Great video!!!

I had a good chain going and still wasnt heating amy effects. I fixed that part Nd finally gotba bit of reverb and echo. Made a huge difference in mybconfidence. Im fine playing guitar and singing with a band or solo, alone in a room recording, i freeze up. Definitely helped dude

I just came here to get information as to why when I record on Smule, I hear white-noise in the recording when I stop singing, and it stops when I start start again. I now feel like a pre-k student that stumbled into a doctorial class. I have no idea what you were talking about but DARNIT you sound AWESOME. The rest just flew over my head but I listened anyway😁.

I switched to tracking vocals with open back And it's great. The only bleed is in between vocal lines and it's pretty minimal. I could cut it but it's so low it doesn't matter. Don't use a click I use drums. Used to pull one ear off using closed back phones if I was having issues connecting but wound up cranking the volume way too loud. W the open backs I'm able to keep the volume fairly low and still be immersed in both the music and my voice resonance simultaneously. And it's almost like someone else is singing to me in the room, I get to listen to the singer do his thing even though it's me actually doing it. Kind of lowers my inhibition a bit.It's very performance inspiring

You have a great voice!

Thank you man!

Good singing!

I wear headphones when recording, one ear i hear other ear i hear my self and record, works 🌪️🔥♥️🙏

this guy is great!!

Nice job on mentioning not to get caught on having the cleanest recordings. It can work against you and stifle the process and sort of stop you in your tracks if your not careful.