Mixing Your Background Vocals Pro Technique

yo yo what's going on joshua taught in raw form and welcome to another help me davon tutorial and today in this help me devon tutorial i'll be showing you guys some pro tips on mixing your background vocals now this song that i'm about to show you right now is one of my own songs it's called popular let's take a listen to the background vocals [Music] [Music] okay so that's the song as far as the background vocals you can hear that that background vocal really complements that lead vocal it's a support it's not too overpowering but it's just enough and it's a great bed for the lead vocal to be supported by now before we go any further i'm going to ask you guys to comment like subscribe also make sure at any time in the tutorial you can visit helpmedivan.com to get some of our templates vocal chains and presets to help support this channel now back to the tutorial now what i'm going to do is i'm going to break this down into individual steps what i'm going to do is and first and foremost is i'm going to let you listen to these background vocals for how they stand so let's listen to the background vocals in solo so you can get an idea of what they sound like check this out go here solo this listen to these background vocals [Music] so you could hear them they're not absolutely perfect but it's basically a four-part harmony what do i mean when i say four-part harmony basically it's sets of two that are singles that are all together so basically these two right here which let me just take this off these two right here are their own note so listen closely to this watch [Music] and then this other set is its own cadence as well and so these four part harmonies in sets of two are blended together to create that harmony now for some of you you knew that and some of you just getting into the harmony stuff this is just some information for you so the first thing i'm going to show you guys as far as mixing this kind of stuff is how to attack the individual tracks themselves so of course there's a group thing that we're gonna do as far as how we attack it but there's also or more importantly there's a single way that you can attack each track first before you start doing any heavy heavy processing i'll show you exactly what that means so now we're going to go to the actual tracks and i'm going to move on over to here so right here when i say the individual tracks i mean mid od1 and mid od2 if you don't know what that means it means mid over dub one mid over dub two so this is my mid part of my harmony and this is the individual track that it actually resides on now as you can see there's an nls channel there's an auto tune there's an rvox and a set in a cla 76 now will i explain to you is this what i like to do with the individual tracks before there's any other processing that goes after it is i like to basically get that thing tight think about it like this when you're in a the large format kind of studios and stuff like that or just have the blessing to have a lot of equipment a lot of times what you do is you'll compress those vocals in now the benefit of compressing those vocals in is that you get a more concise vocal one that isn't so quiet and loud and dynamic but more or less tighter so what am i gonna do i'm going to try and make sure that i compress those vocals individually first before i send them to any bus routing to actually do any processing because instead of having the left one that i'm panning um uh that very quiet and the right one really loud now i have a sound that's more cohesive between the both of them because i've compressed them both so it just helps with your dynamics a little bit it's as far as my experience and compressing both of those uh uh or the individual background tracks so that they're more cohesive so that when you actually do some group processing it's a lot better and it's a little bit more cohesive and tighter okay stay with me i'll explain that group processing later down the line so let's focus on this one single place right here and the biggest takeaway what i'll show you is the auto tune and the auto tune basically i set it the same way that i set up my uh my lead vocal so as you can see i have a re-two speed of 11 put it on legato i've learned that legato just sounds a little bit better as far as if you're looking for a more natural sounding auto-tune sound and i have my human eyes at 18 just to clean it up just a little bit and that's it as far as my auto tune is concerned now my arbox my rvox is literally doing no processing whatsoever the only thing it's doing is it's gating the only thing i'm using this rbox for is to use it as a gate so check this out it's just helping me with tucking it as soon as it goes off so i can get rid of any noise or background information that comes through when there's no vocal present this helps me a lot with avoiding build up as far as that between the vocals so i don't want so much of that buildup of any room noise because my room isn't as perfect and i'm sure a lot of our rooms aren't perfect and it helps me just kind of tame that down as it's in between those phrases of silence got me cool so now what's really doing the heavy lifting is