Mixing Vocals to Sit Properly in the Mix - Warren Huart: Produce Like A Pro

Hi, it's Warren shoot here with produce like a pro dot com thank you ever so much for watching today we're going to talk about vocals now I've done quite a few different videos over the last few months since we've been running the channel vocals but I'm going to get into greater depth vocal mixing and show you all the little tricks I do so this is our comprehensive vocal mixing video and we're going to use a track called it all comes back around we just did a video on it and I did touch on the elements but I'm going a little slower and I'll talk about all the little details and did so please enjoy this and please ask millions of questions etc and I will go into as much detail as possible ok so let's get started ok so what we have here is the song comes back around it's a later Blair we feature a couple of her songs you know how to arrange series and I thought to this one just because it's it's a relatively simple production is only a couple of loop ideas that just some strings piano base and one stereo guitar idea so give us a lot of room to hear what I'm doing in the vocal so first of all this just talked about above the vocal has to feel present in the mix at all times I want to hear the vocal in a simple piano vocal so like this I need every inflection of her voice to come through this have a listen to the mix deference that's the first line and it's really in perfect but it's imperfect in a beautiful way you know she honestly had a little bit of a sore throat had been singing she had done and I often ask people you know what's one of the most famous vocals all time you know a lot of debate might be but one of the most famous people vocals courses twist and shout and twist and shout was the last song that John Lennon song after singing for 17 hours or 13 out whatever it was when they did their first album straight so he's got that shake up everybody identifies vinik oh my god is so passionate and he's ripping his voice and it's because he was at the end of a very long long day of singing 10 songs so his voice is really worn out and it just has that passion so I like keeping those kind of elements on my vocal com I deliberately chose that first line so for me the first thing I will say before we get into any details on number one thing is when you're comparing you know compiling the vocal find the moments that are not just in June or in time but have a lot of charisma we identify with the imperfections in the voice as much as we identify with the tuning and the timing so for me that is a great first light is just her and me playing little little bigger breasts at the end of that as well I love with us and it's a little kind of moments where you hit compression choking and bringing out the breasts a little much but you know what I like all of that it draws me in it makes me want to hear her vocal so up for that first all of this compression and EQ and effects of whatever the first thing I did was bring out different lines so here is the ultimate this is over the whole song you look in there is a ton of volume automation where when there's little lines that maybe this breaths and and the way that she phrases the end I want to exaggerate so I am sitting there and I'm automating the vocal so it's a it's a little bit harder work than just sitting down and sending direct voluminous compressing any cuing just that I'm actually pushing it first but I'm doing lots of things on this boat has vocals good because it shows a lot of different techniques will just concentrate on this first so you can see here the lines on those stronger and here it's weaker in the end so i'm i'm actually pushing the vocal there's a spare I love that so that between is kind of whispered and so here it is it's very straightforward you can see here where it's hitting the compression the hardest I pulled it down because all of this stuff is going into a vocal sup so now I've got another across it here there's a spare again listen there's a spare between so you know it's up to say bye DB's were for compression going once you hit it really hard there's a space between maybe six one point I do like the sale dalton has a lot of factors tried out there's a spare just as nice little there's a spare experts who is due it's doing just enough ok so what we've got some volume automation and then if you look here for instance has a line which is quite powerful is actually being cut down quite dramatically mix where the little fate and destiny so what we did on this line if we do mean just on this line he brought it down where it's going to heavily into my boss pushed it up here and then exaggerated this line at the end of the breath is mixed with a little faith in destiny you know and I wouldn't be afraid to go in and do this even maybe just a little bit see this area is pushed out a little bit better listen little faith in destiny the absolute bit maybe bring it down a little bit there's a subtle moves hopefully it comes across on you too little faith in destiny and the sending him we could even exaggerating a little more do this motion to bring it up here is a mix where the little faith in destiny now