August 2, 2024
Vocal Mixing: Essential Tips and Tricks for Professional Sounding Tracks
Sam Kearney
Times have changed since my first experience tracking on a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. When I first discovered my passion for music, I never thought about being a mix engineer; I just assumed I’d play guitar in a band, write songs, play gigs, and hopefully one day end up in a recording studio. Lucky enough, I was able to do all those things. But we live in a different world now–a world where everyone has the equivalent of a multi-million dollar studio on their laptops and even some pretty impressive apps on their phones. Musicians have never had more creative control than they do today. With that control comes skills and abilities that go beyond learning an instrument.
Vocals are typically the centerpiece of a track. The human voice varies widely in range, tone, and timbre, and these variables all need to be considered to showcase your vocal tracks in the best possible light. Achieving a perfect vocal sound and making vocals sound professional are crucial in this process. Various techniques and tools, such as autotune, reverb, and plugins like Nectar 4, can help enhance vocals to meet industry standards and create a polished final product. This article will explore different techniques to help your vocal tracks sit right where you need them.
Setting The Foundation: Essential Tools for Vocal Mixing
After you’ve written a great song, recorded all the instruments, and tracked an inspiring vocal performance, it’s time to put on your mixing engineer hat (beanies that cover your ears aren’t recommended). When it comes to mixing vocals, there are a standard set of tools used to address traditional issues that commonly arise with vocalists. A typical vocal chain usually consists of EQ and compression, but other tools like de-essing, reverb, and creative vocal effects can be deployed to help fine-tune the vocal to blend seamlessly with the overall vibe and direction of your track. The vocal mixing chain is essential as it includes various processing elements like reverb and delay plugins, which contribute to achieving polished and professional vocal sounds. The vocal chain order can vary–some people prefer EQ before compression, while others choose compression before EQ. Experimenting with both methods can help you determine what works best for your specific track.
Compression is a crucial tool in vocal mixing, helping to control the dynamic range of the performance. Gain reduction plays a significant role in leveling vocal tracks while maintaining dynamic integrity, ensuring a polished sound without sacrificing clarity or introducing artifacts. By carefully adjusting the compressor settings, you can achieve a consistent vocal level that sits well within the mix.
Sculpting the Perfect Sound with Equalization
Finding the perfect EQ curve for your vocal track involves dealing with many variables. Timbre can change by a person’s gender and vocal approach, and the type of microphone used is also a significant factor. Cheaper microphones often accentuate the top end, potentially imparting a shrill and harsh character even on the most talented of singers. However, we live in a golden age of recording equipment manufacturing, and companies like Warm Audio produce affordable microphones that impart a complementary tone at a reasonable price. It should also be noted that many top singers in the world still prefer singing into affordable workhorse microphones like the Shure SM57, even when given the option of using vintage German mics.
The basic foundation of using EQ is to remove any unwanted frequencies and enhance desirable ones. Vocal EQ is crucial in refining and enhancing vocal tracks by cutting unwanted frequencies and boosting others for better clarity and presence. One of the best vocal plugins for EQ is the FabFilter Pro-Q3, which offers a great visualizer to help track down offensive peaks and rumble.
Crafting Your Vocal EQ Strategy
Applying a High-Pass Filter: Low-end rumble is common when recording. It might be caused by a car passing by or the vibration of the mic stand from footsteps or tapping. Typically, anything below 80-100 Hz will be unnecessary information that only muddies a track. Experiment with applying a high-pass filter in this range, removing any audio that doesn’t take away from the basic low-end tone of the singer.
Removing Mud: Another culprit of potential muddy build-up can exist in the 150-350 Hz range. Experiment with cutting, but take care not to overdo it, as this can also be a source of body and power.
Enhancing Clarity: Understanding the lyrical message is crucial to a successful vocal mix. Boosting 2.5-5 kHz can enhance the intelligibility of words, but use caution as this area can also be prone to increasing harshness.
Adding Top-End Sheen: After addressing all the core frequencies points, the final move is often applying a sense of “air” to the ultra-high end of the spectrum, usually between 8-15 kHz. A gentle boost in this range can provide a nice and polished finishing touch to the vocal tone.
