Mixing rap vocals with beat

T

Talent52

New member
So, obviously i have a problem but i just wanted to know if my problem can be fixed. I have several beats that i have made and i am trying to record vocals over them. When i made the beats, i had no idea about panning or mixing, so the sounds are all pretty much right down the center. Now the good news is that every sound, including the drums have all been sampled from some professional recording....with that in mind, hopefully everything has already been panned, mixed and mastered??? Oh, by the way all the beats have been mixed down into a wav and brought in on one track, so there is no hope for changing anything now. Trial and error seems to be the response to most questions here, but is there a way to find where i can fit the vocals and then EQ from there???? If someone can tell me how, i can post any audio on here that will help with my situation.
Thanks!
 
so....................



are you having troubles recording your vocals onto a beat?



I didn't quite get the question in the first place, even after reading over it 3 times?
 
I have the beat mixed down and brought in on one track, recording vocals and doubling one 2 other tracks and now i am trying to get the beat and vocals to sound like they fit together. Either the beat drowns out the lyrics, the lyrics are too loud, or the beat is dominately panned one side and the vocals on the other.
 
Let's see ... for starters, you could try not mixing everything to mono, and not panning everything to one side.

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First of all, midlife crisis, i didnt post this to get into message board wars, i was looking for advice. If you want to spend your time belittling, why don't you try myspace.

Second of all, the beat is brought in stereo, so i have freedom to pan it how i please. What i was saying is that the beat has already been mixed down, so i do not have the freedom to pan each individual instrument.
 
how about this. Place your beat by itself, once, into some program like mp3 audio mixer, and then press record, then rap on the mic. hit stop, and your done. EQ it after etc.... Do that a hundred times, and you'll be ready to upgrade to something like mixcraft or like nature.
 
I think you're biggest problem right now is going to be the lack of high end equipment on your end. That's not a sarcastic remark, by the way. If you got your 'beats' from true 'professional' recordings, they are indeed mixed and mastered, albeit a mono .wav file from what you've said. Now, if you take a professionally recording, mixed, mastered 'beat' and try to sing/rap/speak whatever over it through a $50 mic plugged straight into a soundcard, your chances of that meshing together are pretty low....in my opinion.

Perhaps someone else can give you better advice on the subject. It sounds to me like glorified karaoke right now. Some reverb applied on both tracks could perhaps put it a little more together though.

Then again, what the hell do I know.

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maybe you shoulda posted it in the newbie's second, less hetic in there for you. Yeah you need better equipment if you want better sound. What kind of equipment do you have anyways? what kind of setup
 
Maybe an equipment list could of helped....i'm going from a shure condenser mic using the pre and phantom from a behringer mixer into a behringer rack compressor into an emu sound card and i am using sonar to record. The beat is just inserted onto one track in sonar and the vocals are being recorded directly underneath. Does this help at all???
 
Atleast tell us what mic you are using, and what you are plugging the mic into....then the question will become more apparent.
 
It's your set up connection's if your vocals are only recording on one channel, and the beat is still in stereo. If not, look into your sound card recording settings. I know that the 24/96 allows you to record either L or R, or both
 
The vocals are being recorded into separate channels, it is the sound that is the problem, i am just having a problem with fitting the vocals so they sound good with the beat. basically the beat was made and since nothing is tracked out, i cannot adjust the beat around the vocals. I want to get the vocals mixed with the beat without any instruments drowing the vocals out. I can EQ it but then i lose sound quality from the beat. i was merely trying to find out if there was an easy way to pan the vocals so they fit a little better and then EQ.
 
I think you'll be able to pan and eq everything to your heart's content....but again, low quality equipment on your end is not going to sound as good as a professional recording....and hence stand out.

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I see what you are trying to do dude. I had many a rapper bring in a disc of beats that were all panned center, and I had to fit vocals into it since he already bounced that mix and erased his beat session. Why don't you upload some stuff and let me hear it? I can give you some direction in this.

While it's true that your gear may not yield the sounds you truly want, I am willing to help you get closer. I am sure you already know what level of gear you have, you just want help mixing this, right?

What type of Shure mic is that?
 
You have enough equiptment to make it sound right... But you need to know how to make it work right. Try doubling your vocals and hard pan them. That could give you some stereo feel. Try mixing it down and then compressing the whole mix a little bit. That will help make the two sound a little more "together" and cohesive. But if you suck at using a compressor it will sound like ass sooo read up. Knowledge is the only way to be a decent engineer. So don't think anyone is going to give you the holly grail of mixing in here either.
 
Talent52 said:
First of all, midlife crisis, i didnt post this to get into message board wars, i was looking for advice. If you want to spend your time belittling, why don't you try myspace.

Second of all, the beat is brought in stereo, so i have freedom to pan it how i please. What i was saying is that the beat has already been mixed down, so i do not have the freedom to pan each individual instrument.
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Then you're screwed. Nobody here is going to be able to tell you how to fix it. You need to do what most of us do and figure it out. You'll eventually get it or give up. Chess always acts like this and it's basically because you're asking how to mix your song which is nearly an impossible question to answer unless we were sitting right there with you. If you're working with subpar material(in your case because it's all summed together) then your probably going to get a less than stellar song. My only tip would be to try different compressions on your vox, instumentals, and possibly master track. Have fun and if you need more tips try www.tweakheadz.com and read the guide.
 
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