Basic vocal chain
Vocal mixing can be compared to cooking. To get a good result, there are a few things to consider. In this article we want to go into the basic editing steps in vocal mixing.
Perfect vocals – what does that mean?
In order to achieve the best results during subsequent vocal processing, the recording's quality crucially important. As with cooking, quality matters all ingredients about the end result. Indispensable for good raw quality of yours vocal recordings is and remains that room acoustics. If the room is too small, acoustically not sufficiently optimized or you have positioned the microphone in the wrong place, this can lead to a poor or blurred overall sound. The reason for this are reflections of the sound that occurs at the Recording vocals and is reflected by the surrounding walls and/or furniture. These reflections can cause the voice recording to sound muddy or musty.
Other important factors for a good vocal recording include: Microphone, the cabling and the converterthat record your voice. So if you want to fundamentally improve the quality of your vocals, you should first acoustically optimize the room and choose a suitable microphone for your voice. The better and more resolving the microphone is, the more important the room acoustics become.
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Vocal EQ and Editing – Cleaning up the recording
In edit we our recorded vocals. Here we cut out the prelude before the actual recording, as well as all pops and noise. Alternatively, you can also enter here Vocal gate Use as long as there is no noise sufficient distance to the main signal. This is the only way the gate can work properly.
After editing the recorded audio tracks, you should now tonal correction of the individual notes and segments. A good program for this is Melodyne, for example. This should be a purely tonal correction of the intonation. On creative effects like Auto tune you should avoid this step. When it comes to vocal tuning, this step involves first correcting odd tones.
We put one as the first insert effect in the vocal track Equalizer, by using one Low Cut set the slope to a maximum of 12 dB per octave (it simply sounds more natural) and set this approximately between 90 and 120 Hz a. This allows us to filter out any impact noise or similar low-frequency noises from our recording.
Now we filter with narrowband notch filters disturbing and disharmonious resonance frequencies (Tutorial on filtering resonance frequencies) and anything that, to our liking, worsens the sound. If we have several resonance frequencies right next to each other or a very broadband interference frequency, for example in the range of 500 Hz, you should definitely try Reduce Q factorto reduce the interference frequencies to be reduced across the board (this often sounds much more musical than many narrow-band reductions). The tuning from the previous step takes on additional meaning here, as the resonance frequencies can change again due to the pitch correction of the intonation. If you were to perform pitch correction after correcting the resonance frequencies, other frequencies could become problematic.
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Compress vocals – add pressure to recordings that are too lax
Depending on the recording and intended use, you should use one in the next step compressors use. This is intended to serve that purpose Dynamic range To limit your intake as much as possible, you are the one desired pressure in your recording and the recording sounds as homogeneous as possible.
Per tip: Use one before the compressor Vocal Riders in order to compensate for existing level jumps using volume automation that the Vocal Rider carries out for you. This ensures that the subsequent compression will be significantly lower and the signal will be significantly more powerful natural sound characteristics retains.
Shaping Vocal Sound – Musical Equalizer
After you compress the signal, the next step is the equalizer. Here we speak of musical equalizing. With this equalizer you can now increase the frequencies, that you want to emphasize or that should sound different.
The following generally applies when using an equalizer: If you want something to sound better, lower it. If you want something to sound different, raise it.
In most cases, now is the time to use one DeEssers or optionally a dynamic equalizer or one Multiband compressor. Whether you use the DeEsser before or after compression cannot be specifically determined, but you should always try it out. which result sounds better to you.
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Vocal Effects – Creative editing of your vocals
Now you can create creative effects like Reverb, delay, saturation or use other effects of your choice. Creative sound effects such as autotune can also be used.
If you have several vocal tracks in your project, it is recommended to combine them into one Vocal bus or one Vocal group to route. Here you can use further compression to glue all the voices together, the so-called "glue". Creative effects such as reverb and delay can also be used here.
If you want to change the sound of your entire vocal track a little, for example, use another equalizer to raise or lower frequencies.
Per tip:
Whenever you use a plugin, make sure that that input and output levels are identical. This is the only way you can objectively compare whether the signal actually sounds better with or without your processing.
