Recording vocals and keyboard simultaneously - thump of keys through mic. Losing my mind

thecolourbox

Hi all
I'm trying to record me singing and playing the keyboard at the same time. The mic is picking up the thump of the keys and it's not great.
Any ideas how to stop this? The mic is on a stand, on a boom positioned so the mic is in front of the keyboard but it is still picking it up.
The dynamic mic gives quite a deep noise, my new condenser gives a higher pitched clicking noise. I have a reverb and comp on the vocal effects so it's making the vocals sounds terrible with big bassy booms or higher clicking noises through the comp and reverb.

Google searching this seems to only give results about computer keyboard, not the digital piano type.

I am playing a Christmas event via zoom in December hence the need to do both simultaneously.

Any tips? Can I use one of those plastic vocal shield things but underneath the mic instead of behind it as you'd normally do it? Would be a bit visually awkward on camera but was just an idea

Any ideas welcome!

Danny1969

I wouldn't use the condensor mic, just go with the dynamic. That should solve the problem as a dynamic mic is no where near as sensitive, being much more directional. 

steamabacus

Just try a piece of ordinary acoustic foam as a shield rather than some expensive plastic thing. Probably lighter and easier to position as well. You can get acoustic foam pre-cut to size from efoam.co.uk

thecolourbox

Danny1969 said:

I wouldn't use the condensor mic, just go with the dynamic. That should solve the problem as a dynamic mic is no where near as sensitive, being much more directional. 

The sound is much worse with the dynamic, big loud booming sounds whereas the condenser is quieter but higher. Weird

Danny1969

Good thought but The only thing that stops sound is mass, a condensor mic will pick up the sound of the key clatter reflecting off all the surfaces in the room ... sound doesn't travel in a straight line it's omnidirectional 

thecolourbox

Danny1969 said:

Good thought but The only thing that stops sound is mass, a condensor mic will pick up the sound of the key clatter reflecting off all the surfaces in the room ... sound doesn't travel in a straight line it's omnidirectional 

If there's nothing I can do then I'll stick with the condenser as it's much less obvious on that than it is with the dynamic. Unless I learn to play underneath a blanket

Danny1969

I think your doing something wrong dude, you can play the drums while singing into a dynamic mic and get a usable vocal

viz

I’d put one dynamic mic pointing to the strings in the body of the piano (from the treble end), and another one pointing upwards away from the keys up to your mouth. Is it a grand? Works best with a grand. 

steamabacus

It's worth an experiment to see if you can cut down reflections if you're in a particularly reflective space. You may find flying a foam panel above the mic will cut down reflections from the ceiling directly above. Higher frequencies will be easier to dampen down than lower ones  - there will be more affect on 'clicking' than 'thumping' sounds.

How is the keyboard mounted - is it on a table top that might amplify the mechanical noise? If so, isolating it from any resonant surface (acoustic foam, blanket, blutack even) might help.

Danny1969

viz said:

I’d put one dynamic mic pointing to the strings in the body of the piano (from the treble end), and another one pointing upwards away from the keys up to your mouth. Is it a grand? Works best with a grand. 

It's electric piano so no acoustic audio to capture I think. ..just the clatter of hands on keys

seriously if you sing  directly into a dynamic mic you will get very little key clatter unless you go apeshit with the compression. I would shoot for no more than around 4dB gain reduction with a medium attack and see how that is 

viz

Oh yes, derrr

Stuckfast

Yes the easiest way to sort this is to use a stage mic very very close up.

poopot

Our drummer does bv’s (or did when gigs happened) he uses an sm57 and it just about picks up his kit... and he’s a f£&king loud drummer!... 

what dynamic mic are you using? How much gain have you got on the preamp?

thecolourbox

Danny1969 said:

I think your doing something wrong dude, you can play the drums while singing into a dynamic mic and get a usable vocal

It's more than likely I am yeah, to be honest lol

The comments re compression and gain etc - I don't know, it's the TC Helicon Voicelive and there are auto tone settings that add some compression. The gain might be a bit high but the output is really quiet, which is fine when recording obviously but I need it to be loud enough for the zoom thing. When I did a practice earlier with my mom and dad via zoom they said it was really too quiet.

I thought of using the Voicelive as the interface but that seems more problems than its worth getting it to work lol and it turns out I can't make that any louder anyway so it's kind of moot. 

I turned the input gain on the Voicelive and the clutter noise was obviously less (back to using the dynamic mic again for now considering folks say that should be better) but then the recording was so quiet it would be useless. Would I be better upping the input gain on the audio interface ie after the vocal effects rather than the input gain on the Voicelive presumably?

thecolourbox

I do rather wish I'd said I'd do guitar not piano, but then I'm crap at guitar so I suppose it's just different problems init

thecolourbox

steamabacus said:

It's worth an experiment to see if you can cut down reflections if you're in a particularly reflective space. You may find flying a foam panel above the mic will cut down reflections from the ceiling directly above. Higher frequencies will be easier to dampen down than lower ones  - there will be more affect on 'clicking' than 'thumping' sounds.

How is the keyboard mounted - is it on a table top that might amplify the mechanical noise? If so, isolating it from any resonant surface (acoustic foam, blanket, blutack even) might help.

It's on a metal stand, one of these



Maybe if I encircle the mic in foam I could decorate it Christmas style

LastMantra

You need a mic right up at your mouth and something else for the keyboard. 

Ideally a mic for vocals, Di the keyboard and listen through headphones. 

thecolourbox

LastMantra said:

You need a mic right up at your mouth and something else for the keyboard. 

The keyboard is cabled into the interface, the dynamic mic is right in my face but the condenser was further away because I didn't realise I needed yet another size screw adapter to fit it to the same mic stand that I put the dynamic on

LastMantra

Hmmm definitely something not right then. Something to do with the interface? A keyboard going straight in shouldn't be too quiet. It's probably because you have the gain up so much that you're getting problems. 

thecolourbox

LastMantra said:

Hmmm definitely something not right then. Something to do with the interface? A keyboard going straight in shouldn't be too quiet. It's probably because you have the gain up so much that you're getting problems. 

It's the same using the separate audio interface and using the Voicelive as interface, the key clatter noise I mean. God knows about the volume thing, my mom and dad aren't the most technological nor the most specific with their descriptions of things, and my other half is similarly useless so not sure how to fix that in zoom. But when recording into Cubase the waves are very small when I open the audio parts, and the output on the mixer is very quiet

God knows. I really hate music sometimes.

My interface is shit but I'm not sure I want to go out and buy one with enough inputs for what I'd like, only to find I still have the same problem as usually that's how things go for me

poopot

What interface is it?