Nasaly male singers' what's the fix??

First, avoid nasal mics like the U-87. Then shove a couple of ear plugs into the nostrils or use a clothes pin on the nose.

If that doesn't work, use a "Breath-rite" nasal strip on the noise, opening it up may lessen the honk.

I struggle with this constantly. I am harsh as hell in the 900-1khz and then the 2.5-3kHz range. I'm always digging that area out - just like Svart said. I'll use a narrow Q and sweep until I find the offending frequency, then maybe notch it out...I've also used multiband compression with success. Honestly, Shannon's mod did the most for that problem - just gave a smoother midrange on the mic. As you know Cowboy, my mic could prob have a little more top taken out, but I just didn't want to mess with success.

Don't overlook something very obvious, mic angle and position(height).

Sometimes it can be a little counter intuitive.

having the mic above or below the mouth, pointing slightly up or down, or even singing across the front of the mic (great for taming plosives if you have a spitter) can have a large effect on tonality.

its the first thing I would try before immediately reaching for EQ.

cheers

Wiz

I always tend to raise the mic above me and aim it angling down...don't know if that's "right"...just the way I've been doing it for the last couple of years. Think I read it on some forum somewhere.

Well, I think if you want to avoid nasal, that makes sense. If the nasal stuff is actually coming from the nose. Which it may or may not be. But just from a physics standpoint the nostrils do exhale down. Stick your hand six inches out in front of your face  (nose or eye level and move down) and breathe out through your nose. You don't feel it in front of your nose - not really until your hand is in front of your mouth. So, sticking a mic up around nose level and pointing it back at your mouth probably avoids a lot of the nasal - despite what the positioning looks like.

I've also heard the theory that positioning it lower and looking up will get nasty stuff off the hard palate and you don't want that. Personally, my own voice is so abominable that I don't think it much matters. For you dudes that can sing though - whole nuther kettle of fish. 

Cheers,
Geoff

I always make the singers sing a little upwards by placing the capsule about nose level. This makes them point their heads a little and open up the vocal box a bit more. Better tone this way.

This is probably the most difficult thing that I deal with when mixing live at the club. Some singers just have a thin voice. When they sound thin or honky, I usually swap in a Heil PR35 instead of a 58 or a Sennheiser, which helps beef and smooth, but usually that's not enough. Any other live mic suggestions to add a bit of beef and smooth the honk?

Just put a rapper and a really bad truck-n-bro-country lyric along with the most generic band around him and call it a day.

R

This is my setup on my own voice, Ward.  Sing over the top slightly but angle it down instead of up, like I'm trying to hit the top of the capsule at an angle.  Works pretty good.

I've learned that as much as you can shape and EQ vocals in the mix, a person's vocal timbre isn't something that you can necessarily change. It's sometimes best to try to make all the other vox and instruments work WITH the nasally voice. Smashing Pumpkins does a great job of it. Not a fan of nasally voices (no offense Johnkenn!) but the Pumpkins make it work.

when u say in his chest are we talking the mic in standard position but at a level that the artists lips are in line with the very top of the capsule? This mic placement topic needs a thread of its own