compression can do all of these thinks however each compressor has its own set out so you know I was talking in the phone comes back around video that how the great great engineers such as Bruce pop star Bruce would do this and all the great guys from the fifties and sixties would do these on fate of moves they would sit there would have a chart that we have all the lyrics written down and they would literally right and I've done it many times myself they would write down where the singer's pushing and pulling and before like sophisticated you know VCA compresses where compresses have much lower intact attack and release times like LA to his and Fairchild which sound wonderful but they don't have fast attack released hunt so they would do this manually they would sit there on the fader and they would sit there and they'd push and pull the vocal so it didn't restore and it kept the clean vocal all times going to take so this is us doing that this is reproducing and replicating it and the reason why I'm doing it on the vocal initially because I'm then going into a sub down here so I want to control how it's being compressed ok so even with all this vocal writing here I felt like I just wanted to pull back a little bit on the trip so I is there's a 1.7 GB pullback now the reason why did that is I don't want to send clipping signal from one plug into another you can end up with compression excedrin limiting sending a nice level signal to most of us and it doesn't look like it's coming at all but it still sounds right and aggressive that is because its property clipping 41 plug into another you don't want to send a clip signaling to impress and then have the compressor pull it down so it looks not cells that looks like it's not clipping it's important to send a signal for one plug into another that doesn't clip going into it because yessir compressible pull it down said that he out political pressures and clipping but the signal is gone in may have clipped hopefully that makes sense that's the that's a very important thing so I trim that down just to give myself some room now the next thing I'm using is a vocal rider which is actually a simulation of what we're doing what little fate and destiny say it's exaggerated mixed where the little fate and destiny you how great that is it doing a little bit more what I'm doing and you can control it from the top of the bomb the range you can have it do very small movements you can do very large but that's the next thing of my volume ultimate I just got this plugin is fantastic and it's exaggerating what I'm doing next week you I pulled out some of the Pew mid-range and 8:30 there's a base definition there there is you know the piano just felt like them all beating each other up mixed with a little faith and a stupid little nose and take it off the lid off a very full out that mixed where the little fate and destiny just a little tiny pull out that as a couple of DDB accuse kind of why dish you know and then there's a nice presents left here at seven k just to give it over the top and as gentle roll we don't need the super super lows in there but it's not a statement only 60 be enough to get some nice gentle oh I don't do really really aggressive low-pass filter high-pass filter worktop and I don't do that unless I've got like he's tough if you got like really dense EDM tracks and everything is massive and sometimes you have to sculpt but an organic natural analog instruments like vocals and acoustic guitars and basses and drums you won't see me do really aggressive high low pass your to media release soft gentle ones just so they sit in this if you treat them like a synthesizer your end up it'll end up sounding very harsh the only other time I've seen people do that maybe all heavy heavy rock guitars we might have to get aggressive on some of the super laws because it's messing in the way or otherwise use very gentle low and high possible ok next and most importantly now I did little presents boost which was on the vocal made it sound really beautiful I got delivered deaths in need lived in its little tired and tests just pulling out some of that exaggerate the mixed with little fate and destiny little faith in destiny so it's taking out the exaggerated s is because I just out of the seventh a so it's going to exaggerate a little bit but I want the air on the vocal old times but where it gets exaggerated and putting it back in about 60 little faith in destiny is a mixed where the little faith in destiny its subtle doing like two or three TVs with a reduction and then I went a little req and added just a little bit more top again I tend to do two or three EQ plugins and just shape it likely around the instance you can simulate it all with one however I've learned it's working lots of many great mixes Michael Brown for instance is obviously very well known for Coldplay and a bunch of other very successful acts will do multiple amounts of EQ and compression but doing little tiny amounts and that will give you a much more rounded and less processed signal and when you take one plugin huge amounts of eqn pull out huge amounts of Eq this is a very gentle presence lift again another mixed with destiny minutes and