What To Do About Muffled Vocals – Improve Voice Clarity
When a vocal recording sounds muffled, like the singer/speaker has a box over his/her head, that’s usually NOT what we want. So what do we do about muffled vocals? In other words, how do we improve voice clarity?
If we can prevent the sound of muffled vocals to begin with, that would be ideal. You can get that vocal clarity by making sure you record with a decent microphone in a decent space.
For example, one thing you should NOT do is record in a closet. People often use closets as make-shift vocal booths, but unless you really know what you’re doing, you’ll just end up making your voice sound “boxy” and muffled.
Use the right microphone?
This can be caused by a number of different things, such as not using the correct mic for the singer (yes, some mics that sound awesome on one person may not sound good on someone else).
Generally speaking, the best kind of microphone for recording clear sounding vocals is a large-diaphragm condenser microphone. One good example of an excellent large diaphragm condenser mic is an Audio-Technica AT2035. You can find my review of that mic here: Review of the Audio-Technica AT2035 Microphone.
The wrong mic
Sometimes, you get a muffled vocal sound by using a common live-performance mic like a Shure SM58. That is a great mic for live stuff, but usually not so great for recording.
Don’t record with effects
Do not apply effects while you are recording! Some people you plug the mic into a “channel strip” or other piece of hardware to apply effects (EQ, reverb, tube emulation, mic modeling, to name a few). Don’t do this, or you will be stuck with those effects in the recording. If you find that one or more of these recorded effects is causing the voice to sound muffled, then there isn’t much you can do.
If you want to apply effects to your vocals, do it AFTER you have the clean voice recorded so you can adjust after the fact.
What to do if the vocal is already recorded?
How can you improve vocal clarity in a vocal recording? When recorded vocals sound muffled, it’s usually because there is too much energy in the lower frequencies. For a really good quick lesson on what a frequency is, see our post: Good Equalization and Frequency Basics.
You can use a tool called EQ (short for equalization) to clean things up. Before we talk about how to do that though, take a look at the video below from the article I mentioned above:
Using EQ to improve voice clarity
Now that you know what I mean when I talk about frequencies, you’ll understand when I say that muffled vocals usually have too much bass and/or low-mid frequencies. So with an EQ effect (in Reaper, I just put the built-in ReaEQ onto the voice track), start by filtering out frequencies below 80Hz. You might even try 100Hz.
Next, reduce (turn down) frequencies in the range between 140Hz and 400Hz. Turn that down by about 3-5 dB to start. That should do the trick.
I don’t normally recommend adding (turning up the volume) energy anywhere on the EQ to fix a problem since that can cause more problems than it fixes. Reducing is regarded as being much more effective and usually does the trick. But if those reductions don’t get you the clarity you want, CAREFULLY experiment with increasing some of the higher frequencies.
Try a small boost (start with 3dB) those in the 1-3 KHz area first. Humans are particularly sensitive to sound in this frequency range, so a small bump can help clear up a voice.
Another range to try boosting is the 9-10 KHz area. This can add a bit of sparkle or air to a voice.
Let’s review
If your vocals sound muffled in your recordings, you can fix this by:
- Preventing the muffled sound by recording without effects, in an open space (i.e. NOT a closet) with a good microphone, and
- If the voice is already recorded, apply some EQ to the vocal track. Just reducing the low and low-mid frequencies should do the trick. But if not, try boosting just a touch in a few of the higher frequencies.
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Hi I am doing vocal readings and have just lined my small closet with padding and have got a good RODE mike. Its all sounding so muffled,is there any way that I can still record in the closet because it really is the best place in the flat to record but how can I avoid the muffledness?
Hi Karen. That is almost certainly due to being in a closet. The smaller they are, the worse the muffled sound. Audio needs to move in the air at least some. And depending on what you used for padding, it might even make things worse. Here is what I suggest. Record a few sentences of text in the closet. then bring the mic out into the room. Now record that same few sentences. Then open your recording software and listen carefully to each recording. What I suspect you will find is that the closet recording, while having less background noise, will sound muffled. The other recording from the outside the closet, in a room where the audio can breathe, will have a bit of background noise (computer fan, A/C, etc.), AND some room echo/reverb (room sound), BUT will NOT have that muffled sound. then all you need to do is work on reducing the room sound with my series of posts here: https://www.homebrewaudio.com/improve-quality-audio-record-home-tip-1/. Hope that helps!
I have a 2 min recording that I desperately need help to make out what is said would you have time to see if you can help me please.
Hi Christina. I won’t know if I can help until I hear the audio. I’ll contact you through email and you can send it to me. Sound good?
I experienced the same audio muffle, what I did was that I opened and clean the surface of my mic diaphragm and everything came back to normal.
Well, that is certainly one possibility.
Hi, I have a voice mail recording on a message from my mother. It is very faint and muffled as I had to record it on my other cell phone before Outlook deleted it.
She recently passed away and it is the only record I have of her voice. I would like to know how I can clean up the sound so that I can preserve it and listen to it when I am missing her. Can you help me? I would pay for your services if this is not something I can fix on my own. Thank you, Cheryl
Hi Cheryl. I can certainly try. Can you send me the audio file? I’ll email you.
Hi there, I need assistance with a muffled recording, can anyone please help?!
Desperately need help with a short recording and can’t make out the muffled voice after he says guess what. It is my brother that passed away and we are so wanting to know what he told his friend that also passed in the accident. Wondering if you could help it’s only 58 seconds long hopefully you will be able to help 🙏
It could well be that a recording made in a candid setting on a phone or something simply doesn’t have enough digital information to make it understandable. You can send me the recording and I can check. If I CAN fix it, it would probably only take 30 minutes or less, and my rates for that are $50. If I cannot fix it, then I won’t charge. What do you think?
Hi, I have a class recording that I accidentally recorded while still connected to my AirPods. It came out rlly muffled and bad quality. Is it possible to get it unmuffled? I really need it!! please let me know
I would have to hear a sample first. Sometimes these things are not fixable because the frequencies you need simply didn’t get recorded. I might or might not be able to help. I don’t want to put my email in this comment, because scrapers and spammers, etc. But if you send me a message from the contact page here: we can connect via email and go from there. https://www.homebrewaudio.com/legal/contact/
Hi!
I have a short audio clip that I sampled from material I am looking to use for my first vlog. It’s a short clip maybe 2 minutes. If you could tell me how to salvage it. Or if it can be that would be amazing!!!
Hi Kat. You can send me a clip for me to assess. Contact me through the contact form here: https://www.homebrewaudio.com/legal/contact/ or ken @ homebrewaudio dot com (trying to keep spelled-out emails away from scrapers :-)).