Before diving into these specific EQ strategies, it's important to consider vocal comping. Vocal comping is essential in selecting and merging the best segments from multiple vocal takes into a single polished track, ensuring all vocal elements are synchronized effectively.
Taming Dynamics: The Art of Compression
Compression controls the dynamic range of a vocal and helps a track cut through a mix. Essentially, compression makes the quieter parts louder and the louder parts quieter, evening out a performance so it can occupy a more consistent level. Compressing the lead vocal is crucial to achieving a balanced sound within a mix. Traditional compressors used on vocals can often vary in control options, but two of the most used vocal compressors are the Teletronix LA-2A and the Urei 1176. The Teletronix LA-2A, invented in the early 1960’s, has several plugin iterations. Its simple design includes only two knobs: Peak-Reduction and Gain Control. Using a compressor like the LA-2A can be a great starting point for those new to compression. The Urei 1176 Peak Limiter, a descendant of the LA-2A, expands on control possibilities, offering ratio options, attack and release time, as well as input and output level knobs.
Since many modern compressors now include similar control options to the 1176, I will use those controls as my foundation.
Ratio: Start with a 4:1 ratio where only the peaks are being compressed.
Attack and Release: A slower attack time will preserve the natural transients of the performance. The release should be set to ensure a smooth recovery between vocal phrases.
Make-up Gain: Applying compression can cause a drop in volume to the original signal. Therefore, use the Make-up Gain or Output knob to raise the track to the appropriate level.
Additional Processing Tools and Vocal Effects: Reverb and Delay
After finding a good balance of compression and EQ, additional tools may be needed to complete an ideal vocal sound.
De-Esser: A de-esser is a tool used to control sibilance, the hissing sound produced by words with “sh” or “s.” These harsh sounds can cut through a mix like nails on a chalkboard and need to be tamed to avoid unwanted distraction to the listener. I’ve had great luck with both FabFilter Pro-DS and OekSound Soothe. Addressing unwanted noise in vocal recordings is also crucial to achieve a clean and professional sound.
Delay: Using a delay effect on your vocal can create an increased sense of depth and space. Experiment with both a slapback (quick delay) and a longer eighth-note delay for various levels of vocal expansion. Soundtoys EchoBoy offers a wide variety of delay styles worth exploring.
Reverb: Like delay, adding reverb to a vocal can create a more expansive sound. Take care not to overdo it, as adding too much reverb can make things “soupy” and harder to understand the lyrics. Valhalla VintageVerb is a great affordable and high-quality option to experiment with.
Saturation: Using saturation plugins like SoundToys Decapitator or tape emulators like the UAD Studer A800 can increase warmth and richness. Overdoing saturation can impart harshness, but finding the right amount can be magic. Various audio processing techniques are essential to enhance vocal recordings and achieve professional-sounding tracks.
Mixing with AI Vocal Models: A Streamlined Approach
Using an AI voice model requires the same careful consideration as hiring a session vocalist. At Kits.ai, our voices are ethically trained with incredible singers from around the world, ensuring top-notch quality. When incorporating an AI model into your track, keep in mind that some processing and treatment may have already been applied. This means any additional EQ and compression should be handled with a subtle touch. Additionally, refining and processing vocal recording is crucial to achieve a polished final product, including techniques like pitch correction, vocal comping, and de-essing.
Kits.ai has also streamlined the production process by offering effects such as EQ, compression, reverb, and delay directly during the conversion process. Here’s how it works:
Select “Convert.”
Upload your vocal stem.
Choose the voice model you’d like to use.
Open the “Settings” tab to access a wide array of production tools.
By simplifying these steps, Kits.ai allows you to focus more on creativity and less on technicalities, making the integration of AI vocal models into your music seamless and efficient.
Final Thoughts: Patience and Practice Make Perfect
Like any new skill, improving your mixing ability takes time and practice. It’s important to remember that every song will likely vary in the required approach. The vocal mixing process is a crucial aspect of achieving high-quality vocal recordings in music production. Through patience and dedication, your ears will guide you, and your mixes will shine.
-SK
Sam Kearney is a composer, producer and sound designer based in Evergreen, CO.
