Help Leveling Vocals

[Djkwame301]

are you mixing the vocals to an instrumental of other instruments u have recorded?

[Stackx]

Search! This gets talked about once a week around here. Not saying I don't want to help you but there's a tremendous amounts of info in those threads that will tell you everything you would ever want to know.

[3windy1city2]

Yup to a complete instrumental.

[TigerD313]

From what I can tell it seems like you can't get the vocals to sit "inside" the mix so you turn them up and then they just seem to overpower the mix

when this happens you probably have some other instruments in the same frequency as you vocals you need to either turn those down or cut the frequencies that are clashing with the vocals, then boost the frequency of those same frequencies in you vocals..

do a lil of that and they should start to cut through more, and add some compression if you haven't all ready

[Colin McCabe]

Try some M/S techniques to maybe do a slight cut on the stereo track so the vocals fit.

[CJ Mastering]

You already have the tools. Its just a matter of how fast you learn how to use your tools. Every song will need different effects and thnigs done to it in order for it to sound right and in order for the voclas to sit in the song just right.

Get some books on mixing and if you can, have a mixing engineer in your area mentor you/internship. This is a good path on learning the art of mixing.

Cj

[3windy1city2]

Thank you all

[Formula]

Originally Posted by TigerD313

From what I can tell it seems like you can't get the vocals to sit "inside" the mix so you turn them up and then they just seem to overpower the mix

when this happens you probably have some other instruments in the same frequency as you vocals you need to either turn those down or cut the frequencies that are clashing with the vocals, then boost the frequency of those same frequencies in you vocals..

do a lil of that and they should start to cut through more, and add some compression if you haven't all ready

SECOND THAT! Only thing I would add is to make sure you dont cut too much out of the instrumental. It will take away quick since it is already mixed and mastered seperately. Take your time eqing and keep bypassing to make sure you didn't go to far.

Another quick thing you could try that will help to get them to sit in the mix better...

This is a general thing and don't recomend it for all applications. Duplicate your lead vocal twice. Pan one hard left and the other hard right. Boost the highs dramatically, but not too much on the one. Same to other but go for the lows/mids. Compress very hard. Pull volume all the way down and mute everything else but your 3 vocals. Then take those 2 'BG' vocals and very slightly pull them off exact sync with your lead. One a hair later than the lead, the other 2 hairs later than the lead. Now pull the volume up just until you can hear them behind your lead, or until you get the desired effect.

Doesn't work all the time, or even most the time, but it seems that for a very full and upfront instrumental it seems to work.


Good Luck.