The Complete Guide to MIX VOCALS Like a PRO

welcome to this complete guide to mix vocals like a pro a chrysalim here from mixdown online thank you for watching this video this is going to be quite a ride what I did for this one is I compiled a bunch of videos that I made over the past a year and a half or so where I talk about how to mix vocals with a Reverb delay saturation compression EQ and so on and this will give you all the tools you need to mix your vocals like your pro in one single video on top of that I'm giving you a bunch of mixing guides talking about delay a Reverb compression EQ you can download all of those PDF guides by clicking the link down below okay now let's Jump Right In it's gonna be a long one but it's fully worth it enjoy the ride foreign okay now let's jump and talk about a vocal Reverb we add a Reverb on a vocal to add space you know uh in our mixes which makes sense you know you do you want you don't want to end up with the super 100 dry vocal sound so adding a Reverb is gonna just help to add some space in the mix but sometimes you know a Reverb can take a lot of room in the mix and there's ways I'm going to share with you today to have way more control over your vocal Reverb sound so this way your vocal Reverb is not going to overwhelm your mix but remember that your vocal is the main event and we're going to keep it this way so let's jump in Cubase and listen to what we have okay so this is the mix it's a song from my good friend Josh Gilbert the song is going to be released soon so now I have that vocal Reverb that sounds good like for me the tail of the Reverb the size of the Reverb works for uh diverse but it's a bit too overwhelming at its present form so let's have a quick listen [Music] we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now [Music] like I said I love the size of the Reverb the tail is nice but the Reverb is way too much at the moment so I'm gonna fix a few things here first of all my number one tip and this is something that I do like I would say for 98 of the time every time I mix a vocal the Reverb I'm gonna use for my lead vocal I'm gonna insert that Reverb on a nox Channel or an effects Channel track so this way I keep my vocal in parallel from the dry vocal sound okay and not as an insert because you could and a lot of people ask me the question you know why don't you use your Reverb as an insert on your vocal Channel and there's several reasons why I don't do so for 98 of the time and one of these reasons is to have more control over my Reverb so this way I can craft my vocal Reverb sound with way more flexibility so I have those two channels separate aided and this is something that I always advise people to do keep your reverbs on a separated effects channel in my case I use a stereo effects channel to do so but this is a personal choice it depends on the mix that I'm working on but for the most part it's a stereo Channel and I'm sending as a send the signal from my vocal channel into this effects Channel track where I have my Reverb inserted next and this is also something that I do a lot is to EQ my Reverb now there's two ways you can EQ a Reverb you can EQ the incoming signal going into the Reverb or the outcoming signal the signal coming out of the Reverb both will work well and there's also like on a lot of reverbs you have access to an internal EQ which is going to EQ the sound of the Reverb and on some other reverbs you can AQ the incoming signal straight from the Reverb itself like we do in Cubase with the stuck a Reverb plugin out of Cubase which is room Works in this case we have an input filters section where you can add a high pass low pass filter on the incoming signal that goes into the Reverb in my case on this Reverb I also have some parameters to tone shape the sound of the Reverb but this is not what I'm going to do what I'm going to do here is to use an EQ an EQ plug-in a stuck plugin out of Cubase and I can insert that right before my Reverb on the effects Channel and what I'm going to do here is the Abbey Road EQ trick which is simply getting rid of low frequencies and top frequencies for the most part and this is going to add more transparency to my Reverb because with a Reverb especially on the vocal we can end up with a lot of build up when it comes to low frequencies and low mid frequencies and this is what I'm gonna you know get more control over so this way my Reverb doesn't take too much space especially within those frequencies and taming down those high frequencies also is going to help the Reverb to sound a bit more natural I would say without hearing those High spikes you know that we can end up with on a vocal sound so what I have on this one is a high pass filter that is going to just tame down everything under 500 Hertz or so and the same for a uh my low pass filter everything above 7K is also being tamed down and on top of that I'm adding a cut at around 2K this is the mid-range and this those frequencies on some vocals can actually be aggressive and I want to avoid my Reverb sound to end up sounding a bit too uh too edgy you know so by timing that down I'm adding a bit more transparency to the vocals so let's have a listen to that EQ on the signal coming into the Reverb I wasn't ready to lay you down we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now we knew it makes a huge difference I can still hear my Reverb the tell is there but I don't end up with a build up on the low mids and low frequencies I wasn't ready to lay you down we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now we knew it was coming no way okay so that works very well I can also like I said instead of EQ the incoming signal I can add an EQ after my Reverb [Music] we had so much left to do so again it's a personal choice I tend to uh to acute incoming signal most of the time because I like to to keep my Reverb as pure I would say as possible and not try to to tone shape too much the Reverb itself especially if it's the Reverb sound that I like but again you know it's a case-by-case thing Nothing Stops me on doing it the other way around in some occasions but you know those are the two options you have if you want to take your Reverb you can EQ the incoming signal or the Reverb itself meaning an EQ after the Reverb or within the Reverb if you have access to an EQ and this is also something that I do on