this plug-in right here and this is in a cla 76 and basically what i'm using this for is i'm using this to get a little bit of volume and just maybe compressing just slightly now granted i will warn you of this you may not see so much compression on this vocal right now and the reason why is because it's such a straight sound it's not really something that is dynamic that has cadences it's really straight so really what i was looking for was a little bit more volume as opposed to more compression this is how you make better compression decisions when you're looking at compression or when you're looking to do any compression at all really you're doing it to to bring the disparity between the loudest sound and the quietest sound closer together so if you have a sound that's what's really the difference between the quieter sound and the loudest sound there really isn't much difference so do i need a ton of compression no because really there's no difference between the quietest sound and the loudest sound in between as far as that uh particular phrase is concerned and that's basically what my harmonies were we're just oozing off so i don't even have much compression on this just more or less a volume boost so check this out so let's take a look at what the compressor is doing got it now what i'm gonna do is this and you can see that's really not even compressing much so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna take i'm gonna take both of the compressors off i'll play it without and i'll play it with so this is without the compressors this is me taking off all the processing [Music] now let's put both of them back on [Music] do you notice that i get a little bit more just volume out of the sheer phrase and like i said i didn't need much compression or didn't want to do too much compression because it's just a single phrase i didn't have this dynamic ooh it was just straight and don't make fun of me so that's why you don't see much compression you just see more or less a volume boost from the cla 76 as far as a compressor on the individual bus track all right the next thing i'm going to explain to you in this next step is called the routing and would i say the routing what do i mean well if you come on over here and you look at my session you'll notice this you'll notice that for every two background vocals there's a bus that comes right after it so basically high od 1 high od 2 is feeding the high bus mido d1 middle d2 is fitting the mid bus etc etc why am i doing this the reason why i'm doing it is because it creates a more cohesive uh grouping for me to control the vocals now as opposed to me putting up a ton of plugins on the on the one vocal on the left uh just like i'm putting on the right now i can just group them together and basically affect them in their totality to have a more cohesive sound so this is something i like to do a lot of times when it comes to my backgrounds and i usually like to group them according to their notes meaning is this the high part of the harmony so let's affect that by itself is this the mid part of the harmony let's group that and and affect that by itself this is the low etc so that's what you're seeing as far as my routing now how did i do this routing i'll show you if you're a beginner to this whole thing i'll show it to you quickly basically all i did was i said hi od 1 high od 2 i went to bus and what i did was i went all the way down to a bus and i put them out to high uh harm high bus right here and that's basically inputting right here on this side right here let me show you a better view so basically these two are going out and feeding into this bus right here which thus allows us to have signal that is right here on this track from both of them and you reserve and keep your pans as far as where you placed it in the stereo field now granted i'm a big fan of hard left hard right you can use that to your own advantage or choose how you would like to pan your stuff uh for yourself so the next thing i want to show you guys is the bus processing and basically with the bus processing i'm taking the individual tracks that i've affected and i'm taking them and i'm grouping them into a singular place that i can affect them in its totality together so basically that middle d1 in middle d2 i'm sending out going to this this bus and i'm affecting them uh together in one singular place so that i can have full functionality and control over the entire harmony part as it is one i'm gonna show you my bus processing now okay so with my bus processing first thing i did was i added a little bit of this uh nls channel it is analog saturation emulation for you sticklers out there and it's not doing much it's just a really really slight effect that it has on a vocal and i feel like it just adds a little bit of a tone that i like the big thing that i added was some eq now the first thing i did with this eq and i used two eqs uh in in back to back which you'll see in a second for this f6 rta basically what i did was i rolled off a lot of the low end you'll see that i pulled out a bunch of the 208 hertz range for some of that muddiness you'll also see that i pulled out a good amount of the 314 hertz range which gets rid of