gentle little faith and destiny just a gentle amount of compression ratios any 2.2 so it's like shows is compressible running so little faith in destiny again another little bit of high boost followed by another DSi little faith in destiny and then deliver one more vocal rider mix where the little fade in deaths in me said that point movement is very subtle were talking like less than 23 GB of movement is keeping that vocal nice and consistency is dropping a piano against it just kept that vocal nice and consistent in in the front and you can do all of the vocal writing stuff manual if you don't have the plugin you can do you could do all of this all this vocal writing stuff here on our channel day in fact sometimes you know you can copy of vocal to mention download you stop doing that instead of using very harsh compression as you saw I was using little tiny bits of compression or putting a limit or anything like that across it I'm just using I'm doing more faded movement I'm doing mulgrew spot even though he was probably also using an ally to a child as well going in and then maybe in LA 2 a.m. if a child on a mix again using two or three compresses in 203 compresses on the out he still was using fight it gives you a little bit more control a little it means that when it in compressor is hitting it evenly so if we go back to our comp here watching test even right up to the very end even when the vocalist dropping down here it keeps a consistent 223 DB's worth of compression until it just get to the breadth of the very end so you know that was sending a nice even signaling talk impressive what bringing it forward great keep some vocal ever-present oK so it's taking piano out to second and see what else you got going on now I've got my vocal distortion sepia so what I'm doing so I'm using swype a DSR across it in the first place is because I don't want us to be super Hashem brought my distortion and then compressing the stick this is coming straight off lead vocals on same bus here 123 is sending to this as well so what compressing this is a little faded and deaths in need to match up and be controlling of another DSi mixed with a little faith in destiny a given signal so this listen to just doesn't release all up to the mall individual ok so here's just a distortion saw the last thing on it is the low side and a lo-fi plugging comes with Pro Tools I talked about this before another video but I explained to get why do I do this why do I do this with the distortion of the Arctic well first of all been doing a long time so families to be very effective but I work a lot with a guy called Jack Douglas and Jack produced obviously Aerosmith and a whole bunch of people but one of the tricks he did with john lennon's vocal is he would take a crowd noise of people cheering and he put it against John lens focal but he would get it to the lead vocal solo and John would like you know to imagine people and it's very low level and it's just a split level of excitement going on but it's gated to the vocal now that's a difficult trick to do I didn't have a great vocal you know simulation of a crowd going to assimilate it with the distortion to all it is is just energy behind a powerful hit a DSS and Accenture on it was just a little aggression just adds some aggression behind next up is all vocal octaves not literally as you see here in the middle an octave lower on the vocal super buried in a terrible dreadful sounds like Beelzebub it's very low against Justin give it somewhere just to make it feel just a little stronger of the two things together distortion and last but not least is the more polar head mistress gives us extra on the vote was all three together against the lead vocal best in me a little faith in deaths in need a 10 friend started vocal thickening track get the vocal thinking video for that and deaths in me and a fantastic thank you ever so much for watching a marvelous time please leave some questions and comments down below a lot of these tricks are used by a lot of great mixes I've borrowed them stolen we've swapped the ideas they are unique ways to make the vocal appear more breathy an open sounding more like a setup in judging mixing competition and you guys are doing an incredible job I cannot believe the quality of the work you know i i watch lot of videos on YouTube with different guys girls talking about you know they're mixing techniques and to be honest most of the stuff I've been getting is better it's just really fantastic working really hard and very very impressed so please leave questions leave comments that have a great discussion about this and please subscribe sign up for the email listed reproduce like a pro dot com and having a marvelous time record

Channel: Produce Like A Pro

Views: 1,058,382

Keywords: warren huart, produce like a pro, home studio, home recording, recording, audio, music production, record producer, recording studio, mixing vocals, vocals

Id: syudb_B1x_A

Length: 21min 42sec (1302 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/Fall_and_fixture]

Thanks for sharing!

[u/PJ_on_toast]

The entire video made me rethink my approach to vocals but this part dropped my jaw... I have much to learn lol.