Trouble making chorus stand out

T

Turkeyoverlord

New member
What's the best way to make a chorus stand out? It's a song that goes from quiet verse to heavy chorus. I've added a compressor which makes the chorus less impactful but overall the compressor is nice for taming the peaks within each part. I've tried automating the volume down a notch in the verse and that sounds ok but was wondering what the text book tech is..
 
What really makes a chorus stand out is the instrumental arrangement.
If your song is well written and the parts are managed properly, it should just happen.

Look at it in parts. What make your chorus different from the verses, in terms of instruments?
 
Steenamaroo said:
What really makes a chorus stand out is the instrumental arrangement.
If your song is well written and the parts are managed properly, it should just happen.

Look at it in parts. What make your chorus different from the verses, in terms of instruments?
Click to expand...

Almost 100% of the time (I say almost as nothing is ever 100%), I will do a chord progression change. Verse, transition, chord progression change, chorus, transition, verse or maybe even a key change or what ever is working at the time.

Maybe the issue you are having is the difference between your verses and your chorus. There is no rule you have to have a chorus or that it has to stand out. Try it as you intend it and allow it to blend in. Maybe the repeat will be what makes it stand out. Post it when you get a rough cut. Just let us know you want us to focus on the structure of the song and not the mix. We might get the hint and even if we don't, if you like it, then it is correct.
 
If you listen to many new 'indie' songs, the chord pattern stays the same for all/most of the the song, and the only thing that defines a 'chorus' section is the repeated lyrics - so nothing to distinguish it, really, from the verses. I find these songs boring after 1 listen. A friend who does solo acoustic shows has backing tracks loaded into his looper for these, same pattern just repeats for the whole song, no changes needed. :rolleyes:
As already said, change the chord pattern, add an instrument, add harmonies. If the chorus is not 'standing out' the way you want it, you need to rethink how you wrote it and tracked it.
 
Well this song is a rock song with 2 guitars, bass, drums and vocals. I can't post links yet until 10 posts but only a couple left so will just post some junk in the next post and then I can link the soundcloud of it and show you what I mean :)

In rehearsal the chorus really pings out and sounds heavy and powerful but in the recording it seems a bit weak. See what you think.
 
man ..... you've got other problems than making the chorus stand out. First .... that's a pretty distorted recording overall and it sounds WAY compressed also to me ........ super loud.
And you can barely hear the vox ...... IMO you really need to back down those levels and/or the compression. It's kind of hard to really tell much about it to my ears because of the distortion.
 
Lt. Bob said:
man ..... you've got other problems than making the chorus stand out.
Click to expand...

+ 1 to the above. All the life has been squashed out of the mix.
It sounds like the chorus would bang in just fine if the levels/compressors were pulled back.

Separate thing but the snare doesn't sound good to me. It's all bottom, or at least it sounds like it is.
 
Steenamaroo said:
What really makes a chorus stand out is the instrumental arrangement.
If your song is well written and the parts are managed properly, it should just happen.
Click to expand...

100%.

A chorus should stand out without any tricks. Doesn't mean you can't use a trick or two to make it stand out even more, but you shouldn't NEED to. Writing, arrangement, and instrumentation should take you 99% of the way there.

If you're using a compressor to "tame peaks", you need to go back and see why those peaks need taming in the first place.
 
Steenamaroo said:
+ 1 to the above. All the life has been squashed out of the mix.
It sounds like the chorus would bang in just fine if the levels/compressors were pulled back.

Separate thing but the snare doesn't sound good to me. It's all bottom, or at least it sounds like it is.
Click to expand...

I quite like the snare (I did remove the bottom end on it) but yeah may have overdone the compression. I've tried to get the mix as loud as possible without it clipping as it's a rock number (one of our lighter ones but most of our stuff is pretty heavy rock).

I'm just not really able to make it ballsy but clean at the moment. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going wrong.

I've put up clean tracks from the song in 'mix this' section of the forum in case anyone fancies having a go at mixing this mess :)
 
Well all instruments are DIed and then I use guitar rig for the amp effects so yeah will just try some effects with less distortion. Cheers
 
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