my end now my next tip is to add distance to your Reverb so you keep your vocal up front in your mix so to do so there's a couple of things we can do straight on the Reverb we have a parameter called pre-delay okay and this is a very important one and this is going to help you to keep your vocal up front draw it at least the attack of the vocal is going to stay drying out of the Reverb and by adding pre-delay that will delay the start of the Reverb so this way like I said the vocal is going to stay dry the attack of the vocal is going to stay dry and then the Reverb will follow so let's have a quick listen and I'm going to overdo it so we can hear what it sounds like I was arrested dirty to lay you down we had so much left to do together but we won't so if you notice the minute I have way too much a pre-delay my Reverb is starting to sound like a slapback delay because the uh the the pre-delay is too further away from the dry signal so it's just a matter of balance and just to find a sweet spot so you keep your initial vocal attack dry and then you can hear the Reverb I wasn't ready to lay you down so that works pretty well now on most reverbs that pre-delay parameter is going to be calculated in milliseconds some will give you access to sync that value to the tempo of your project but most of them won't okay so you just you're going to need to calculate if you want to just keep that in sync with the tempo of your project you're just gonna have to calculate the amount of milliseconds um like 1 16 of the note which is the average is going to give you in milliseconds according to the tempo of your project now on my free pdf guide on vocal Reverb I have a formula that you can use to determine how much a sixteenth of a note or an eighth of a note and so on in milliseconds is according to the tempo of your project so again download this free guide the link is down below now in my case if I want to I can activate this little guy here and that will make my pre-delay sync to a 16th of a note that can work well so that is something that you can do if you want to sync that to the tempo of your project something else you can also do to make your vocal up front by keeping detail size and sound of your Reverb is to use side chain compression on your Reverb so I have the Reverb right here and I have a compressor right after my Reverb and that compressor is going to be triggered by the incoming signal which is the vocal so for this to happen you need to activate the side chain on this compressor right here on top in Cubase you can actually set that up from the plugin itself but if you don't have Cubase by activating uh your uh your side chain on the plugin that side chain will be available on the send option you have here and mine is one right here okay so I said the bottom the side chain the Reverb side chain which is the compressor right here so I am sending my dry signal into the side chain of this compressor so every time the singer sings it will trigger the compressor and the compressor is going to react according to the threshold and all those parameters that I have so I'm using a fast attack a three to one ratio and they sort of fast release also this is something adjustable depending on the song I'm working on and if we listen carefully I'm going to overdo it so we can hear what that sounds like I wasn't ready to lay you down so as you can tell every time I have some vocal decompressor kicks in and the Reverb is out of the way and then the Reverb comes back and I can keep my tail of the Reverb that I like so much but again it's a matter of balance [Music] together but we won't get to it now so that's pretty cool so now I have like you know maybe four or five DBS of gain reduction when the singer sings and it helps me just to keep my vocal dry and up front and keeping that Reverb tail that sounds pretty good so let's listen in the context of the mix I wasn't ready to lay you down we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now I love it okay I just love it so you can hear that tale that Reverb tell but my vocal stays right up front now for tip number four add some effects on the incoming signal fitting your Reverb so let's check it out so there's some stuff that can also add a bit more uh to uh to the distance feel of the Reverb and make the Reverb sound a bit more interesting for example adding a flanger on the incoming signal so I'm going to activate this flanger very simple one from Cubase nothing fancy let's just monitor the signal coming from this effects Channel [Music] okay I'm just gonna bypass the Reverb [Music] okay so that is the sound with the flanger that is going to feed my Reverb so let's add the Reverb [Music] okay now we're only hearing the Reverb itself without the dry signal so you can hear uh what kind of effect that sounds like I'm going to remove it I was away that's pretty cool so let's uh blend this with the rest [Music] we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now it's pretty cool you know it adds a bit of color kind of like it so this is something you can do Nothing Stops you on adding some saturation also so let's activate decapitator and go crazy a bit not sure I'm not sure I'm gonna like this one for this mix but it is something that is uh pretty useful on other mixes I wasn't ready to lay you down we had so much left to do together but we won't okay so like for me that's too much but again it's quite cool you know because the Reverb itself with decapitator or any type of saturation plug-in um can end up pretty interesting no and again there's a lot going on here um but just a matter of balance but that can be a good option as well just to craft the tone of what's going into the Reverb something else that I like to do is to add a compressor on the incoming signal that is feeding my Reverb and this is especially if I'm mixing a more Dynamic vocal now at the end of this verse the vocal has way more energy going on and by adding a compressor it's just going to even out the Dynamics and I'm gonna have way more control on the signal fitting my Reverb so let's have a listen but you took your last breath on Earth [Music] okay let's add the compressor [Music] okay so that gives you an idea but again this is something that I do only if I'm dealing with a dynamic vocal that can be useful just to add a bit more control dynamically speaking so this way