Bringing up your vocals in a mix (short tutorial)

[na_th_an]

Vocals are probably the hardest thing to make "sound good" in a mix, specially if the mix isn't precisely sparse. Specially in rock music: the electric guitar (specially clean) falls in the same main range and it's a win or lose matter.

When several tracks have to "fight for space" in the mix, there's several things you can do:

- Use panning. Moving an offending track to one of the sides makes room in the center for vocals. This works fairly good, but is not enough most of the time.
- Make them fit!

To make things fit, the trick is the EQ. Sounds are made by many frequencies, but not every frequency is "important". What we have to do is enhace the important frequencies and trim the non important, so we create more space in the mix to add more stuff.

If you only use the recorder, and specially if you recorder is small (think of the MBR or the BR-80), I strongly advise you to create your mixes in the computer. There's plenty of free software to do this, and the results are quite good in comparison with what you can achieve with the recorder alone. Audacity is free and all you have to do is export your tracks individually (with the suited tool) and then import them in Audacity.

You need a parametric equalizer. Most DAWs have one and there are plenty of free ones. A parametric equalizer looks this way:


To bring up your vocals there are no rules, but this helps:

• Do a steep cut of low frequencies. For vocals, nothing below 80Hz should sound. I mean cut this completely. It usually contains unaudible rubbish which brings up the level but offers nothing. (Highpass 12db/Oct)
• Main information is in the 400Hz to 1200Hz area for most vocals. A small bost with a wide "Q" (the with of the bell-like adjustement) will increase the volume in a clearer way than just pulling up the track volume slider. If you have to fight against guitars (specially electric clean guitars), doing exactly the opposite in guitar tracks also helps making room for the vocals. But be gentle
• Articulations are way higher in frequency, from 4000Hz and even 5000Hz. A very thin enhacement around 4.5K brings up the consonants and articulations. If a listener claims he can't understand your lyrics, it means that the vocals need more presence.

I usually make these adjustements, then tweak (each voice is different, so you'll have to tweak!):


Next thing you should do is using a de-esser. A de-esser is a processor which helps you limiting those nasty "S"s. I use this one, which is free: Spitfish. Just ramp up the controls until the S's are audible but not disturbing.

This usually works

Almost done! Now add some compression. Compression helps you level up your vocals, attenuating the dynamic range. Compression is a whole topic so you better read about it to understand how it works.

Hope this help. Ask away if you need further assistance.

[launched]

This is a very good tutorial!

And the plugins are good too - DigitalFishPhones compression is excellent "Knob Oriented" stuff.

And EasyQ looks good - I use the now free BlueCat Audio, which is very similar.

Thanks, great offering!

[Burtog]

This looks good but I still struggle knowing what to tweak. There is EQ settings on the BR800 and you have a setting for High - mid -low and a frequency for each one to adjust, so which one would i adjust on. OR do i just reduce the db on the frequencies which are not required.

EQing makes my head spin.

[na_th_an]

EQ can be quite confusing - I find the usual low/mid/high basic equalizers quite lacking as they are usually very limited in what you can achieve. They are OK for live performances (when found in mixing boards) and simple arrangements when recording your songs, though.

If you have the ability of manually centering each band and adjusting its width, it's enough and you can follow this tutorial, but most low/mid/high EQs work with fixed values and quite wide "Q"s (the width of the bell of frequencies the parameter affects to).

Lowering the "low" would trim important frequencies, and raising the high would bring up unwanted noise. I really can't work them out. Maybe somebody more used to work with this kind of controls would offer some insight. Anyways, I'd try gently lowering "low" and gently rising "high" on vocal tracks, and gently lowering "mid" on guitar tracks. And if available (I don't know the BR800), try to record everything but bass and drums with a lower end cut (high pass above 40Hz).

That's why I mix and master in my computer. Multitrack recorders are a joy to record your music, but mixing and mastering is another story.

[Hilary]

Oh this is really interesting thanks - I just bump up the mid eq on the BR80 toggle switch but will give it a go in Audacity and see how I get on. 

