Setting the vocals into mix silky and smooth

[dvincent]

Hi everyone - I need to put on vocal tracks to an electronica/rock song - kind of Evanescence meets Pink Floyd meets Ace of Base-type song. Does anyone have any ideas for seating the vocals in with a real nice kind of reverby-dreamy-silkyness? My Pro-tools engineer doesnt seem to know how to get this silkyness. thanks for any ideas. D

 

[scrubs]

How were the vocals recorded? Mics, pres, converters, etc.? Most of the sound is going to come from the recording itself. Some light compression (3:1 or less with a relatively quick attack) will give the track some punch and In general, too much reverb will push the vocal further back. Adjust the predelay to prevent the vocal from getting washed out in the reverb. A tiny amount of distortion/tube sound may bring it forward and give it some fullness. Tiny bits of chorus can be used, but I don't like chorus on a lead vocal. Small EQ boosts and cuts can be made as well. Consider cutting some frequencies from other tracks that share similar sonic space with the lead vocal.

 

[RAMI]

I'm not going to pretend that this is THE answer, but it is something I discovered recently. I'm sure the more experienced people her will have more precise and better advice, but I too had the same problem with having a nice wet vocal sound that also still managed to be up front enough. THIS ARTICLE made my vocal sound and mixes improve by leaps and bounds. Read it all, but especially the fourth paragraph "The Motown 1960's Exciting Compressor". Like I said, this is probably old hat to the more experienced people here, but it did help me alot.

 

[ecktronic]

Cheers for the article link RAMI. Good stuff especially the bit about using two vocal tracks. I have used the Aural exciter and loved it. It broughtc rispness and presence and warmth to the vocals. They stood out alot better and were easier to mix in to get the "in the mix" sound rather than the "placed ontop of the mix" sound.
So what i gather from this article is that using one track with no compression and some verb along with the second track compressed to hell and back and the EQ boosted to death and back is pretty much the same idea as the Aural exciter.
Im gonna try this technique out, but Im gonna choose to compress the first track a bit so the dynamics arent out of control. Might even try retrackig through a guitar or keyboard amp and placing under the mix.

 

[RAMI]

What I found works for me is to compress the first track a bit, like you said. On the second track, I compress alot more, boost 5k a few db maybe, but I don't boost the highs quite as much as they suggest, but that's just me. It might work for you, though. It seems that they're saying that's pretty much what the aural exciter does.

 

[ecktronic]

Nice one RAMI, do you apply ANY EQ to the first track? Im thinking that i would do a bit of EQ on the first track by maybe boosting the higs to get some air maybe and maybe boosting some los for some balls.