you know when you have like boost of energy uh or spikes and stuff that can affect the sound of the Reverb and just bring that Reverb to spike up a bit you know especially on higher frequencies and just by adding a compressor before it hits the Reverb it evens things out so that is a very good option also and for the last tip is to use automation on your vocal Reverb now there are several ways you can do so but adding automation is just going to make your mix sound more interesting but again it's a case-by-case thing uh and on the mix that I'm working on right now I do a form of automation because the verse vocal doesn't have the same amount of Reverb compared to the chorus lead vocal in this case what can be done is to uh bring down an automate the level of the Reverb straight on the channel itself between the verse and the choruses because I'm relying a bit more on delays when it comes to the choruses compared to the verses where I use a bit more Reverb than delays for this mix so an option is to just automate the level of the effects Channel track where I have my Reverb inserted at or I can also just automate the incoming signal it'll descend level signal going into the uh the Reverb Channel and that can be automated also in my case though I have two channels for my lead vocal one channel is for the verse and the other channel for the choruses so I don't actually need to automate The Descent level or the uh the Reverb Channel itself I'm just sending different amount of signal from each of these channels so the averse lead vocal channel is sending x amount of signal to the Reverb Channel and on the chorus lead vocal Channel I'm sending like almost 50 percent less signal to the Reverb channel so this is the form of automation so I don't have the same amount of Reverb for the lead vocal coming out of the verse compared to the chorus so let's have a quick listen but you took your last breath on Earth and now the true life begins [Applause] so you get the idea automation is a very good tool to work with when it comes to vocal reverbs so there you go my friends those are the five tips I wanted to share with you know that you don't have to use them all at once that's not the goal of sharing those tips with you my goal is to give you more Tools in your mixing Arsenal so you can make better decisions depending on the mix you are working on [Music] okay now let's jump in Cubase and start talking about vocal compression okay now this is an older project I worked on Years Ago by an artist called Peggy Polito from France and let's have a quick listen to what we have [Music] totally [Music] as you can tell we have a more quieter verse compared to what we have on the chorus and we have like Dynamic Peaks going on and that's why we essentially work with compressors is to just control the dynamic range of the signal so this is basically what a compressor is going to do it's basically going to be an automatic volume controller okay but it also plays with the sound envelope which is going to affect the character of the vocal and also the tone of the vocal depending on the compressor you work with so those are different aspects of working with compression but for the most part what we need to do here is to add more control on the Dynamics of the vocal now the first thing that I do here when I mix a vocal is to use EQ and the essing before working with a compressor and what I do as far as the EQ goes like you can see here I do some correction EQ basically with some subtractive EQ that we call which I which means that I'm just taming down all the problematic frequencies that I have on this vocal and same for the de-esser I have a de-esser which is going to control the s's of the vocals and I don't want those problematic frequencies and s's to affect the compressor so that's why I'm working that out before going into the first compressor so that is the first trick to use EQ correction ndsing before compressing now for the next trick is to understand the attack and release a parameter of a compressor so let's add some compression on this vocal I'm going to use just a stuck plug-in compressor from Cuba base the regular one very simple transparent works very well it's the perfect tool if you're starting to mix and you're new to compression so this is the type of compressor you need to work with all right so now I'm going to bring back my threshold up I have my ratio where I set that up to four to one ratio and I have the attack time and release time right here which I'm gonna work with now if we start with the attack time the attack time is going to be the amount of time it's going to take to the signal to get fully compressed once it reaches the threshold Point okay so once the signal gets below the threshold point it's going to be the time it takes for the signal to be fully compressed okay so that's why I'm repeating that twice so you can understand it correctly for the release time it's the other way around once the signal goes above the threshold point it's going to be the time for the compressor to stop compressing basically so this is what the release time goes and and it affects the character of the vocal so we're going to check that out right away so what I'm going to do for now is to bring that to a kind of a medium release time and let's bring the attack time uh slower and let's start compressing [Music] okay now I'm gonna sold this part and I'm gonna overdo it so we can actually hear what the compression is doing foreign okay now the attack time is pretty slow I'm gonna bring that down to 0.1 millisecond very fast okay now the attack of that vocal is getting cut off this is not what I want to do with this one please I'm gonna bring mine slower so 10 milliseconds or so is going to be a good start point okay now as far as the release goes again I'm over compressing for now so we can hear a difference now the release time right now it's at 100 milliseconds if I bring it slower okay now the vocal takes way too much time uh to uncompressed itself so I'm getting a lot of compression okay so this is not what I want I want to keep that vocal a bit more uh up front now it sounds a bit further away because of the release time that is a bit too slow so I'm going to bring that faster note that with a faster release the vocal sounds way more upfront I'm gonna do this again okay by bringing the release time slower