Is there any such thing as a microphone that can help improve vocals?

[RoadRanger]

There does seem to be a trend for those bands that mostly do their own sound to show up with one or more of them vocal processing pedals. Kinda like the drummer who shows up with his pet D112 yah just gotta smile and do the best you can with the situation.

 

One band I work with has one on a mic used for trumpet (and occasional vocals and audience interaction ) with the "control" AKA key sensing input coming from a rhythm guitar. I asked them to go off and start rehearsing with the trumpet player (co-leader of the band) having a separate vocal mic, a dry signal from the trumpet mic, and an effects only output from the pedal so I can balance the direct sound of the trumpet against the harmonies generated. It actually sounded great generating harmonies but obviously balancing that with the direct trumpet sound was a problem. It's common for me to have no trumpet in the mains except for the reverb (which I run pre-fader for that and the drum OH and/or snare/HH mic). OTOH this eats up a lot of channels on a 16 channel mixer, especially as they have 6 vocalists - but only four channels left for drums is fine in most rooms on their smallish kit - two toms, kick, and snare/HH does it .

[Porkchop]

If you haven't already, acquaint yourself with compressors. They are probably the single most effective tool in improving vocal sound.

[agedhorse]

If you haven't already' date=' acquaint yourself with compressors. They are probably the single most effective tool in improving vocal sound.[/quote'] Or the single worst thing you can do when used inappropriately, like many I have heard recently)

[loco_p_man]

I think this is where there are some comments about compression on vocals being a panacea.....

[Kalina2]

When I first used the compressor, no improvements have not noticed .... but I immediately noticed deterioration, when this device is disabled ...