The Top 3 Crucial Tips for Getting Professional Sounding Vocals
Every recording artist and engineer out there at one point or another has been through the harrowing, god-awful struggle of getting their vocals to sound professional. You step out of the recording booth and start adding effects on Logic Pro, Ableton, or whatever DAW you use, and after so many painful hours of listening to the same song over-and-over again, you take a step back and begin listening to what you think is the greatest mix of all time. But wait a minute….IT SOUNDS WORSE THAN IT DID BEFORE YOU STARTED! You soon come to realize that making a song is a lot harder than just stepping up to a microphone and hitting record. Well yeah, duh… But look, don’t get discouraged. Music and art itself are a unique field of work, as it consists of learning new material and techniques every day. After so many years of mixing and mastering music, I am still learning new bits and pieces of information to help grow my skills. Heck, I was able to teach my Grammy award winning mentors’ new information that even THEY didn’t know. Now, I am here to help you by sharing the top 3 tips that improved my vocal mixing exponentially to ensure the vocals sound professional.
#1. All, Hail Your Compressor
Waves CLA-76
If you are only allowed one piece of hardware and/or software to mix with, it should, without a doubt, be a compressor. The invention of the compressor to an audio geek is like the invention of the wheel to the rest of the world. Without it, getting from point A to point B would seem impossible. Compressors not only bring color, tone, thickness, warmth, and loudness to your mix overall, but it also evens out your vocals. Even with the greatest of vocal recordings, you are still going to hear a lot of dynamics within your vocal. There will be parts that get louder and parts that get quieter. Compressors are a great tool for getting your vocal to sit right in the middle of the beat with all the instruments working in unison around the vocal. Compressors can be a little tricky to learn, but I will go over them in depth in my next Blog. In the meantime, I highly suggest experimenting with the parameters of any compressor you have within your DAW and using your ears to listen to what your compressor is doing. Change the attack time, release, ratio, and threshold to hear exactly how the compressor is working.
#2. Just Remember the Basics
A soldier in combat is always told to just remember their training: remember the basics, and you will be fine. Remembering the basics of mixing is what is going to save you and allow you to thrive in your mixes. Those basics are EQ, compression, reverb, and delay. Those 4 things are all you really need and mastering them will get you sounding like a pro in no time. Every professional engineer knows that keeping a mix simple and strategic helps you succeed in this industry. First, EQs clean up your vocals by cutting out any harsh frequencies and are great for boosting frequencies that are too quiet. Remember, EQ means equalize - so don’t boost or cut any frequencies that don’t need to be. Make sure to constantly turn the EQ on and off so you can hear the changes that you make. Does it sound better or worse? One way of identifying harsh frequencies is the boost-and-sweep method, which you can google to learn more about. In addition, adding effects such as reverb and delay adds a sense of environment to your mix. Reverb and delay make your vocals sound like they were recorded in a certain space. You can make them sound like they were recorded in a bathroom, forest, cave, auditorium, or airplane. Every environment has its own unique reverb and delay, so play around with the settings within your reverb and delay plugins to see exactly what each parameter is doing. A quick and easy way is to scroll through the preset bank and select a preset that fits well with the feel of your song.
#3. Master the Art of Recording
Neumann U87 Ai
Before you even start thinking about mixing your vocals, you must know how you to perfect your vocal recording first. It is near impossible to get Drake sounding vocals without a high-quality recording. I have wasted time denying the fact that you need a good recording to get a good mix. Now, I’m not saying go out and spend $3,000 on a mic, $3,000 on an analog compressor, and $800 on an audio interface. Although, if you’re serious about making music and you’ve got the money to spend, be my guest, but that is not necessary to propel yourself further in your music career. The biggest factor, in my experience, is not investing in acoustic treatment for both recording and mixing. You should invest as much money as possible into acoustically treating your room as you would investing in recording/mixing equipment. If you are on a budget, I recommend getting foam to put up on your walls, or if you are willing to spend the money, acoustic panels. Another great piece of acoustic treatment is the Kaotica Eyeball. If you can’t treat your room, the Kaotica Eyeball, or knock-off versions like it, are great for getting rid of room noise as your vocal frequencies enter the microphone during the recording process. Above all, make sure to watch tutorials on how to get a good quality recording on a budget. Make sure to watch your levels going into the computer and that you are not clipping or distorting, because problems created in the recording stage cannot be fixed in the mixing stage.
