Hey!

I’ve just responded to a forum post on Audiofanzine.fr where the guy was completely desperate about mixing his rap vocals (http://fr.audiofanzine.com/techniques-du-son/forums/t.537530,au-secours-s-v-p,post.7463643.html) The guy didn’t have bad gear, not at all in fact. He has a Neumann microphone, a very decent preamp, but couldn’t get a good sound out of it.

As I always says, gear by itself is not making things sounding better, sound engineers do.

Having mixed rap vocals for a while now, the answer seems very clear to my mind. But, I have to remember to myself that it is far from being trivial at all. So, since he might not be the first one to struggle with it, and you might not speak french, I decided to post an equivalent answer here:

Here are some guidelines from which you can start, and then tweak for your specific case:

Compression:

First, rap vocals are recorded relatively close to the microphones, in order to get the “proximity effect” that is usually unwanted for vocals.

Rap vocals need strong RMS-based compression. For this, I would go with an opto compressor (such as La-2a or tubetech CL-1B, free plugin: ThrillseekerLA available on Variety of sound http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/thrillseekerla-released-today/). Apply a 4-5 db of gain reduction at a ratio of 3:1. Here again, we’re trying to accentuate the feeling of proximity of the voice.

Equalization:
Low cut: 100Hz
-2db at 800Hz
+ 1-2db at 1.2kHz
high shelf + 1-2 db starting at 4kHz.

This equalization will make sure to remove the muddy noise of voice (800, under 100) while bringing some shine to it (1.2kHz, 4kHz).

If your compressor is not an emulation, it can also be interesting to add an exciter to the chain, but make sure it is subtle (enhancing, not degrading).

As I mentioned, those are guidelines, you might need to tweak them a bit to perfectly suit your needs. Interestingly, those settings are very similar to what I would use on pretty much any kind of vocal, except, of course,  the close miking technique.

Good luck with that, my friends,

Chris