Can you record vocals in a car?

​As I didn’t have anywhere else to do it, I wondered, can you record vocals in a car?

It’s not perfect but then it’s not too bad either if you’ve got nothing else available.

I’ve always tried to get a close vocal sound with the microphone as close as possible. This is to minimise the room effects but no matter how close you get there will always be some room sound.

The best way to answer this was to try it out and see.

The car was a Mitsubishi Colt. The computer was a Dell Latitude E6430 laptop. The software was Ableton Live and a Samson C01 USB microphone.

Why would you want to record vocals in a car?

The isolation

I live in a small flat surrounded by neighbours. The biggest problem for me singing in the flat is frightening them. I wouldn’t want to be halfway through recording the vocals for my magnificent octopus only to have it interrupted by a bang on the door from the old bill.

So the ability to drive the car to somewhere deserted in the countryside has a great appeal. Then there’s the fact that it’s a new surrounding to be inspired by. So hopefully I’d be getting some artistic inspiration from a new perspective and a new place. A bit like New Order when they went to Ibiza to record Technique.

What was the biggest drawback?

For me, it was definitely not having the space to stand. Everything else I could cope with but I really felt it was wrong to sit down. It also got quite hot in the car even though it wasn’t a hot day. I found after half an hour of vocals I was sweating. Luckily I had my air conditioning which was opening the door for a few minutes.

What are the advantages of recording vocals in the car?

The police didn’t come around the flat.

There were no distractions.

I was far more focused on actually recording the vocals. Sometimes I’ve planned to record the vocals on a specific day. I’ve woken up knowing I’m going to record vocals and I’m just sort of putting it off. It’s OK I’ve got all day, no need to rush it and spoil them. Then after a while, I’ve still got half a day but I’d better think about it. Finally, I’ve not got long enough now. What an idiot!

With the car vocal booth, I knew I only had a couple of hours. So this meant no messing about unless I wanted the laptop’s battery to tell me when the session was over. So it was a case of I’m here now let’s get the job done. I’d already prepared Ableton Live with the tracks and set up the recording side. The cues were in place for verses, choruses etc.

I had the lyrics printed out so the preparations were all done. I didn’t listen back to it at all and in fact, I had prepared to do two songs.

What technical issues do you encounter when recording vocals in the car?

Well if you decide like me to get away from it all there’s the lack of mains power. For me, this wasn’t an issue. I’d already assumed there would be no power other than the battery-powered laptop. I have a small Dell Latitude E6430 netbook. The fact that it’s small is just what you want for in-car recording. It fits nicely on the passenger seat with only a 14” screen. You wouldn’t really want an 18” one for this application.

It also has a reasonable battery that will last a decent couple of hours which I estimated would be enough.

Can you record vocals in a car? The microphone

I had two choices when it came to the microphone. Either an Audio Technica AT2020 cardioid condenser and Behringer U-Phoria UMC204HD audio interface, phantom powering the microphone from the audio interface or just use a Sanson C01 USB condenser microphone, which is just powered from the USB socket on the laptop.

As it was the first time trying the whole idea out I figured I’d use the minimalistic approach and see what happened with just the Sanson C01 USB microphone on its own. If that was OK there would be no need to take anything else in the future when I did it again. As I’ve no real alternative for a vocal booth I thought there probably would be an again.

Where do you park when recording vocals in a car?

I picked a spot between two quiet villages where there’s a little road that is set off the linking one and there’s a bit to park almost off-road. In two hours a handful of cars passed and a dog walker gave me a strange look!

I didn’t pay much attention to the passing cars and when I was back and listened to the recordings, there was no background noise on any of the takes. I just intended to record each bit of the song about six times and then piece it together from the best takes so I figured to not bother about the fact that a passing car engine would cause any problems as I’d have enough material to substitute something else.

Acoustically there was no problem. I was concerned there may have been a boxy element to the sound but there was no noticeable problem. One issue I did have was making sure the Sanson C01 USB microphone was adequately adjusted for level, which is always something that’s just trial and error for me.

Microphone stands and pop shields?

I used a tabletop tripod and a pop shield and stood them on the top of the dashboard. Just about where the sat nav usually goes. I used a short USB cable to connect the microphone to the laptop’s USB input and the netbook went on the passenger seat with the screen facing me.

The fact that it’s small means it isn’t great for generally using Ableton Live but for just recording vocals you don’t need much screen space so it’s ideal.

