mixing vocals and those damn guitars

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little guy

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i'm currently working with a female vocalist. we've recorded a song and i've been batteling trying to get the vocs to sit in the mix along with distorted guitars during the chorus. i have no problem getting them sit in with the acoustic guitar during the verses.

i've tried EQing to make room in the sonic spectrum for the vocals, the problem is it throws of the sound of the electric guitars when i notch out for the vocals. any tips????


(sorry if i lost you with my crappy explanation, but i think you'll get the idea)
 
Try a good amount of compression on the vocal.
 
Hard to say without hearing it or having the files to mess around with...but automation would be my #1 choice, particularly automating the eq on the guitars to get out of the way only when they need to. You could do volume automation. Or you could go more into the experimental range, trying such things as adding a little distortion to the vocal to give it some edge...maybe put the guitars through an additional amp to change the frequency "quality" leaving a different space for the vocal...
 
well if you want to hear what i'm talking about, in my signature there's a link the song i'm having trouble with during the chorus. i will be rerecording the electric guitar because i'm not too pleased with it's tone. but have a listen and let me know if you can give me some tips.
 
Your right about the guiatr tone. It sounds panned wrong. The vox sound like they are boosted when the dist comes in which makes the mix sound wrong.
Im thinking re track the guitar and double track and pan same each side or just have one guitar centred. Try losing some reverb on the vox at the dist parts.
 
during the chorus there are two guitars playing, an acoustic panned 30% Left and the distorted electric panned 30% Right. The vocals have the same reverb settings and EQ settings through out the song. The only thing that changes is I automated a volume envelope to boost the overall volume at the chorus, because well, don't most choruses get louder than verses???

i'm getting better at the mixing thing, but yet, i am still new to certain things, so any tips or suggestions i appreciate very much.
 
Well, I just gave it a listen and to me it sounds like it's mostly that the dist git is simply 2 or 3 dB too loud in reference to the vocals. The git has a lot of sustain volume in it whereas the vocals - by nature of both the relative dryness of the track recording and the vocalist's style - has a more arpeggiated sound with not a lot of sustain. This makes it much easier for the guitar to command the stage even if it's intrinsic volume does not appear to be that high. Bring the distorted git back a couple of dB. Optionally, you could possible dampen it with a little verb to push it behind the vocals a bit, but that may or may not be a good sound for the mix.

Also, the amount of envelope boost you are giving the choruses is extremely and consciously noticable, to the point of, IMHO, being far too much boost. I can distinctly hear the difference in the vocalist's volume to the point where it sounds more to me like the choruses were secondary takes that were punched in and the levels were poorly matched with the original tracking. Take off the envelope boost, at least until you get the relative mix between the vocals and the gits straightened out. Then at that point, let your ears decide whether or not the injection of the dist gits into the choruses is alone not enough to emphasize the choruses without having to do the artificial envelope boost trick. I think the arrangement change alone might be enough, or at least would try it to see before using any envelope boost which will serve to make the mastering process that much harder.

And if you do decide you still want to add some boost (that's your perrogative), add enough to make it effective without making it noticable. It's like salt on food and many forms of reverb, if you consciously notice its there, you've probably used too much. :)

G.
 
hey thanks for the tip, i'm definately going to give that a shot, what about the panning of my guitars, do you see any problems with that?
 
I aint sure about the panning as i said before. For the verses the acoustic guitar sound louder than the lead so because they are both panned to 30 this makes an inbalance from side to side. To get it more balanced i would double track the acoustic and pan equal both side, or if you cant retrack just simply copy and paste the track and then nudge one a tiny bit forward and pan equally each side. Now you can place your lead guitar either bang in the middle or if it sounds better pan to one side, no more than like 20 though.

For the choruses (heavy bits) double track the distorted guitar or copy and paste and nudge. and same with the acoustic.
Hope this helps with your balancing.
Nice tune by the way. Look forward to hearing it with a better dist guitar tone.
 
Well, I think that the panning may be more of a personal taste thing than a technical issue in this case; I personally don't think the panning of the git is a problem, and I think asthetically the pan sounds pretty good and the overall mix balance (other than what we already discussed, of course) is fine with the pans the way they are. But I'd also try ektronics ideas as well, you never know ;)

One other subjective observation - again just a personal one where others may rightly disagree: if it were my mix, I'd try some different reverb styles on the introductry guitar in the first few bars. For my ears anyway, the reverb used is a bit on the "spring-y" side that makes the overall sound of it sound more like an artifically applied reverb than a natural sound of a distant, spooky guitar (which BTW I think is a nice effect to use there). I might try something a bit warmer and/or larger for the verb there and not something that sounds quite so "metallic". Just an opinion.

But other than that, It's a very nice song with a nice basic mix that is well on it's way. :)

G.
 
THANKS! i really appreciate all the suggestions. in all honesty, i'm glad that this mix is giving me trouble. it's giving me the opportunity to learn new techniques and to learn more about sound and it's behavior.
i understand that each mix is a different animal, but i'm hoping that what i learn with this one will bleed into my other mixes thus making the mixing process smoother.
 
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