Vocal Mixing Tips

by Jason Johnston I have learned a lot from reading various books on the subject of recording. One such book is called "Behind the Glass - Top Record Producers tell how they craft the Hits". Below are some excerpts from top engineers/producers answering the question, "How to you get vocals to sit correctly in the mix?" "I ride the faders as I'm recording; when the guy is singing the vocal, I don't just sit there and listen to him. I'm feeling the emotions in my fingers, so to speak. When he's down, I'm pushing him up so I can hear every single syllable." Mike Clink (Guns N' roses, Sammy Hagar, Triumph, Whitesnake) "You just have to keep wrestling with it. Vocals are usually the trickiest thing..I usually start by putting the vocal up dry and see if I can shape it around the music...it's all about creating space; you only have so much 2, 3, 4 kHz that you can fit on a record before curling everybody's eyebrows. So instead of stacking it up, I'll try to dip some out and see if I can fit it in there, frequency-wise. A lot of people who haven't been doing this a long time, the first thing they'll do is start reaching for delays and reverbs and all that kind of stuff, but that's missing the point. You want to shape it so the music is sitting around it and the vocal is telling the story like it should, so it's in the right place. And then if you want to add something to it to put it in a space, go ahead, but you have to shape it first." Ed Cherney (Bonnie Raitt, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan) "Compression will help, and don't ever be afraid of putting the vocal too high in the mix. Sure, there's a point where it's ridiculous - I've heard some people put it too high - but you've got to hear every word, and what you should do is ask someone not involved in the production if they can hear every word." Tony Visconti (David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Thin Lizzy) "Take different microphones to try out until you find the one you want..just sing in all of them, and try them out. I set them up in an array where the singer can quickly move from one microphone to the next, and it's pretty quick - it's not a painstaking process for the singer or the producer/engineer to identify the microphone that really works best for the vocalist. The microphone is the place to start..." Chuck Ainlay (Vince Gill, Dixie Chicks, Trisha Yearwood, George Strait) Use these tips as a guide, but remember the best advice is to experiment - try everything and anything to get that great vocal sound. Just don't forget the first key to mixing in the vocals is recording them well in the first place.