Recording advice

I have been recording for awhile, and with a surprising amount of success, using Garage Band. Everything on the songs we have recording has sounded pretty good, but the thing that is struggling the most by far is vocals. The vocals just lack presence and sound very out of place, and even with reverb added, it just sounds like you're screaming from inside of a tunnel. The vocals are now recorded using the computers built in mic, so the other day I was seriously considering a condenser mic. I came across the MXL 990 condenser mic which was VERY cheap and also thought a line 6 toneport could do some good because of the low quality built in effects on garageband, and the lack of some type of vocal preamp. Would the condenser mic be a good upgrade to improve the quality of the vocals, or Is there any other setup that would be better? (for a very strict budget that is)

A decent mic will make a world of difference.
Get a decent compressor mic like Rode NT1 etc... very cheap and they sound great.
You also need compression. A slight bit going in so that you get a very hot signal to 'tape'. Then you need to add compression again when you mix it, as well as EQing it so that you get rid of the bottom end.
Other stuff that'll help would be a sonic maximizer to crisp things up.
Then you'd also need a de-esser.
Last but not least, a little reverb or echo

Although your signal chain is only as good as its weakest link a nice Large Diaphragm Condenser will never be a bad thing. One thing to watch out for is the mics frequency response profile. I have a number of colored mics (in they have peaks at particular frequencies) and this makes them good for some things and not others. Most notable is the Blue Baby Bottle. Sounds great on some things and terrible on others. The alternative is the flat response profile of mics such as the AKG C414 or the Rode NT1A / NT2A. The flat response mics don't shine as brightly as the colored mics (when they are on form) such as the BBB but are really good all rounders. My favorite mic is my AKG C414. I love it !

The Rode NT1As (I have a couple of the 2As) are great mics though they are large diaphragm condenser and will require phantom power (usually supplied by a preamp). I'm also very fond of my AKG C1000s which are good for most things (except perhaps lead vocals). I have used these babies on backing vocals, flute, bongos, drums, and a piano. They are Small diaphragm condensers and you can pick up a matched pair for not much cash. A real surprise was the Studio Projects C3 which was just brilliant on female vocals and at around 300 bucks a real bargain ! I ran it through a focusrite pre and it really shone !

I have used the NT2As on acoustic guitar, electric guitar and vocal.

The guitar on the toon below was done with both a DI line and an NT2Aa into a vt737sp (just using the preamp) into an MOTU 828mkii for analogue to digital conversion:

http://homepage.mac.com/dr_simon_richardson/FileSharing7.html

A nice preamp is also a really good idea. Even a Behringer channel strip (~$100) will have a better pre than most consumer level sound cards and live sound mixing desks (excluding things like SSL / Nerve and Allen and Heath of course !!) and etc. Above that are things like the ART TPS (~$200) (great for quacky strats recorded direct cf little bear blues) followed by things like the Grace Design 101 ($600). I have a bunch my current fave is an Avalon M5 however that is pretty high end.

I haven't used the toneport though I have quite a lot of Line 6 kit and have never been disappointed. I see that one of the pres it models is an Avalon vt737sp (which I do have) and sounds fantastic.

If you record in 24 bit it is often unnecessary to add any compression whilst recording as you are so far above the noise floor you can leave yourself lots of head-room for dynamics !

The last album I tracked I used no limiting, compression or EQ on any of the 9 mics I had open at anyone given time. I did subsequently add compression and EQ to some of the tracks during mix-down but like re-amping a guitar, these are things are easier to add than subtract. As you often don't know how all the tracks will stack up in a mix I try to eliminate the guess work and add fx as plugins !

Right Im off to re-tube my TSL. Hope this has helped.

Simon

thanks a lot for your help.