some of that boxiness for me sometime uh when it comes to that now now i like to typically roll off a little bit more than usual when it comes to background vocals uh i like to leave more room for the lead vocal and things of that nature and you're gonna see that in my next eq start this is me just really getting rid of some problems that i heard in the vocal i'll let you get a listen for it you'll see that i took out a little bit of the 2 700 hertz range a little bit of the 780 hertz range and a little bit of that 469. so let's hear it before and after without [Music] so the effect is very very slight what you'll notice is in this next one you'll hear a big difference so now we're looking at the ssl channel and with this ssl channel i want you to just look at it as an eq i didn't use the compressor section at all i'm gonna do a before and after let's listen to what it sounds like now without [Music] you'll notice that it felt a lot more airy it felt a lot more open and it felt a lot lighter on your ear um this is on purpose and i'm going to show you exactly the settings that i did so basically what you'll see is i rolled off a bunch at the 300 hertz range almost 9 db i rolled up a lot of low end on this vocal and the reason why i rolled up a lot of low end and a vocal just to let you know is because when it comes to the main vocal i do want to differentiate the the sonics and sound of the background vocal versus the lead vocal it needs to sound different it needs to stand out in its own way so in order to make that lead vocal still feel like i am in control and lead i like to roll off a lot of that low end on that background vocal so that it feels and sounds different now this is just a thing to taste and this is song by song bases but for this particular song this is something that i kind of try for most of the time and roll off a lot of that low end more than usually you would usually do on a lead vocal just so it gives you a little bit more of an airier and edgier sound like i said case-by-case basis this doesn't go for every single song the next thing i did was i took out some of the 890 hertz range uh about 3.4 db the reason why i usually do that is because i feel like it adds it's that that particular range has a certain type of presence to it that i felt needed to just be pulled back so i pulled some of that back next thing i did was take some of the 3.5 kilohertz out um just so i can make a little bit more room for the vocal as far as the lead is concerned and then the biggest takeaway i want to give you guys is i boost it at 11 000 hertz which is where i get that air from and you'll see i boosted about 4.5 db in that particular range now the next thing i did was i added another compressor now this compressor i assure you is probably not even doing anything it's just there for a little bit of a volume boost let's take a listen now let's take it off listen again [Music] now you notice that when it was engaged it felt a lot stronger it felt like it was just just overall louder and just felt a lot stronger and this is what adding no compression this is just me using the the emulation of the actual compressor to just give me a little bit more of a thicker and more bitier sound which i noticed a lot with the blacky version of the cla76 and just gave me a little bit of a volume boost i said all right let's boost this volume up let's get this thing a little bit louder so that it can actually be blended in later on so barely any compression um and i got it to sound like this already next thing i did was i added a c4 compressor and what a c4 compressor is is a multi-band compressor of course to i'm sure some of you may have this already in your arsenal and i'm going to show you what it's doing without first [Music] okay so when you listen to that you notice that it kind of tamed and tucked that low mid kind of stuff a lot more and it allowed us to get a little bit more volume out of the vocal i felt like as i was boosting it what i heard was not that the overall vocal needed to be a group of vocals needed to be compressed but more or less just that bottom side and i said i don't want that boominess to kind of come up but i want more of that edgy airy stuff to come up so by compressing that low mid frequency i was able to bring up the entire sound and that allowed for more of that bitier brighter kind of sound um to come out for the background vocals so this was my settings so long story short as you can see it's really just the left side over here which is right here uh from the 40 hertz to the 588 hertz range and you can see that i'm compressing it pretty well i'll let you see how much compression so i'm roughly getting about 3 db of gain reduction in this particular range from the 40 hertz to the 588 hertz range and it's basically just helping me just to mitigate that low mid frequency which is this right here [Music] and as you can see i have a pretty fast attack and a fast release now you can just go back to this video you can screenshot this take a look at it so you can get an understanding of my settings but for the most part this is the only region that was really affected in this process now to get on to some of the funkier stuff within this bus