and then bring it back to a faster release time foreign [Music] okay now you can tell the vocal this way up front you know with a faster release so this is what the release and attack parameters will do to your signal very important to understand what I'm going to do now is to keep it at around 60 milliseconds I think this is going to be fast enough for this song now let's listen in the context of the music [Music] okay now the more I add threshold you know the more I bring down my threshold the more I'm gonna need to bring up the makeup gain just to compensate for the loss of volume [Music] okay so I think that's pretty good now I'm getting a lot of compression the minute I go into the chorus okay and I want to control that and this is my third trick that I have for you is to work with pre-gain automation before you go into your compressor especially with a vocal like this one where I have a lot of Dynamics going on the chorus is way louder than the versus so I'm gonna fix that up with pregain and I'm going to use clip gain basically uh so to just to bring down some sections of uh the the chorus actually just to bring that vocal a bit more stable dynamically speaking before going into compression so this way I'm going to keep my compression more transparent okay so let's try this out I'm going to go to the chorus [Music] okay starting here I'm just gonna bring that down until I get to the end of the chorus just by a couple of DBS and let's listen to how that sounds like [Music] okay so I'm gonna take my time to fine-tune a few things bring this part a bit louder okay toots [Music] okay let's just play around the end the part right here just to bring that a bit louder [Music] okay I think that's good so now I have something a bit more stable as far as the Dynamics goes I can actually fine tune even further but I'm going to keep it as is for now and the compressor is going to do the rest okay but when I mix with vocal it's gonna happen then I'm gonna go back and clip gain some stuff while I'm mixing the vocal and not only at the beginning before adding compression and this so you know is going to affect the signal going into the compressor okay like into all the insert chain basically okay it's not like volume automation volume automation is also very useful um when mixing of course and I'm going to explain to you why later on but volume automation which is basically riding up the channels fader this is going to come after the uh the the inserts you have on your channels okay so after your uh your signal has been processed then you're going to do some volume automate Nation but pre-gain automation like I'm doing right now with clip gain is going to affect the signal going into the inserts okay so just so you know now I have a more stable signal going into the compressor and I can actually tweak that compressor to taste and this time around what I'm going to do instead of using the stuck plugin I'm going to use an 1176 which is going to add a bit more character I would say tone to uh to the signal which I like and this is a very fast compressor the attack time is ultra fast it's a Fed compressor and this is one of the main character of this compressor is how fast the the attack time is so I'm going to bring that down to one that one is going to be the slowest attack time in this case and uh it's gonna go down on a regular 1176 we're talking about 0.8 milliseconds so this is very fast okay but this is the slowest attack time on an 1176 and it's is going to go as fast as is it like 0.2 Milli 0.2 microseconds or something like that anyways it's very fast it's in microseconds super fast I'm gonna just play around that attack time and uh release I'm Gonna Keep It Fast for now and now I'm gonna just use again a four to one ratio and we'll see how that goes [Music] that's pretty good that's pretty good I'm getting a lot of gain reduction compared to the the stuck plugin that's normal you know gain reduction is not going to be the same from one compressor to another each compressor is gonna react differently on this one I can actually get a lot of gain reduction and keeping my my compression sound um pretty nice and not sounded too over compressed and I kind of like the tone that I'm getting with the 1176 also so this is the type of compression I'm getting with this one now for the uh fourth tip that I have for you is to use more than one compressor now I've only been using one compressor and this time around I'm going to use two compressors so this is my next trick is to use more than one compressor use two compressors now this time for my first compressor I'm going to get back with the 1176 but I'm gonna Focus only on the Peaks okay I'm going to bring that down and uh bring my attack time this time to a very fast attack time again what I'm doing here can be done with any compressor of your choice so let's go with the fast attack on this one and a faster release the goal here is to just tame to tame down the Peaks that I'm getting so I'm gonna go with a super high ratio I'm actually limiting basically so let's try this out and I'm just gonna aim for a one or two DBS of gain reduction on the Peaks only [Music] now I'm pretty much taming down the Peaks so most of the time I'm not getting any gain a reduction so this is basically what this is gonna do and that is his purpose for now next add a second compressor I'm going to use a tube compressor which is going to be a bit more slow as far as the type of compression a bit like an LA 2A but this time around I'm going to use the tube sta same as the elements of any six this one is by arturia which are great compressors by the way so if you want to check them out I actually made a video reviewing all those compressors by arturia which sound great okay I'm Gonna Leave the link on top and down below if you want to watch it so let's go with this one again going in with the fast attack which is going to turn at around the 10 milliseconds or so and a fast release and I kind of like the tone of this one it's going to add a bit more smoothness to the tone of my vocal which is something that I like a lot so let's try it out [Music] okay now we're going to listen to a before and after you know before compression and after compression so let's start by listening to the uncompressed vocals [Music] okay and now with the compressed signal [Music] now this is a huge