Mixing Vocals

[Rukas]

Assassin, I was hoping you could give us all your advice on mixing vocals, I mean from the very beginning.

I assume you use Pro Tools right? Well how do you go about recording an artist and then mixing them in, what is the process? Do you use back up layers? If so do you filter them as well, pan them, leave them as is or what? Do you lower them? Etc etc.

Just speak on it I see a lot of production talk in here but nothing for us Mic fiends!

 

[Hymnz]

im not very wise on the topic
lets see what the king has to say..

 

[assassin]

Great Question Rukas,This is the most vital part to make your project sound great.First off when recording vocals make sure you are recording it dry in protools unless you have a pre-amp such as a tube warmer eq.etc.If you have and external piece running through your mic of such make sure your happy with the quality going into protools because you can't manipulate it later.That's why i recommend recording dry unless you are a wizard and know 100% for sure it's a wrap on your sonics of vocals.Secondly after recording vocals in Protools set your plugins on the vocal track and add the magic.Make sure after recording vocals to add a limiter or gate, Protools has tons of these to choose from the dynamics tab .Compression is also a need if your vocals are recorded and they sound like the vocalist was not at a steady output,this will smooth it all up at one level.Up next is your effects i tend to use a little verb but not much in the mix, laid back and use echo only on keypoints of the main rap usually on Overdubs on keywords if needed.Vocalist sometimes double their whole verse and it adds an effect already making it sound fatter,but then again some voices only sound good on a single layer depends on range and pitch of voice.Usually higher pitch voices dont need to be layered as much.Tupac use to double most of all his verses then do adlibs over then all on keypoints.After all is done and recorded next is to eq your acapella to desired sound.There is no way to tell you the right equing ond settings because everybodys tone is different.For instance low midtone sounding voices need that 2khz eq on them and low monotone need that 16khz eq to them,all voices have there own special eq to bring out the best in them.Play around with the eq until you bring out the best in there vocal!
(Hope this helped some of you MicFiends out there while recording with pro-tools or gave a tip to anyone on any other app.)

 

[Rukas]

Assassin I have a question, it what order do you think we should put our plugins in Pro Tools?

I mean I generally run a limiter, a compressor, a desser and a light verb, (ill list what plug ins I use when I get to the studio cant remember the order I use off the top of my head), what order do you think is best, or does it matter?


Also, sometimes if I fuck up a verse 8 bars in or 10 bars in, Ill play it back and jump back in on a different track, usually overlappy 2 bars and then cut the overlap out. Most of the time this works fine, but sometimes there is a visible difference in the sound, can I do something to smooth this?

I almost get the feeling sometimes that my voice sounds different verse to verse, while small, its noticiable for me. I guess its a matter of how I perform it, but I would like to minimize this as much as possible, opinion?

 

[assassin]

I have found that the order does not matter,however it can get tricky. As long as you don't get mixed up with using and tweeking the plugins after they are set then going back to tweeking after set it becomes diffulcult.The reason why it becomes diffulcult is because you're hearing all the effects at once.Make sure you have your order how u preferably like it.I usually start with Comp.Limiters first then verbs last.Compression will smooth the punch-ins if noticeable,overlapping and doing it and it not being noticeable has alot to do with getting the volumes exactly the same and keeping the same energy and tone in your voice, when overlapping your punch ins.Opinion on performance wise happens sometimes with different moods.Make sure when you record your vocals u stay in that mood and record vocals that same day.My opinion and advice is to learn your vocal as much as possible by heart then drop them.Usually i have the artist drop a ruff track vocal, even if it might be a winner take it home learn it more then redrop.That solves the feeling of the song and puts more texture to the vocals to be smooth and less punch ins which is awesome.And also keeps the same mood of all verses throughout the whole song.~DJ KING ASSASSIN

 

[Hymnz]

this is probably the most i have ever learnt from a streethop thread. good work guys! i need to learn this shit because i plan on setting up a booth soon. any suggestions on mics (<US$500)?
i really don't want to spend the maximum so somewhere inbetween would be nice. but if there's a mic that is really packs a punch/ dollar, then a higher number can be considered, like if its really on another level or something... how many times you have to replace mics? hopefully never but i'm not so sure!
but i don't need any help on the booth, i have plenty of info to setup one in the corner of my room with superb acoustics (as best as you can get in a 4ft squared space!).

help me out king or rukas... reps are in order but not like you need them...

 

[Rukas]

^^ Check out the Rode microphone series.