processing so right here in the bus processing what i use is a doubler 4. i'm going to play it for you without the double of 4 and with check this out [Music] so when you listen to that you notice that it feels a lot softer it feels like it got uh the stereo image just kind of felt a little bit wider and a little bit more wobbly it felt like it had a little bit more movement as opposed to just feeling oh i feel like it's like oh it feels kind of spacey and it added these other voices to it to make it sound a little bit more full and soft and now granted i can turn the double or four up just to kind of compensate for that volume loss that we had but i like the sound of it i was cool with it i was like this sounds a lot nicer it just felt softer and it kind of felt like the middle information just kind of moved out the way just a little bit which i want because that'll help me with my lead vocal in getting that to sit in place and it has the idea the the feeling of it has more vocals than the just two now it feels like i've added more vocals so that's why i like to use a doubler so basically i used a very very basic setting in the plugin it's called doubler for voices check this out punch that in and you're good to go it's a really cool preset that i like to use on my background vocals next thing i did was i got this r comp and this r comp is doing a very slight bit of compression not even much check this out so you can see it's just taking a slight piece it's not much it's just catching those ooh moments to kind of control them a little bit and that's why i had that compressor there just to catch those little little little tiny little slight moments with the compression now settings i did a fast attack and a pretty fast release because i really wasn't looking for much compression i just was looking to attack just those little small transient initial moments so that they don't pop out too much when you're listening to them now the last thing i did on this particular processing as far as the bus is concerned was i took out some of the 2015 hertz range or better yet the 2 kilohertz range why did i take out some of the two kilohertz range well that's the range where mostly our vocal presence resides so for me when i said to my vocal when i looked at my lead vocal i heard it in comparison to the backgrounds and i said ah i want to kind of pull a little bit more attention away from those backgrounds because i want those to really sit as a guide or a bed i want them to support the lead vocal not overpower it or out shine it so that's why i took out a little bit of that 2k frequency just so i can get a little bit more presence for the lead vocal to live that's the only reason i did that once again that's case by case for this particular song i just pulled a little bit of that out because i wanted the background vocals just to have a little bit uh less precedent in the mix okay all right and that was the last thing i did for my bus processing now the next thing that i did for my background vocals was the effects processing when i say effects processing i'm referring to reverbs delays and phasers and flanges and things of that type of uh family and basically what i use this for is to create texture to to create a more realistic sound and the reason why i say more realistic sound is because when it comes to you know making things feel believable reverbs and delays can help you accomplish those types of spaces if you want a vocal to feel more lush a nice reverb with a long tail can help it feel that way so this is how we create the feeling is through the effects processing okay okay so as you can see this is our effects processing what i'm running is i'm running a short verb a long verb a doubler and a fourth delay you can totally ignore this right here i'll explain that in another tutorial another day but don't worry about this at all so this is a short verb a long verb a doubler and a fork my short verb is feeding and let me take all this stuff off my short verb is feeding this right here which is a pro r and it's a play verb long story short i'm using it as a plate in a sense because i'm using it with a very very short uh reverb time now granted the preset i have here is vocal clear space but for the most part when it comes to my plate verbs or my short verbs i like to use them because they add a little bit of a stereo feel to your vocal without it making it without making it feel so obvious if that makes any sense or affecting the sound that you've created so basically i like to use plate verbs to give me more of a stereo feel for my vocal now what i'm going to do is i'm going to take this short verb and i'm going to boost it up and i want you to see how it feels okay this is my short verb right here one sec and let's bring it down and i'll bring it up and listen to how much it affects the vocal as we bring it up okay so you hear it and you notice this like metallic kind of feeling and it adds somewhat of a of a stereo uh feel to the vocal and it also feels like it adds a little bit of a tail and i like this sound because it makes it feel like it sits higher up in the mix and that's why i like to use plate verbs even on my lead vocals because it just adds a