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How to make your vocals shine! (Part 1)

The importance of vocals

Except for instrumental music, vocals are the most prominent instrument of a mix. Some engineers say that if you’ve got the vocals right, you’ve got the mix right. Also, the term “song” would be inappropriate if the point wasn’t about “singing”. Interesting fact, the human ear is way more critical in about vocals than any other instrument. The reason is fairly simple, it’s the only instrument that everyone plays everyday. Futhermore, the human has a deeper feeling towards another human rather than any object. That’s the very same reason why they show human faces in product advertisements. Another interesting aspect of vocals is the lyrics. Currently, the vocals is still the only instrument that can put words on a song. This adds an other dimension to a song.

Enough talk, more tricks!

First thing first:

  1. Have a great song
  2. Have great lyrics
  3. Record it right: The performance must be flawless first.
Once you’ve got that, now we can talk about investing time in a proper mix. Every engineer has their own tricks, but this is a very good recipe: the optimal Vocal mixing algorithm.
  1. Cutting filters
  2. Compressor/De-esser
  3. Equalizer
  4. Exciter
  5. Spatial effects (Delays & Reverbs)

1. CUTTING FILTERS

Why ?

The best way to start is by removing unwanted frequencies and resonances. This will help to make the vocal track cut through the mix more easily. The idea here is to cut unwanted frequencies before the compressor and boosting others after. The reason why we are doing the equalization in two steps is simply to clean the signal in order to help the compressor doing it’s job.

How ?

First, start by removing everything under ~100 Hz and above ~20kHz (Of course, the cutting frequencies will depend of the singer, use you judgement). There are good chances you can also use a peak filter to cut around 700-800 Hz by few dB in order to remove nasal resonances. A good free equalizer to do this job would be the 1982art Gloria reviewed early on this very same blog.

1982Art – Gloria

That’s enough for this time. See you soon for the following…

136 thoughts on “How to make your vocals shine! (Part 1)”

  1. I feel that is one of the most important information for me. And i am satisfied studying your article. However want to statement on some normal things, The site taste is ideal, the articles is really nice : D. Just right process, cheers

    • Thank you for your comment! Unfortunately, there is very little in terms of blog about audio processing. However, there are some good forums where you can search for topics of your interests. KVR, Audiofanzine, GearSlutz are the main ones.

      Chris

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