Rap Vocals. Compression, EQ

Sounds like your room could be your main problem. If you work that out things will sound better.

Agree, the room sounds like the first issue.
quick and dirty fix: find a corner of the room you want to setup in layer the two walls with a blanket and set (up-right) a mattress. This will cut out most if not all the reflections (making the vox signal dry so you cut effect as you wish).

Two: I LOT of rap beats (the beats not the songs) are poorly mixed. There will be a lot going on in the middle freq's. And thats right where the vocals go, so you get muddy harsh vocals. 

QnD fix: you siad your using others beats. Drop the beat on two tracks (pan hard left and hard right) then use an EQ to scoop some of the middle freq's down. trim a bit of the highs and lows off the vocals (that you have made sure werent distor. when you recorded them)....with that you can get a quick "mixtape" sound.  

Chregg


microphone cords lol

Its a reach, I know..  :-)

Kalle+ 
(@Nell): Soooooo true read, read, read, read, (did I say read, lol) as much as you can about your art (songwriting, producing, mixing). Since we're talking about rap/hiphop google some stuff about Dr. Dre and the process he goes thru. It will start to open your eyes as to why your not getting the sound you want. 

But be careful LOL, cause once you start to know, and then hear the different in techinques and processes dealing with sound. It hard to not judge and want to just jump in and mix any bad songs by your music friends...lol

Performance, room, mic, preamp, conversion (and that skips the first most important thing, the song).

Performance - keep working on technique. 

I guess that goes for recording technique, too.  The old singing (or rapping) w/ your back to a quilt is always a good thing to try - blocks out a lot of the room reflections and is cheap.  A relection filter can help - if it is used right.  And just busying up a room w/ a couch, bookshelf, etc. can help the room sound if you don't have money to spend.  The next thing is to try different distances from the mic (as well as off angles).  A cardiod pattern (which I think your mic is) will boost the bass as you get closer.  W/o knowing your voice or song it is hard for the blind to judge your technique, so try different distances.  Singers, usually, will benefit from a little distance from the mic and more "air" (room) in the recording.

Your mic should be fine once you figure out how to work it best w/ your voice.  You don't mention your interface, but a lot of loud vocals will tend to crap out the cheaper ic preamps in them.  Again, learning how to utilize the equipment you have can help - experiment.  There is no reason w/ a lower cost interface you can't get a good recording.  It is a matter of learning your equipment and matching your technique to master the good and bad qualities of what you have to work w/.  Most of the pro equipement really shines after you have gotten your recording knowledge down.

I was just in a studio where they have one of the 10 or so re-issued C-12s (by telefunken, I think, using all original parts).  As the engineer put it - when you sing through it, you can hear abby road.  Your sputnik is a C12 clone, but I doubt if the C12 in your room would sound like abby road.  Or my voice.

Once you get a usable raw recording, then start worrying about compression/eq.

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