Tips & Techniques:Vocal riding tips [mix] -from Mike Tarsia

a technique i have used for years entails riding the input to and output of the compressor

back in tape days we did this when tracking.. [during those days the purpose wsas 2 fold..1. don't over compress...2. keep the level to tape hot even in the soft spots to keep s/n ratio high] with the advent of DAW's, i devised a simple method to accomplish the same thing for not over compressing. this works especially well on very dynamic vocals and vocalist who tend to drop lower in level at the end of sentences

1 buss your uncompressed vocal audio track to an aux

2. insert a compressor in the aux

3. create an audio track whose input is the output of the aux and whose output is the mix buss and keep this audio track on input monitor

4. automate rides on the vocal track so your compressor is doing 3 average and no more than an ocassional 5 dB hit on the compressor

5. ride tails of words and soft spots up so they get some compression too [dont worry that the levels sound a little unatural at this point ..the next step will correct that]

6. automate and adjust the output of the aux track to smooth the vocal levels in reference to your music track

7. record a pass to the new audio track

now you will have a track that is very smooth and where everything [ soft and loud] gets some nice compression without over hitting the compressor and geting that unatural squashed sound on loud passages and no "glue" on the low parts

at this point the vocals should sit very well..an additional compressor can be inserted on this track if desired and/or you can now do those "taste" rides to give life to your mix