PRO MIXER Reveals His Exact Vocal Mixing Chain

all right so we've got chester solo and i want to give a listen to just the raw i've tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even matter i had to so you can hear the gate doing its thing you can hear there's a headphone bleed it almost sounds like they recorded it with the the monitors on it's got a little more of a lively sound to it than just being headphones maybe it's a booth i don't know but uh the raw sounds great incredibly well recorded vocal duh right and uh and then we've processed it and i'm gonna break down that processing in this video so let's take a look at the first plug-in insert it's an eq is it necessary it's in my template it's almost always necessary for me not mixing world-class vocals and you probably can relate but the high-pass filter is there the first eq in my chain and my template for mixing vocals i'm thinking subtractive i'm thinking what do i have that i need to pull away because it sounds like garbage and let me get rid of that so that it enhances the good stuff in the vocal uh what's that quote you've got that i think it's unattributed how do you create a statue of an elephant from a rock will you chisel apart all the stuff that doesn't look like an elephant i just botched that completely but i think you get the point and so a lot of times this is going to be to cut you know some in the 3 400 100 200 sometimes because they get right up close to the mic and so we get the proximity effect we have to pull out but in this video we're looking at how to mix incredibly well recorded world-class vocals shout out to the engineers who recorded the linkin park hybrid theory album uh so moving on to the next plug-in for me i love the kush clarophonic and this is my go-to whenever i'm looking to boost some top in into the compression i like to hit the uh the top-end sizzle if i'm going you know chester's got that that i said it in a previous video that beautiful dirty raspy the grit in his voice that top end it's amazing so i wanted to bring that out we got cush clarity if you've got a stock plug-in you just want to boost that you know 10k and above the mog eq4 is great for that as well the airband and on and on right slate there's so many we're spoiled with tools nowadays but i'm looking for that top end before compression because when i boost it to taste before the compressor now the compressor is going to react to some of that and it can kind of prevent from getting uh too spitty the compressor is going to react a little more to that top end so when you want that sheen that's hop in in the vocal i personally like to put it before the compressor first compressor this is a classic setup we've got an 1176 into an la2a the 1176 is set up to catch the peaks and i've got it with a much faster attack uh than if i were to hit this for 20 db and kind of a calm and aggressive rock compression is just slam it i would maybe back off the attack a little bit all buttons in 20 to one eight to one just depends i like to use that as kind of a tone control when you get hitting it that hard but for this i think we're five to ten db maybe on some peaks let's take a look and let me turn down his uh channel over here i've tried so hard and got so far yeah i mean three db five db right there and then we're following that up with an la2a hey i want to interrupt real quick and share that i've got a free resource for you it's called my vocal mixing checklist to help you deliver professional sounding vocals whether you're dealing with an average vocal recording a poor vocal recording or even world-class vocals the vocal mixing checklist is going to take you through my exact process and help you deliver vocals that fit the emotion of the song inside this free guide you're going to learn when to use additive eq subtractive eq how to determine how much compression is needed to fit the vocalist and the emotion of the performance when to eq before or after compression and then how to create your own signature sound using effects like chorus stereo imaging reverb delay and more you can download your free vocal mixing checklist in the link in the description below i've tried so hard and got so far so pretty smooth without it i've tried so hard this is already compressed to tape coming to us these stems is multi-tracks um multi-tracks not stems we're already processed and uh they sounded great so i'm just flatlining him because next up we've got a de-esser and then we've got parallel compressions so de-esser uh how i like to set my de-essers i will go find a section i've tried so hard i mean look at that we don't have to look very far tried so hard so tried so we'll just loop that i've tried i've tried to get rid of the i tried that s right there tried strides tried strides tried tried tried subtracting coming through quite a bit more when i bypass this check it one more time here's in tried tried tried tried tried tried and it pops out and it can be irritating i like to go loop a section with a couple of uh s's and ds like that sometimes it's necessary on the back of the chain as well but moving on we've got the de-esser going and then in my template two different ways to skin this cat so uh the first way i've got my template i've used this for years i'll have the lead vocal on its own audio track excuse me and then i'll send into a bus where i'll smash the heck out of it and we've got 10 15 20 db of reduction uh again fast attack fast release for this parallel compressor and i'm just smashing it and then i'm gonna blend that with the fader to taste what you don't want is this to take over the original track and become the main sound you might as well just hit the original with a hard fast high ratio