Be careful with how close you get to the microphone as you might inadvertently produce a proximity effect.

The advantages of recording vocals in a car

There are some things about a car that are definite advantages. The obvious one for me was being away from other people. You could drive and park where you wanted. First, there’s the small space. Another is the shape of the internals of the car. It’s totally irregular with hardly any parallel surfaces. There are lots of soft absorbent surfaces like the seats not to mention the carpet again the non-flat floor and the non-flat roof again with an absorbent material all over it.

The one thing that is a disadvantage, is the hard reflective surfaces of the glass.

I noticed that in the COVID pandemic lockdown, lots of people were interviewed from their own homes instead of coming into the TV studios and it was fairly obvious how bad the acoustics of ordinary rooms were as you could hear the “sound of the room”. With the car, this wasn’t such a problem. Luckily there were no obvious acoustic “sound” or audio discolourations.

Even if you plan on using plenty of post-processing, it’s still best to try to get as good and as natural a sound as possible to start with otherwise you might be facing an uphill battle as with almost all recording it is best to get as good a source as possible.

Getting a good sound is hard enough as it is and it’s going to be a struggle if you’re starting off handicapped with a bad vocal sound.

Can you record vocals in a car? Things to try in the future

In the future to improve the sound further I might roll up some thick blankets on the parcel shelf to partially block the back window to minimise any reflections of sound from the glass and do the same on top of the dashboard for the front windscreen.

I think I’ll try sitting in the back seat of the car as well. Maybe do three takes in the front then move to the back and do three takes there. Then when I’m back I’ll be able to compare the recordings at my leisure and maybe find out that one microphone position was better than another.

In hindsight, I might try the Behringer U-Phoria UMC204HD audio interface and the Audio Technica AT2020 cardioid condenser microphone. The Behringer audio interface is powered by the USB from the laptop. The microphone can be powered from the Behringer as it has a 48V phantom power supply for a microphone and it also has a monitor button so the audio input from the microphone can be routed into the headphone output mix.

Monitoring problems

This is something that I struggled with using the Sanson C01 USB microphone. I’m not sure if you can get a direct feed in Ableton Live. Maybe you can but I didn’t want to get too bogged down with technicalities while the time and laptop battery were running down so I had to resort to the one headphone on one ear and the other open to hear my vocal.

This is something I can do with one twist of a knob with the Behringer audio interface. This will also allow me to do a direct comparison of the Samson C01 USB microphone and the Audio Technica AT2020 cardioid condenser microphone.

As the microphone was mounted on a tabletop tripod which just sat on the dashboard I found the best place for the pop shield was to clip it to the steering wheel.

Prepare cue points

I used Ableton Live as a basic audio recorder and the method I used was to set up a backing track of the music and prepare 8 tracks to do the vocal takes on. I also set up cue points for verses and chorus and stuff and just moved between tracks recording, however, I did think of another way I might try next time and that is to prepare the backing track and put it on my phone.

Connect headphones to my phone and have one headphone over one ear so I can hear my voice and use the phone to go between verses and chorus and just use Ableton Live as a recorder.

Just set it up to record then record the whole session as one take.

Then when back home just cut the bits out I want. This would mean I wouldn’t have to operate Ableton Live other than start recording.

The software is easily able to cut up and synchronise the vocals afterwards.

The conclusion to can you record vocals in a car?

If you’ve got your own studio and vocal booth you still might want to go out and try it. One thing I’ve found in thirty years of recording music is don’t just take what other people tell you as gospel and don’t be afraid to try something different.

The more things you try the more likely you are to find something better than the way you currently do things.

It’s definitely worth trying if you’ve no alternative. For me, it was a case of car vocals or no vocals and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. It was no worse than when I used to record vocals in my bedroom and I mentioned in the article the fact that you go out somewhere different really helps to focus and forces you to get on with the job, so for me, can you record vocals in a car? Yes.

Using a pop filter or shield helps with the vocal. You don’t want to get home and find a perfectly good vocal recording has been ruined by plosive sounds.

If you are in that position you may be able to salvage your vocal recording with the Isotope RX audio tools software. I usually say it’s better to start with a good sound rather than try to fix it later, however, this software really is extremely good at removing sounds you don’t want.

Once you’ve got a good vocal sound down, you can start to think about using effects to enhance it.