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Make your vocals shine! (Part 2)

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.

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)

2. COMPRESSOR

Why ?

If there is an instrument that absolutely need compression, it’s vocal. In a rock band arrangement, there is no way a voice can compete with a banging drum, two electric distorted guitars and an overcompressed bass. The human voice is simply not dense enough. That’s the reason why we use compression in order to densify it.

How ?

The amount of compression will highly depend on the other instruments, but as a rule of thumb, should never exceed 6dB of gain reduction, preferably 4db. Beyond this point the vocal loses it’s liveness. For some musical genre, it might be appropriate though. A good example could be hip hop where all the other sounds are very loud and the vocals is expected to be upfront. A good free compressor that would do an excellent job is the marvelous Variety of sound Density MkIII reviewed early on this blog. I also like the Kjaerhus classic one. The good thing with compressor is that you can find a bunch of them for free on the internet. Few of them are good, but still.

Depending on the musical genre, the real challenge will be the selection of the compressor. For some application, it is great to have a rich in harmonic sound in the voice, for other it’s better if it’s clear and transparent. Like most of the decision we make in the studio, it’s better to settle down a bit, think about what we want before trying anything.  An example of very transparent compressor will be the elysia or the waves C1, while a LA-2A or an Altec 436C will be more colored. Now it has been discontinued but, back then, if you wanted to design your compressor by yourself the Kjaerhus Audio Golden Compressor offered all the feature one needed.

And what elssssssse?

De-essing ! I think that it is the appropriate step to add the deesseing. If you have no idea what it is, it’s like a limiter that you apply only on the high frequency range in order the control the annoying “s” sound. Just a little comment: don’t push it to hard, the treatment must be there but transparent. You don’t want to lose the air in the voice with the esses!

Variety of sound – Density MKIII

163 thoughts on “Make your vocals shine! (Part 2)”

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