What tricks do you employ to get a vocal to jump out the speakers in a mix?

[Matchless35]

+1, great question.

[Tony Maserati]

Originally Posted by Beastie

Hi Tony,

Massive Respect....

What tricks do you employ to get a lead vocal to jump out the speakers in a mix?

What is your process with vocals at mix stage generally?

Thanks for you time....

Cheers

Hey Beast,
I use quite a number of 'tricks' for vocals. Depending on the genre of music I'm working with. If it's a Jason Mraz kind of song, my main goal is to enhance and showcase his performance, I tend to stick with a pretty normal analog sounding thing; Neve eq, to a Chandler TG1, with maybe some slight de-essing.

As far as effects, his stuff would either be bone dry or with a slight room. For that I'd use either a convolution verb such as Waves IR or Altiverb or one of my 'old' digital verbs like PCM 70 or Yamaha Rev1. I've also been using the ReVibe plug in on a 'Spring' reverb setting and closing in the stereo image a bit.

If it's a full on pop vocal. Level is all important. Lately I've been using some of the outboard analog things with a Waves L3MultiMax on it. That keeps the energy up throughout the song. For these types of songs, I'll use lots of different things depending on the section and overall direction of the section. i.e. the verse may be dry and the b-sec may need some delays going to a verb so I'll 'ride' those in 'to taste'.

In fact I do a lot of riding of effect sends to keep the vocal in yer face as much as possible.

....and don't forget to sculp out a 'hole' for the vocals in the track...

hope that helps,
t