compressor so this is to blend if i have it off this enhances him it pulls him up a little bit let me pull back right there we'll loop a section solo with and without so here's with it i've tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even matter so it pulls it up it does get a little louder but it enhances it and uh this again it's just flat line to sit on top of this dense mix so it's got those guitars you got the drum slam and the beat the elements of production all kinds of stuff happening what you want to stay away from and mention this is you don't want this to happen i've tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even now when you mute the parallel you barely hear the vocal it goes and down such a great amount in volume you might as well just use one track smashed it with the compressor and called it a day which you could do totally could do this just my workflow for years and uh i enjoy it working this way so moving on now the lead vocal and that parallel compressor these two tracks meet at what you can see here the lead vocal level and so that's going to take us down here to the next track and we're going to put it back here to the volume and so now i've got the uh semi-compressed vocal just kind of tame the vocal the heavily compressed they're meeting here and if i needed to i would use some eq usually i'm shaping the vocal a little more do i need more mid do i need more 1k 2k uh do i need a little more top end is there something that's getting in the way do i need to so this is kind of a another instance where i'll look at shaping the vocal with some eq in this case it was just gain staging pulling it up next up is waves factory track spacer if you missed it i'll link above i did a whole breakdown of how i use this sending mic as a side chain into chester's voice so that back here at the rap when chester comes in and holds out in the end mike is still going i don't want my uh chester to overtake him and so we use that to kind of push him down so when mike's rapping chester's gonna be pushed down a little bit check that out link above link below as well and that was that i think i may have did i use i don't know if i use this actually yeah of course i used it i turned all these off so i could show you step by step so this is now we've got the vocal sitting right we've got the vocal compressed we had a little top end we brought a little sheen out and then now we've got a dense mix i want him to cut through even more and so i threw a clariphonic on at the end just to fit him into the track and so that you know is going to do its thing you get the the mid-range bite and then you get that top end in the clarity here is with and without it so here's with it what you got let's go out here where he's singing i've tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even matter i had to fall to lose it all the warmer little you know whatever it's subtle but that top end i dig it brought him out a little bit more there you go so now the next step would be my chain of effects i think i'm going to save that for another video because what i want to show you right now is mic and so on this one i did not use that lead track into a parallel compressor into a lead vocal level i didn't use that same setup i've just done it here in the with the plug-in inserts but again incredible recording i didn't have to do any corrective eq we just i threw on a high-pass filter for those of you who saying you may not have needed it i probably didn't and i tried so you got a little bit of energy down there but nothing to nothing to worry about and again clariphonic boost and top in same exact settings basically going into a compressor same compressor the fast attack fast release and i tried so hard a little more aggressive with this little wanted to get that kind of spitty vibe from it i think we succeeded with that coming over here into an led and i tried so hard again just a couple db of reduction these were already hit let's listen to his raw vocal and i tried so hard so you can hear the tone has changed now that i've bypassed the eq's the compressors the effects what it meant to me will eventually be a memory of what it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when i tried and i'm just slamming him with compression you saw the first two the 1176 the la2a got the de-esser same exact process what it meant to me will eventually be a memory what it meant to me will eventually be a memory of it his esses weren't weren't super harsh chesters were a little bit more uh in your face but uh following the de-esser we've got a parallel compressor yet again i love the fg stress big fan of this i think the week or two after it came out this was my go-to parallel compressor it's lived there ever since now instead of using it like we did chester down here on this parallel vocal crush here instead of having it there and using a fader we're crushing it and then using the mix knob all plug-ins should have a mix knob it's an incredible tool and uh again we're spoiled with what we have to work with nowadays so we got this going about 50 hitting it pretty hard what it meant to me will eventually be a memory without it what it meant to me will eventually be a memory of its i mean it's already crushed what it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time there's something about that that grabby tone i really like that i've got 50 blended in moving on from there that's where we set up the effects and it's the exact same process for both vocals just a little bit different way of doing it [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Mix Academy

Views: 82,145

Keywords:

Id: --BsK7GkfXw

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2022