difference it's we end up with a way more stable vocal that sits well within the music okay now the last tip that I have for you if needed use Dynamic EQ Dynamic EQ is basically compression on a specific band of frequencies uh let me show you so in my train I have a frequency which is a stuck EQ plug-in out of Cubase but this one has an option called dynamics that I have right here so this is going to activate the compressor on that band of frequencies and this is a very good tool if you need to tame down one specific Banner frequencies that can be aggressive or can just be too much in some part of the song um and not always so cutting out those frequencies that is not necessarily the good move to go towards to but just taming those frequencies down when they are just overloading the mix um using a dynamic EQ is going to serve this purpose uh well okay so let's say this vocal has a bit too much High mid frequencies at some point during the chorus um in that case I would actually use a dynamic EQ and bring down those frequencies and the rest is going to be the same parameters found on every compressor so we have the ratio the attack release time and the threshold so let's try this one out foreign [Music] okay so that is an example of something that I would do with a dynamic EQ the mid-range also can be a good better frequencies to tame down with some Dynamic EQ compressing those uh those bands of frequencies especially if you have more you know low mids going on on the verses compared to the chorus this again can be a good tool to work with you can also use a multi-band compressor if you wish to uh which is going to be a different approach than a dynamic EQ but it's going to serve the same type of purpose and also adser a de-esser is another form of a dynamic EQ same type of thing it's going to compress a specific band of frequencies uh just to tame down the s's so I found that using two de-essers Works actually very well one at the beginning one at the end keeps the s's under control again if you need to now one last tip and this one is a bonus this one and this is good especially if you're new to compression and new to mixing vocals when compressing don't be afraid to overdo it over compress so you can hear what compression sounds like and then back it off a bit until you don't hear that over compressed effect and they're going to be close to the sweet spot where your compression is going to sound the best at and after I'm done with my vocal sound and I'm happy with the sound that I have I'm not going to be afraid to add some volume automation by automating the faders channel so the vocal sits better in the mix again if I need to so those are basically my main vocal compression techniques that I use on a regular basis so I hope that was helpful [Music] foreign into today's video and talk about those three vocal EQ strategies that I want to share with you the first one is to take the time to evaluate the vocal sound you're working with and this is something that a lot of people don't take the time to do the biggest mistake that someone can do is to just insert an EQ plugin right away and just use a preset or just use your default cutting and boosting values that you're used to make you know without evaluating what needs to be done in the context of the mix and this is very important to take the time to do so adding an EQ on the vocal is not a one size fits all a vocal sound is going to sound different from one singer to another if you're dealing with a male vocalist it's going to sound different than a female vocalist the key of the song also is going to affect the vocal sound same for the microphone selection the distance between the the singer and the mic will be a huge Factor on the vocal sound the feel and emotion that the singer will perform with will also be a key factor and for sure the style of music is also going to be a huge Factor on the vocal sound if you're working and mixing with a singer-songwriter type of production where you only have to deal with an acoustic guitar and a voice you're gonna EQ that vocal differently than a pop song where you have to deal with like I don't know 50 60 tracks you know in the very Dance Mix now in this situation your vocal EQ decisions are going to be different compared to the singer songwriter production so that's why it's important to take the time to listen to the vocal sound in the context of the mix so just pop on your mix bring on the vocal write the vocal throughout the mix you know while you're listening to the mix to make sure you have a good balance throughout the mix and just try to evaluate what needs to be done and just point out the problems that you're facing while you're listening into that rough mix of the vocal within your actual mix now for the second strategy clean up the vocal and this is something I do once I'm done evaluating what needs to be done on the vocal so cleaning up the vocal is the first part first I'm gonna get rid of the low end of the signal everything below 50 hertz is gonna go away I don't need that you know it's not even part of the vocal sound and what ends up in that and those frequencies are mainly unwanted noise or some rumble sound that even if we don't hear them much not taking care of those frequencies can hunt us down later on during the mix you know by reducing the amount of dynamic range of the mix so that's why I just cleaned that up to at least 50 hertz and that will depend on the vocal and production I'm mixing okay so that can go up to 100 Hertz so between 50 hertz to 100 Hertz is going gonna be my range and that will go according to the vocal I'm mixing then I'm going to focus on 100 to 400 Hertz and this is where the fundamentals of the vocal lives so it's a very important band of frequencies this is where you're going to get some intimacy warmth proximity effect but also some mud you know so you need to be careful with that region this is a region where most of the time I'm gonna end up with some build up going on there and my goal is to hear the fundamentals of the vocal clearly when that is done I'm going to end up with some warmth and not mud Now by clearing that up that is going to open the sound and make the full vocal sound way more clear in general so that will probably make some higher frequencies more present and maybe you'll be able to notice some civilians problems so that's