[dragonshade]

Please forgive me as I am new to vocals with my MicroBR... you mean export the raw wav for the vocals into the computer to mix it down, and compress, then import back into the BR??

[na_th_an]

You could do that, of course, but I'd rather export everything and do the full final mix in the PC. There are several free DAWs which are easy to work with once you get used to them. At first, you will just import every track, apply some EQ, move levels, and mix down - but step by step you'll find yourself doing more "pro" stuff.

It may sound intimidating, but I strongly advice to use the computer for mixing and mastering instead of the BR. The BR is *perfect* for recording, but weak when it comes to mixing.

Besides, there's an interesting pro about this approach: you are not required to bounce your tracks to find more space. I've done tons of tracks on the BR just recording a guide track to T1V1 first, and then using that guide track to record as many tracks as needed in T2, T3 and T4. 3*8 = 24 tracks. When you are done, you export everything to WAV and mix it in your computer.

I haven't used the free Audicity program, but when I have the time I'll give it a go and write a full tutorial explaining the easiest, most straight-forward way to use your recorder to lay down tracks and your computer to mix and master them.

[Bluesberry]

Very good information here, thanks for sharing.

[AndyR]

Yep, all good stuff - kind of how I've ended up approaching it.

But, if you haven't heard of it, I also use the "Exciting Compressor" technique:

http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

I could never get my rock vocal to cut through a mix and also sit nicely (not too loud) in the band... until I found that article. I do a lot less to the original lead vocal track nowadays.

You need two copies of the vocal (I used to do this mixing on an MBR, stereo band mix on 3/4, lead vocal and lead vocal copy on tracks 1 and 2, so it is possible )

Track 1 is the "natural" vocal - very little eq, very little compression (mebbe light limiting if it wasn't when tracked), as much reverb/whatever as you want. Set this to the "right" level in the mix - IE not too loud(!).

Track 2 is the "exciting compressed" vocal - first compress the cr@p out of it (INF:1), and then add a sh1tload of top-end. I have two ways I might "add top-end" it a) Boost (shelf) EQ above 5KHz or so, +10 db at least, and cut EQ below 250Hz or so, -10 db at least. b) The other way is to actually hit the frequencies that matter on the vocal - I tend to hit 5KHz with a Q of 1.0 nowadays - this is where vocal "presence" is. 7KHz is good too - but it's where the Ss are. 10KHz is good for light brightness. Again, big boosts on these - we're not being subtle, remember this track is compressed to hell.

You bring track 2 up to "taste" and your vocal keeps it's natural character as you recorded it but it jumps out of the mix like you are sat next to the singer without obscuring any of the rest of the mix. It kicks the vocals through lush mixes and guitar heavy mixes - it even allows you to lower the vocal and therefore get the whole mix louder.


I've also found recently that you can apply the same trick to other stuff - eg DRUMS!!!. There's a trick called the "New York Compressor". NY studios started doing this to drums in the late 70s apparently. It's basically the same motown trick. In this case, on the compressed copy of the drums, you boost the frequencies you want (Q1.4 or so). On the one I'm working on I hit 80Hz for the kick, and 400Hz for the snare. I can't remember whether I did anything at 7KHz for hardness on the cymbals.

Again, bring the compressed track up to taste, and listen to that drummer kicking some serious @rse

It lets you get a big punchy drum sound without having to raise the drums too much - and (might be my imagination) it seems to make the BR1600's digital drums sound a lot more natural.


Final last tip on vox - 3KHz (Q1.0) is where the "breath" is. If you've got backing vox and you want the lead distinct from them, slight boost at 3K on the lead, cut 3K on the bvox mix - all fits together much nicer then.



Remember though, all this stuff is just guidelines and other people's experience. I initially used stuff like this as "recipes" - but now I experiment and twiddle the settings. Like Nathan says, every vocal is different. I have basic settings I reach for as a starting point (ALWAYS listen to the track first without any eq and compression though - it might not actually need it!), but they usually need some sort of tweaking to get it nice...

[na_th_an]

Interesting. I will read your post slowly and try this technique.