Lead vocal not sitting right

  • Thread starter Thread starter BillC15
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BillC15

BillC15

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I thought there was a forum dedicated to sharing mixes but I couldn't find it, so sorry if this is the wrong place.

I've been working on this album for a while, and every vocal on it has the same awkward quality in the mix. It's just not sitting right. I have a generous amount of compression going into an very mild high shelf eq at 4k pushing only about 0.6db and from there to a de-esser and a limiter. I've experimented with delays and reverbs, and there is both on this track, but the vocal still seems almost too present, yet it's still not that bright. Also keep in mind that I have no monitors, so maybe I'm just hearing things, and that the drums were recorded with all sm57s and a beta52 on the kick.

Here's one of the songs I'm working on that demonstrates what I'm talking about: http://www.mediafire.com/?j80i222nkugkz9s

So let me know if you have any ideas and/or feedback, because I can't make the best judgments using my computer speakers.
 
It sounds too thin and too far back, if you ask me. Add some meat and bring her forward a bit.
 
You have a compressor going to EQ to a de-esser AND a limiter and top it all off you've got both reverb and delay? :confused:

Strip all that crap off. Start with some compression and EQ. Add a slight bit of reverb so her voice matches better with the room sound of the piano and drums.
 
Snare in mix is a bit to harsh as well...snare is mixed well...it needs some softening up though...a tape saturation plug would absorb some of the high harshness...also a mix of reverb and delays on snare may soften it up a bit as well.

Everything else sounds decent enough except for vocals and the snare hit is a bit harsh to the ears.

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Can you post a WAV file of mix without vocals and then post the vocal Stem...I want to see if I can mix the vocals to sound better.

I will aslo need bpm/tempo of song.

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I like the song and I think I can get it to sound better...If I can get vocals to sound better I can perhaps help you do the same.

Recently Ive stopped Eq'ing vocals and Ive almost stopped compressing them as well...I may use slight compression if the highs and lows are brutal or if one part of vocal gets really harsh or loud however Im learning that an automatic comp and eq isnt really the key to a good sounding vocal...if vocal sounds good already then dont mess with it by eq'ing it (except for highpassing some lows)...leave it natural and compress sligtly if needed.
 
Might want to try mixing everything else around her vocal instead of getting her vocal to "sit in the mix".
 
Vincent, thanks so much for offering to work with with this! I really appreciate it.

Here are the files:
Dry vocal: http://www.mediafire.com/?e7gk983ae2bgbt1
Mix without stereo bus limiter: http://www.mediafire.com/?n10vdex1oj10231
Mix with stereo bus limiter: http://www.mediafire.com/?jckbizo4xabogch

The tempo of the song is 160bmp. I gave you both the un-altered mix and the one where I stuck a waves L2 on the stereo bus. You'll probably notice some timing issues with the drums that I haven't gotten to yet if you haven't noticed already. If you back up the vocal track and the mix track to the very beginning of your project it should line itself up. Also, these vocals are all just one take, I have two takes to make a composite track from that I haven't done yet.

So let me know if anything didn't upload properly. Have at it!
 
FunkDaddy said:
You have a compressor going to EQ to a de-esser AND a limiter and top it all off you've got both reverb and delay? :confused:

Strip all that crap off. Start with some compression and EQ. Add a slight bit of reverb so her voice matches better with the room sound of the piano and drums.
Click to expand...

Well the reverb and delay are pretty subtle in the mix and are on separate sends. But I guess I need some eq advice for this situation, because I can't get it to sound right with or without reverb.

RRuskin:

I did thin it out a bit because I listened to a rough mix in a car of a different song on the album with similar eq treatment and it seemed to be a little heavy on the low mids, so I scooped a bit out ever so slightly at about 350HZ. Of course, I had no idea how the system eq in the car was set, and I was in the back seat, so now that you say this I can be confident that I really don't need to scoop anything out of the low mids.
 
I did a quick mix with vocals

Vocals still need some EQ tweaking...these vocals do need eq...the singing is excellent but the recording isnt the best quality.

I slightly compressed and eq'd vocals

Then I did a whole split harmoning thing on vocals...also did the verb and two delay trick with verb.


I use the bus technique when mixing...Its a bit complicated however its easy to do once you have the directions to do it.

What DAW are you using to Mix...I using reaper.

Overall it sounds better however the vocals still need eq tweaking and the delays and verb can be adjusted to your individual taste when you do a mix.

There is a weird click noise at the 3:59 mark...not sure what that is...perhaps something odd happened during mix down or I forgot to turn down volume on an effect during automation...just ignore that for now.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?id=25598
 
Thanks a lot man, the vocals don't seem to be jumping out as badly as they were before. I was wondering about that split harmonizing technique... is that when you duplicate the track twice it pull on down by a few cents and one up by a few cents and then pan them opposite ways?

Also, that click probably happened when I was transferring my raw drum wave files from my computer to my external hard drive. Almost every song has at least two weird clicks, and sometimes I put off going in to find and delete them, so I forget they're there after listening to the song several times, so thanks for the heads up.

I'm using Cubase 5, but I have the waves mercury plugin pack which is a huge help.
 
My mix was a quick mix (10 minute mix)...I can definately still improve upon what I already have...I can make the vocals a bit more wet with verb and try different verbs,delays and change some of the modulation delay on the harmonizer.

I tend to not use to much delay and verb however It can be adjusted to your liking...I prefer not really hearing the verb or delays very much but its obvious they are there because vocal sits better in mix.

This is a tough vocal sep to work with however you can definately improve upon it.

There is something really upfront about the sep...like there is no room verb at all or something like that however if you spend some time on it I think it can get where you want it.

I will PM you some details to start with.
 
You could always investigate the HAAS effect ;)

I had a similar issue once and wasn't seen for days!

You might try panning a vocal split hard L/R then set up two mono delays and pan them as well so they overlap. i.e left vocal sent to right delay etc.
 
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