why I'm gonna look for that right after I'm going to look for some civilians problems that I might have on my vocal sound and now we're talking about 4K to 9k or something like that you know depending if you're mixing a female vocalist or a male vocalist so when you're getting those s's and T's that are overwhelming that region of frequencies you need to tame them down by using a de-esser or a dynamic EQ or you can actually tame them down manually I made a video on that I'm going to leave the link right on top and down below if you want to check it out but this is important to take care of those civilians they can be very annoying to listen to another area where you can have tiny problems is between 400 and 600 Hertz where you're gonna get that boxy sound or if you record it in a small room you can have like room tones build up in that region but if I have some cleanup to do within these frequencies I'm always careful that's because we're dealing with the fullness of the vocal sound at this point so if I cut too much this is not going to help my vocal and that's for sure okay so I'm always gentle with my cuts when it comes to a 400 to 600 Hertz a high Q gentle cut can actually do the trick if you need to remove the boxiness of the sound without affecting the fullness of the vocal if you end up with an aggressive vocal sound at some point during the song let's say the vocalist on the last chorus makes some ad-libs and just you know sings his heart out and you end up with more energy in the upper mid range that can create a more aggressive type vocal and now we're talking about 2.5 k to 4K or so you know so that can be an area where you can tame that down to get a more smooth vocal sound at some point during the song now if that doesn't happen on all the song like using a regular EQ cut might not do the trick but working with a dynamic EQ might help a lot where you can only focus on compressing only x amount of frequencies when you exceed the amount of threshold so this is very practical now if you want to know more about Dynamic EQ I think I made a video on that before I'm going to link it down below but it's a very practical tool when eq'ing vocals and we also have a dynamic EQ part of frequency 2. that is a stock plugin out of Cubase and there's also a free plugin available that I'm going to link below if you want to check it out and you don't have Cubase 11. the 1K to 2.5 k is a frequency range that is very sensitive to humans and that's the thing with us humans you know we know how a vocal should sound like because we interact with with other people all day long so we know how a vocal sound like so from one to around 2.5 k this is where we're gonna us as humans hear a vocal sound the most so that's why I'm very gentle with that that frequency region you know so I try not to cut too much or to boost too much in that region so most of the time I'm gonna leave that alone but again it's a case-by-case thing you know so if I end up for example with a more telephonic type vocal For some reason maybe I'm going to bring down the 1 to 1.5 K region so I can have a more balanced sound but if I cut too much I'm going to end up with a more Hollow sound and that doesn't sound very natural for us humans so we need to be careful with that area and if I'm dealing with the nasal vocal sound I'm gonna check what's happening between 800k and 1.5 kilohertz now that I'm done cleaning up the vocals with subtractive EQ I'm gonna check if I need to enhance the vocal sound with some EQ boost now if I need to add a bit of brightness to my vocal sound between 5 and 6K is a good way to start but be careful because that can also enhance some civilians so it's always a matter of balance but sometimes what I also do is to add some air to my vocal sound and now I'm talking about super high frequencies like 16k and above and for that I love to use a vintage type EQ which is going to give me a bit more color and character and which will sound a bit more musical compared to a surgical type EQ like frequency or the fabfilter pro Q3 now I'm going to go more towards a pultec type EQ which is going to work well by boosting 16k and above and that is also going to bring some brightness to my sound without activating civilians you know so that is something that you can experiment with also sometimes I'm going to end up with a very smooth vocal sound with not a lot of mid-range and that could be due to the tone of the microphone that was used during the recording in that case a boost at around 1 to 2K is going to be very useful and that will bring a bit more presence and will bring the vocal a bit more up front so again it depends on what you have to deal with and that can also be useful in a very dense mix where there's a lot going on so if you just need to bring that vocal a bit more up front you can check between one and 2K but again too much of that range is going to make your vocal sound a bit more telephonic and you know what if I'm dealing with a thin vocal I'm not gonna be afraid to go and boost a bit of 100 Hertz or 150. that can actually do the job pretty well so if we look back at the three vocal EQ strategies we have evaluating the vocal sound a clean up the vocal sound and enhance the vocal sound so those are my three vocal EQ strategies I hope that was helpful if so share and like this video [Music] foreign [Music] this one up I'm going to start with the first trick that I want to share with you today and this one is to use a slap back delay so I'm going to show you what that is all about the slot back delay is essentially a short delay and the short delay is going to add some fullness some density and some space around the vocal and I love to use a stereo delay to work with a slapback delay so I'm going to jump in Cubase put on my headphones and I'm gonna just use a um the stuck plugin out of Cubase the stereo DeLay So anyone can use that from your own DW and I'm actually I'm actually having this uh delay on an effects Channel track so as a send effect so it's not inserted on the vocal Channel but it's inserted on the effects Channel track and I'm sending the signal from my vocal channel to the effects Channel track this way it gives me way more flexibility and that's like for 90 of the time I'm gonna work this way when it comes to delays and reverbs alright so now I'm going to open this stereo delay and the