I don't think its possible for me to mix vocals

  • Thread starter Thread starter o0Charlie0o
  • Start date Start date
O

o0Charlie0o

New member


No matter what i try i can't make that vocal track sound like it fits into the music... I'm using cool edit pro 2.0 but will switch to whatever if needed... The vocals are recorded on a groove tubes gt-55 condensor through a mic-preamp

Argg, so frustrating... I've never gotten vocals to sound like they fit in.

Any suggestions would help... I know there are always a lot of topics on this, but I wanted to post one with a sample of my mix in it...
 
hey charlie... i think you and I migrated over here from guitar.com at the same time. i used the name flukeshot there, and i remember you were one of the four other people who would frequent the recording forum apart from me. kinda funny to see you here.

i have no advice to offer since i'll probably be asking the same questions in the mp3 clinic in a week's time. sorry!
 
Haha, yeah guitar.com is a little slow, and always has been so i came here a little while ago...
 
this place is twenty times more helpful than guitar.com could ever dream to be.
 
dont give up man! Actually that sounds like it fits well in todays mixing styles

if you think its getting " floating vocal syndrome", then look at behaviour. Try to match the dynamics of the vocal to the dynamics of the track, compressorwise. or do the EXACT opposite, push it up when the mix goes down and push it down when the mix goes up, filling holes
 
Doesn't sound too bad, maybe you could use a pop-filter too or something for your S'

Do you have the rest of that track somewhere? It was sounding pretty good, I'd like to hear the whole thing.

Don't really have much advise as to what you can do to fix the problem you're having as I'm new to home recording.
 
Sounds good to me also! Siblance control mite be necessary or incorporating a hi-pass filter to smooth out voc's
 
I don't think they sound that bad either. Do some side-by-side comparisons with a professionally recorded CD from the same genre with a similar singer and see if you can find what you're looking for.

Are you rolling off the lows with your mic? (I'm not familiar with GT) You might try keeping it flat - it'd probably give you some more meat (but end up being harder to work with mix-wise).

You could also try doubling the vox if you want them to jump out a bit more. It won't sound like the in-your-face Limp Bizkit doubled vox if you mix it right :D It'll definitely widen them up if you've got the tracks to spare.
 
i dont think you have a mixing problem.....the music track is really heavy and the vocal delivery is pretty mild......not that the vocal sounds bad.....its quite good....its just that the music has bigger balls.....

mix wise, the vocal level is pretty good in relation to the music.....the frequencies arent being masked by the music.....

maybe double the vocals?......maybe some verb?.....maybe thin out the guitars some to make it more compatable with the vocal?.......
 
Sorry, i've been out of town all weekend, i'll review some of these suggestions later tonight.
 
And tell me how did you mix the music. It's incredible... :cool:
A lot of post asking about these "Metallica" guitar sound things...
This one somehow sounds close to it. You could explain here...:)
 
I remember reading somewhere here that you should mix the music around the vocals, but I dunno. I'm a bit skeptical about that theory when it comes to metal and other more aggressive forms of music where the instruments play just as an important role as the vox. Besides, if the instruments already sound killer, you don't want to mess those up, right?
 
carving out space by using proper EQ is pretty essential to getting a vocal track to sit well......are you EQ'ing everything?
 
Nah i'm not eq-ing anything yet... But yeah i think i'll be trying that... Should i still eq anything in the music? Or just focus on eq-ing the vocals?


As for how i mixed the music, Everything is normal, except the guitar is layered panned hard left and right, where the right channel is .015 sec apart...
 
EQ maybe as a last resort - if you dont know what you're doing that is...

but you could always make a "save as..." copy and do some tests with the EQ...but i think the rest of the recording sounds pretty good for the style. drums real? they sound fake, but if they are real, damn nice. ha.

it DOES sound to me like your vox are floating in there too. I'd say just lower thier volume a bit, maybe add a TINY TINY bit of reverb. try to get it to fit in there.

otherwise, maybe re-record them - but tell the singer to pretend he's at a show, and really get him to sing it loud and powerful...turn his headphones up to 100000 and get him to bellow it - while still maintining good pitch that is.

hope that helps.
 
Charlie -- You have a great mic, I don't know what pre-amp you're using, but here's where I've had great success. I have a studio in Northeast PA, using Steinberg Cubase VST 5.1, and I run an AKG C 3000 through a Joe Meek British unit, through an
ART Digital In/Out unit. The ART unit is tube driven and has alot of good options for warming up the vocals. After you print the main track, copy another track and pan each track slightly off center. You will see a remarkable difference right away. You can then add different effects and EQ to each channel to really make the vocals stand out well. I record rock, metal, punk, and rap bands and have had success with this formula. Good luck !
 
"copy another track and pan each track slightly off center"


So you mean one slightly left and one slightly right?


I have a DBX 386 tube mic-preamp
 
o0Charlie0o said:
Nah i'm not eq-ing anything yet... But yeah i think i'll be trying that... Should i still eq anything in the music? Or just focus on eq-ing the vocals?
Click to expand...

i generally try to carve out room from the other tracks and keep the vocal with as little eq as possible
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top