Mixing Vocals – What to Do?
Do These Four Things
Vocals are the focal point of each and every mix, like it or not. It’s safe to say mixing them is pretty crucial. How should you approach mixing vocals? What actually are done to them? What kind of plugins should you use and in what order? Watch the video and get answers to all of these questions:
Mixing vocals doesn’t have to be that hard. These four things in this order are used pretty much every time. All these mixing processing types have their own jobs to do.
The first thing is EQ. it makes the vocal sound better and makes sure the vocal sits nicely on top of the mix. This is where most of the listeners will focus on after all. In this video I go deeper on how to use EQ when mixing vocals.
The second step is compression. Compression makes the vocals more even and bring in some energy and life. Click here to find a more in depth video of compressing vocals.
In the signal chain before compression, you want to use de-esser to deal with the excess sibilance. It’s before compression, because compression makes the sibilance more obvious and audible. For this reason, dealing the sibilance before compression makes sense.
The fourth and the final thing is saturation. It is used to get some analog-style warmth, color and fullness to the vocals that is lacking due the digital recording.
These four steps are all you need most of the time. To get most out of these tips, I want you to put all you learn in practice right away in your own projects.
Hopefully you found this post helpful. If there’s anything you want me to cover in the future videos let me know. Send me an email or leave a comment below. Ask if there’s anything unclear or if I left something out. Cheers!