idea is to create the super short delay without any repeats only like one repeat Max okay so that's why the feedback is way down to zero percent if you increase the amount of feedback that will increase the amount of repeats and I don't want that in this case I'm going to use that later on but not for a slap back delay I just want to get that initial repeat and that's it and that was going to be enough to create a very nice space around the vocal and bring my vocal a bit more dense so um what I'm doing now in this case is to like instead of using the sync option which is going to sync to the tempo of my my project I'm just going to use the milliseconds as far as the delay time goes and as a starting point I'm going to start at 125 milliseconds usually that will depend on the tempo of the song I'm mixing but I you know I can start up depending on if the it's a high Tempo song or a low Tempo song I can start at 80 milliseconds and up to 200 milliseconds and even 225 milliseconds if I want to so that will depend on the song I'm mixing like in general lower milliseconds will work better on faster songs and higher milliseconds on slower songs but you know that is only again a starting point um all right so let's start this one with these parameters so on one side the left side I have 125 milliseconds and on the right side delay two I have 175mm seconds the reason why I'm doing so is to create a difference between those two sides so I can end up with a stereo effect or else it's just going to cancel itself if I if I bring both delays to the same millisecond value it's going to cancel itself out and it's going to sound mono and this is not what I want to do in this case and then my panning goes to the far left for delay one and to the far right for delay two so let's have a quick listen [Music] again it's a matter of balance [Music] okay so you get the idea you can hear that the vocal when I add the slap back delay will will sound a bit more dense and that's the goal of of you know using a slap back delay to add a bit more density more space around the vocal and that works pretty well and again it's a matter of balance in some type of Productions you want to hear a bit more of that slapback delay in other Productions you want to bring it down and make it a bit more just like to feel that you're in the space more than hearing the delay itself now I just want to try something out here um I want to increase I'm going to add a bit more milliseconds here just to try it out so 175 on one side and 225 on the other so we'll listen if that one sounds better for this song foreign [Music] let me bring that down to 150 and one maybe 200 on this one [Music] [Music] Now by using a stereo delay if you hear that your your slap back delay sounds a bit too wide you can actually narrow down the panning of that delay by bringing down that knob the pan knob from the left and also from the right anymore you can also use a mono delay if you want that actually can sound very good so I'm going to bring my feedback down to zero and a good starting point as time delay goes 1 16 of a note can do the job pretty well [Music] which in milliseconds is gonna go at around roughly one at 180 milliseconds foreign [Music] and the same idea you can just tweak that around to your own taste so this is the slap back delay try it out let me know how it goes now for the second trick is to use a 1 8 of a note delay to fill up the gaps of the vocals okay so let's try this one out and this goes on another effects channel that is right beside my slab delay Channel and I'm gonna use the same plugin uh the stereo Delay from Cubase and this time around I'm gonna set that one up to sync so it is synced to the tempo of the the mix I'm working on and I'm going to set that up to 1 8 of the note and that will actually add a longer delay than the slap delay that we used earlier and I'm going to add in this case more feedback you know so instead of having the feedback to zero I'm gonna bring that one up so I can create more repeats because I want to fill up the gaps you know when there's pauses um in the in the melody on the vocal I want to make sure that I get a bit more repeats just to fill up those empty gaps in case so let me check this out with um 40 at for the feedback again very important by the way to bring the mix knob to 100 wet because we are using this plugin in parallel you know so it's on a uh on an effects Channel track so that is wet and dry needs to be at 100 that also goes for the slapback delay that we used earlier and also for any types of delays or reverbs okay so keep that in mind and again you know the panning will go uh to the far left and the far right on the lay one and two and this is what I'm gonna end up with so [Music] the way it's set up right now one eighth of a note on each side same parameters as you can tell it sounds mono so everything is in the center that might work for you so if it does you're good to go but in my case I want to just uh keep having that stereo image um a bit more wider you know so I'm going to do something pretty cool uh on this delay since I'm limited with the amount of options um I'm gonna unsync one of the delays and I'm going to calculate how much is 1 8 of a note out of my Tempo which is 83 BPM in my case since I know that the 361 milliseconds is 1 8 of a note roughly I just brought that down to 350 milliseconds on one side and I kept the 1 8 of a note on the second one and this is how it sounds like [Music] instead of this [Music] sounds way more stereo I can you know hear that the uh the repeats are surrounding my vocal so now let's listen to this effect in the context [Music] [Music] so again it's a matter of balance and the trick is to to you know to make sure you hear those repeats um like you know in a subtle way you know just to fill up those empty spaces from the vocal line without being too much and too present and that's the danger with delays you can end up adding way too much so in my case like in this situation anyways I want to keep it subtle maybe in some on some other mixes and other situations I would you know I would like to to have them a bit more present but in this case I'm just going to keep it a bit more subtle the ping pong delay is also a nice option to be used on a vocal compared to the stereo delay the sterile delay will apply delay on each side the left and the