I recently spent some time (many many hours) listening to "Landmines," and "Ten Feet of Snow," by The Action Design. Besides great mics, pres, and studio gear, how do they get her to sound so clean and crisp without killing the higher freqs? I really am weak at vox mixing. The harmonics are just stellar. I have a Focusrite Saffire 56 and some higher-end plugs at my disposal (running Sonar 8 Pro). I have a female vocalist that sings in the same range and I would love to give her some of "The Action Designs" sheen.
Lee Rosario gave a great answer to which I completely agree.
I just want to point out that the answer is contained - or at least indicated - in your question (I LOVE when that happens
). I bold-faced the key phrase.
Harmonics of the kind you describe are captured, not created. One does not "mix" the harmonics. If anything, the MxE will mix to keep other stuff out f the way.
That said, there are a couple of things that can affect that aspect of a vox track; one would be the fact that there's often going to be some compression on the vox. The heavier (lower threshold or more makeup gain) the compression, the more the lesser-volume forments in the voice will be emphasized, potentially including higher-order harmonics and artifacts.
Second, and one that I loather to mention, but it is often a fact of life in the crap production values of commercial music in the 21st century, is the use of something like a BBE Maximizer to over-detail the higher freqs. For me, this is the aural equivalent of over-sharpening a photo in photoshop where things just start looking photoshopped and not like an actual photo. But for clients born after London Calling who have never heard any quality music production values on the radio for any worthwhile period of time, this artificial sheen sometimes passes as "clarity".
But it remains true that neither of these are going to truly sound any good at all unless the lion's share of the work was already done in the capture stage with a skilled performer in a sonically benevolent (or at least neutral) environment through a great mic and great preamp to either a great analog machine or great digital converter.
G.
