Where do you guys start out finding space in a mix for Vocals, both aggressive and sung? If you could go into EQ cutting/boosting, compression, reverb, anything pertaining to this, i would be very appreciative.
making room for vox in a mix
- Thread starter Eyes_of_the_Betrayer
- Start date
ArtisanBass
I like a nice salad......
Torniojaws
They call me Juha
Here's what I found for EQing:
Vocals - Scoop at 240 hz. if muddy, boost at 4 k for presence, and anywhere above 8 k to brighten (sibilance is between 8 and 10 k).
Vocals - Scoop at 240 hz. if muddy, boost at 4 k for presence, and anywhere above 8 k to brighten (sibilance is between 8 and 10 k).
Torniojaws
They call me Juha
Not by any means The Way™ 
Torniojaws said:
Around 10-12KHz is mostly the breath noise, I don't add much unless it's a pretty quiet section. It's more useful on female voices I think. If your singer breathes heavily, you'll end up with lots of (possibly) unwanted "huh's" every time they breath in too. The really really high end, like 15KHz up can add some crispness (probably a fundamentals thing), but you have to balance it with the extra noise you'll get.
1-3KHz is where the nasal quality is - taking this down a bit can make a really nasal singer sound a bit more open.
Plosives (where you exhale a short burst of air, like with P's) can be reduced by cutting around 100Hz and below - you have to be careful not to affect the tone of the voice though. It's surprising how much you can affect the voice down that end of the spectrum.
And if you boost the fundamentals (obviously depends on the melody, but it'll be somewhere in the middle of all this), you can make the voice boom - this is what all the emo kids do on those long not-at-all-auto-tuned notes they're so fond of to make them really stand out.
Personally, I think the main thing to remember with vocals is not to eq them too much - you can't change how a singer sounds with an eq, so you just aim to emphasize the good qualities. Generally in metal, the guitars are scooped to some degree, so there's a bit of space to play with in the low-mids and mids. I find that sung vocals tend to fit in there quite nicely without too much playing around. Screams and grunts are pretty much a law unto themselves, but because of their nature I think you can get away with making them fit the music a bit, rather than the other way round. Just make sure they have a fair bit of presence.
Steve
I've found that during verses, pulling out a tiny bit of mid-range from the rhythm guitars can really help the vocals come through a bit. I like pretty mid-rangey guitars, and having a huge mid-range while the vocals are trying to come through too can make things a bit cluttered around there.
I do the same thing for some lead guitars too... rather than boosting the lead instrument, take a bit of a cut in the instruments backing them. That way you're not trying to blast the lead track over the top, you're just making a bit off room for it. Because the lead track you're making room for will fill that spot, the mix won't sound empty or anything.
I do the same thing for some lead guitars too... rather than boosting the lead instrument, take a bit of a cut in the instruments backing them. That way you're not trying to blast the lead track over the top, you're just making a bit off room for it. Because the lead track you're making room for will fill that spot, the mix won't sound empty or anything.
