Mixing hiphop vocals to a 2 track instrumental

[Chantry Frank]

When mixing hiphop vocals to a 2 track instrumental is there any additional plugins enginers use in a mix besides de-es, eq or compression? Also would you use plugins within the master fader and why?

[albee1952]

2 considerations. Re the vocal, this is entirely dependent on what the track sounds like. My typical plugin chain is:
slot A open(in case I need Melodyne for tuning)
slot B-EQ III 7 band set for hi-pass around 140Hz and MAYBE some gentle cuts if I hear any problem frequencies
slot C-BF76 set for gentle compression
slot D-SMACK! for more compression and some character
slot E-Waves Puigtech for "air"
slot F- Waves Renn De-ess(automated for bypass except for the actual spots that need help).

Send A- feeds a stereo AUX track with reverb(usually IK Classik Plate)
Send B- feeds a stereo AUX with Echoboy(if needed)

On to the 2 track, is it "mastered" already? If so, I will probably do nothing to it. In this case, I would route the vocal(w/effects) thru an AUX and apply some "mastering" before combining it with the music(basically, mastering the vocal before it joins the mastered music). If the music track has no mastering already, then decide if you will send the mix to an ME(in which case, do nothing on the master track) or if you are self-mastering, my suggestion is to keep it simple. High-pass at 32Hz and some limiting(Waves L2 is my choice but there are plenty of others) to get levels up(and finally dither if your session is 24 bit and you are going for a 16 bit final bounce).

Having said all this, this is just my method. The only rules is; there are no rules. Make it sound the way you want. In any case, do not allow the master track to clip

[simon.a.billington]

Far be it for me to suggest you spend extra cash, but a tool to consider would be the Vocal Rider, or something similar.

You can have it transparently balance out the vocal levels, but you can also feed it a sidechain of the mix so it can help keep the vocals automatically from being drowned out by the mix. It might be more handy to put last in the chain in this instance.

The other handy tool would be a multiband eq/compressor with a sidechain. The C6 would be one example, but isn't the only thing out there. Place whatever the music bed and chain it to the vocals and every time they go off you can have the multiband chisel out any clashing frequencies. As soon as the vocals stop the music will naturally expand back into that frequency space filling it out again.

Since rapped vocals can be quite percussive you may need 2 compressors, or a compressor and a limiter to handle both the percussive transients and lift up the over energy of the vocals.

[waltz mastering]

Originally Posted by Chantry Frank

When mixing hiphop vocals to a 2 track instrumental is there any additional plugins engineers use in a mix besides de-es, eq or compression? Also would you use plugins within the master fader and why?

Those 3 processors will be the basics and get you most of the way there, but if you were going to try mastering the song from the 2 bus, I'd consider, opening a new session for the mastering and importing the mix with headroom, as mastering from the 2 bus is sorta getting you into bad habits as none of the records in your collection were done that way. gl