Mixing techniques for Cool Edit Pro 2.0(or other versions)

[Atillah]

I spend hours on end mixing the vocals with the instrumentals in cool pro, but in the end the results are the same....Either the instrumental or the vocal is too loud or soft and sounds very unprofessional.

Any techniques you guys use too solve this problem?(ex: instrumental at ?db : vocal at ?db)

Or maybe some compressor settings you use...

If the genre of music matters at all....I doing hip hop.



Any help greatly appreciated....Thanks in advance!!!

[Separated]

Hey!

I've had a problem similar to what your talking about. I mostly record heavy-rock music. But I've also done some softer stuff. Mainly with the softer music on the vocals, even after compression, some of the parts would be too loud. I don't know if it was because the singer was moving too much around the microphone, or just my inadequate experiece at using compression. I ended up having to go through the wave and cut the amplitude on certain parts of the vocals.

I haven't had these types of problems since then. There is no real formula for finding the "correct" levels for music and vocals. I guess as far as mixing goes, there is no right or wrong....just do what sounds right to you. I assume you are using compression on your vocals. Maybe tweaking the settings might help? I haven't handled any hip-hop material, but maybe you could find a web-site (there's bound to be one out there) about how engineers in this genre get thier sound. But, music is music.....and as I tell everyone, if you haven't joined CEP's own message board i would definitely do that! It's at http://www.syntrillium.com. Good luck!

-Chris-