i got sonar x1 studio. and a m-audio sputnik mic. i know its a great mic !! but why does it sound so terrible over a pre-mixed down beat. (im still learning to make beats in Fl at the moment so i use others). I hear people drop rap vocals over other peoples beats, like remixes etc. and it sounds so smooth and they have a worse mic then me?
 
My rooms acoustics are pretty bad, alot of smooth plain flat walls. but i have a reflection filter aswell? Really its a quality problem i got, cause im no reaching anywhere nearly the potential my equipment has. I have alesis m1 active montiors aswell.
 
Is there a certain amount of gap in db you should have between the beat and vocal? just curious. Cause i spent a few years out learning to rap before hand. Just now im kinda of annoying and depressing after buying equipment and not getting it all good and nice.
 
help hugely appreciated. Thanks.

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

I've got alesis monitor and all..  I'll say this.. "they rock."  yep, they are not the most expensive and best around, but you can get a good result with a little practice..

As far as vocals go..  "nothing beats a vocal booth."  You would be surprised how many major label albums are done, where the second vocal mic is something like an SM57..

If you don't have a vocal booth..  you need... "extreme quiet," and to set up your room in the best way possible..  ( I leave this as your research homework, as its a lot of info to type, and a little beyond the scope of the thread. )

Another thing I know nothing about is FLStudio, but I'd certainly try and see if it shows up as a rewire synth.. ( assuming Sonar Studio has Rewire as a feature. )  --- Freeze tracks, to lower your latency.. and do the vocals takes and now you can mix proper...

I know nothing about your microphone, but I would be cautious to the say the least as, "great vocals are not about lots of compression and eq."

When you are recording the human voice..  Mic teqnique, and room accoustics; quality of the mic, and microphone cords, quality of the preamps, and ad da converters..  will have way more to do with anything than, "compression and eq."

When we are talking about todays vocals, often time we are talking about, "melodyne, autotune, or the v-vocal, or INSERT-- Vocal processor plug here"

You can't win without these things..  but YUCK imho...

I'm always impressed when I listen to an album that is, "pre cher-effect," and basically what is heard are great vocals..   as in, "the vocalist just plain rocks, the recording was done in a proper booth, with a great mic, and then engineer slapped a lexicon hardware reverb on the send."

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.  

microphone cords lol

Chregg


microphone cords lol

Its a reach, I know..  :-)

Do I understand correctly that you've not recorded your rap before? If so,the third factor here, in addition to room and FX, could be just that: not being used to your voice. What do you mean by "terrible sound"? I'm sure the microphone is not to blame, it does not sound terrible, a 600 dollar large diag. condenser mic just doesn't. You're just in the beginning of a learning curve, be patient, study, test etc. It starts with the acoustics and mic technique. Actually, IMO, the room needs to be quite bad to ruin the recording totally. If you say the recording sounds "terrible" I'd guess you need to record in a bathroom to fully blame it on the room. You can get proper (seldom great) recordings in a normal bedroom. Buying the equipment is nothing, as long as you haven't learned how to use it.

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

Right, what's your chain going into Sonar?

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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