little bit more of a stereo uh feeling and uh uh puts the vocals in a in a particular place that feels a little bit more realistic in the song all right so that was basically my short verb the next thing it's feeding is my long verb and my long verb which let's turn it on my long verb is also feeding a pro r but it's using a preset called cathedral one and long story short i'm going to put this way down and then i'll pull it up and let you get an idea of what it's doing so way down first [Music] [Music] so what it's helping me create is it's helping me create this wonderful tale on the actual background vocals and it makes the vocals feel a lot more ghosty and mystical and and impressive and that's why i like to use long verbs when it comes to background vocals from time to time if i'm looking for that more ghostly and smooth kind of sound because it adds that lush tail now what are my settings like i told you i use the cathedral one and you'll see right here that my um space is 3.07 that's the particular space or timing as far as the reverb is concerned that i found nice i'm really a big fan of pro r's reverb because it allows me to do things like setting the distance to close far it allows me in a simple simple way to kind of fine-tune my reverb dark to bright i can make the reverb darker i can make the reverb brighter now granted you can do this in a bunch of other uh reverb plugins i'm sure but i just really like how this one does it uh especially for this particular song all right next thing i did was i added a doubler plugin and basically all my doubler plugin was was a doubler and i kind of showed you how i'd use the doubler before the other plugins but basically what this is going to do is it's going to send out a copy of the vocals that we used and it's going to just give me a little bit more of a push on the side information as far as just the width of it so the way i accomplish this is i add the doubler plug-in with the basic doubler preset but i also add a s1 imager to kind of spread that out a little bit so that it pushes them to the side and so what i'll do is i'll bring this all the way down and bring it up check out what the double plug-in does [Music] so when you listen to it you notice like yo i kind of feel like it like the sides i didn't realize it could be pushed out that far you feel like it kind of comes up on the sides of your headphones or on your speakers and it just adds a little bit more of a more stereo feel to your uh background vocals without really interrupting the sonics of what they just originally sound like and this is a really dope trick that i even try on my lead vocals don't tell anyone and it really just adds a stereo kind of feeling to whatever vocal that you're working on all right let's put that back the last thing that i'm going to show you as far as the effects processing is this it's a delay and basically i used a quarter note delay and the quarter note delay is basically adding a little bit of a i guess you could say tail as well and i'm using these echo boys let me show you exactly what it sounds like i'm gonna bring this down so that's pretty evident you can hear it it's that it's kind of adding a little bit more of this tail and it's bounced to the vocal that helps it feel more realistic and this is important this is what i always say as far as creating these vocal spaces and and mixing your vocals what i'm really trying to accomplish is making them sound realistic as far as what the emotion is of what i'm trying to bring out of the entire thing that's my biggest biggest takeaway for it and the last thing you keep in mind is to blend your harmonies now that you mixed everything and kind of had this sound as you were listening back and forth with the music that's what you should have been doing now you're basically just blending your mids with your lows with your highs and finding the right balance and thus accomplishing a sound like this [Music] so guys that was my tutorial on some pro tips uh to basically mixing your background vocals i really hope that was helpful make sure you comment like and subscribe also make sure you follow us help me devon on instagram and also make sure you visit healthydavon.com at any time to get some of our vocal chains and templates to keep this channel going and to support us make sure also that you follow our discord community as well to get a bunch of engineers uh and meet them and to pick up game and share information like we always do so i hope you guys enjoyed that tutorial please let me know in the comments below anything you wanted to see or any questions you have and until next time you guys

Channel: Help Me Devvon

Views: 7,718

Keywords: home studio, mixing vocals, music production, how to mix vocals, mixing, audio engineering, home recording, vocals, fl studio, vocal mixing, tutorial, background vocals, recording studio, recording vocals, how to record vocals, audio mastering, vocal eq, recording, how to, mixing tutorial, pro tools, mixing background vocals, audio mixing, how to master a song, how to master, how to master music, mastering music, help me devvon

Id: zBg_MGZDyXg

Length: 27min 59sec (1679 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 13 2021