Denver Recording Studio

Continuing from my last post about stacking vocals, it is now time to process them with compression.

To start, I must say that there are tons of ways to mix vocals based on infinite amounts of subjective tastes, so this posting is merely a sign post to get you going. Moreover, these general ideas will make your vocals sound better, or at least take them in a new direction.

Personally, I LOVE the sound of a little compressor overdrive with hints of distortion, so I like to really juice the LA-2A input and squash the lead vocals anywhere between 6 and 12 db. I allow the signal to run hard through the compressor and take the volume down to sit it in the mix. For the main back-up, I will squash this vocal even more to sort of, dull the sound so that is does not interfere with the lead’s sharp character, but rather sits under it smoothly. For this back-up, I crank the reduction until the compressor sounds like it’s pumping too hard, then I back off a bit.

After compressing the vocals, I will do some EQing, DeEssing, etc. to taste and then continue on to my final step. Note, I don’t usually EQ before my compression unless I am trying to use the compressor to over-squash an unwanted signal - i.e. sibilance.

Once the vocals are stacked, aligned and processed to your liking, the final step is to create a stereo audio track to record all of the vocals into. By doing this, the vocal composite exists on one track and you can save valuable DSP by making the single vocal tracks inactive, or by bypassing their plug-ins. This final step eliminates clutter, saves DSP and makes playback easier to control.

I hope this gets you started in the right direction.

— Mike with the Mic

CCM Recording Studios

Broken Tongues Music = Awesome.

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