mixing vocals

[daeron80]

For decades, almost everyone compressed vocals on the way to tape. If any de-essing was done, it was done after that first round of compression. Anyway, if you de-ess before you compress, you'll have a bunch of esses that were missed because they were too low in level. In the end, it's whatever works, and different singers require different approaches.

[cdavis6406]

True but they indicated that it was heavey with essssssssing ssssssssso.............

But yea I sometimes compress a little going in the box, and sometimes a desser in the sig path but im use to my compressors/de-sesser's sound like and know what theyre going to do to the sig. sometimes ill send the vox back through the de-esser after the recording passes and fine tune it. Several if not many diff ways. But if its essing real bad ill general take care of the heavey stuff first.

And yea a vocalist with good mic habits is a god send. And the ones that are horrible do require extra attention, unfortunately.

[Julia B]

I go through a hardware compressor/limiter and a parametric EQ on the way to the DAW. Basically here's my recording process, and it's probably more complicated than needed, but since it's digital, it's easier.

I cheat on the can mix a little because I have trouble hearing (I'm going deaf in my right ear) -- high quality digital hearing aids are like $5000 out of pocket no insurance coverage on them -- so I'll record a scratch vocal with my phrasing, then record a throw away "melody track" using a VI to help me with pitch since no instrument is playing melody during vox.

* mic > compressor/limiter > parametric EQ > DAW (loop record)
* make comp track
* use Melodyne on the comp track just to touch up.
* bus that to another track.
* add second round of compression + second round of EQ and add air (high pass filter at 180 Hz -- I'm a contralto: range D3 - F5)
* when that's sounding good print to copy playlist
* de-ess as described earlier.
* duplicate the vox track and add a mono/stereo delay (panned -70/70) 100% wet @ -15 db and reverb to taste to add depth.
* make every track not used inactive
* remix the instruments with the vox until it sounds good an balanced.

no need to double, or anything like that. I'm doing old jazz standards.

[ericlees]

really nice info @Julia
i finally finish that project....the solution? i've re-arrange the song, the band finally accepted my help and one of the problems were that the melody was out of her vocal range, then i recorded using a bluebird mic through a profire 2626 and compressed it using an api 527 as insert and then track it inside pt, then i choose the ssl e channel as eq and comp again, and the a mcdsp de esser, then i made a parallel comp and add a rvb on that channel, made a balance between the two, and works flawless!

took me a lot of time...and money....but finally i made a great sounding vocals...

[AdamPT8]

One little 'secret' that I use is to create an AUX track, or duplicate the audio track.

On the AUX/dup insert an EQ and high pass up to something between 7-10k and then boost a bit at about 12, literally to the point it sounds horrible, then add a compressor and squash the shit out of it, something like 20db gain reduction.

At this point it should be hurting your ears.

Blend this back in with the original track and it will give it so much more presence and it will sound a lot better just doing that, like you used a much more expensive mic