right at the same time the ping pong delay will bounce from left to right in case the delay the right side delay and the left side delay will not play at the same time so let's have a listen [Music] so that can create a very cool rhythmic stereo effect but if that is a bit too wide you can bring down the spatial knob here which is going to reduce the image of that delay [Music] now for the third trick EQ your DeLay So this is something honestly that helps a lot and let's go back to our slab back delay and there's a NICU straight on the plugin itself you can also use an EQ plugin and add that after the delay or even before the delay I'm going to show that to you right after but you know most of the time you know if I have some EQ parameters straight on the delay it's is going to be faster to reach out to those parameters than adding an extra plugin but that depends on what you want to achieve but let's go and use those filters I'm going to filter out the top end and the bottom end of that delay to around 300 Hertz and bring you know cutting up the the top down to 5.4 kilohertz and same for the second side you know numbers are not matching which I don't care much it doesn't matter but the goal here is to clean up the low end frequencies like the muddiness that I can get below 300 Hertz I don't want that surrounding my vocal in case so that's why I'm cleaning that up and same for the top end you know by bringing that top end down out of the delay plug-in it's going to make the delay sound a bit more transparent okay and not that audible which is going to sound pretty good so let's check it out with the slab back delay [Music] okay I'm gonna turn off the filters [Music] [Music] okay they sound like the delay sound a bit more darker which sounds more transparent and sits down way better in the mix [Music] all right so now let's check and do the same with the stereo delay [Music] [Music] sounds more darker you know less muddy uh so you know again more transparent and that sounds better in my opinion in the context of the mix [Music] and now for tip number four add a Reverb on your delay now this is not something that I do all the time however it does happen that you know especially if I'm not using an actual Reverb for the vocals but only a delay adding a Reverb after the delay is actually pretty nice so let me check this out on the slap back delay so I'm going to bypass my frequency EQ because I don't want to use those on this mix and the serial delay is right here and I'm gonna add a plate a plate Reverb right after my stereo delays I'm going to solo the vocal and let's have a quick listen movie Palace [Music] okay so now what I'm doing here I'm not using a long Reverb you know so it's uh not a super short one as well but something that fits well with the tempo of the song and the trick is to blend it to taste okay to make sure that you have the like the perfect balance between the dry and the wet signal and so in this case the Bland parameter here is gonna help a lot and that will determine how much Reverb you want to get on your delay [Music] that's pretty cool [Music] so that's pretty cool so I kind of like how that sounds like it's just gonna add a bit more space around you know that slapback delay which is quite nice I'm gonna try the same on the stereo delay the 1 8 of the note delay [Music] [Music] okay if I blend that in the context of the mix and also with the slab back delay [Music] [Music] step number five is to use a vocal throws and this is something very cool to work with I actually made a video on vocal throws if you want to watch it there's because there are several ways you can set that up in Cubase I'm going to leave the link on top and down below so for the vocal trolls I'm using the echo boy and this one is set up to one quarter of a note so it's a longer delay with a lot of feedback but what I'm doing is that I am automating the delay when the delay comes in and comes out because I'm only adding that delay on specific lines okay of the vocal and this is how it looks like straight from the project window and I'm automating the send level going into that that delay Channel those are the automation that I have and this is how it sounds like [Music] [Music] all right let's solo the lead [Music] vocals [Music] so vocal throws will be used for stylist type effects so this is why I use always use automation when working with throws because you just want to focus on like some specific words or just one specific word out of a vocal line to emphasize on that word and make it repeat which adds a very nice effect and a very good emotion also now I'm going to share with you one last tip in case I'm going to go to tip number six okay and this one is about using different tones And Delay Styles okay I'm going to show that to you right away and actually if we stick to our delay throw Channel if I look at the echoboy that I'm using I'm actually adding a lot of low cut to the signal and also a lot of high cut to the signal so I actually end up with a kind of a radio type tone and I'm also using a dm2 style and this is the cool thing about the echoboy delay which is one of my favorite delays um it has a different style like the dm2 is what I'm using there's also a master tape Studio tape and so on you know so this is why I ended up with this um this different type of tone for that delay so let's just listen to it briefly [Music] okay now let's try it out on the stereo delay this time and I'm gonna use the echo boy solo the vocalypse okay so that is you know a similar effect that I had with the um with the stereo delay one eighth of a note a bit of feedback and now I'm gonna add a bit more low cut and a bit of high cut filters and there's the offset and that is the uh the option that I have on echoboy to uh just to to make the right side and left side different so it's going to just offset the left and right with this parameter so instead of changing the values manually I can just turn up that knob and keep my uh my delay mode to single Echo [Music] all right so what I'm going to do here is instead of using a digital delay sound which is the one we are hearing right now I'm gonna try the dm2 [Music] sounds way more darker let's go with space Echo [Applause] [Music] told me that's interesting ecoflex [Applause] [Music] so that's pretty cool and I can even add some saturation if I want to [Music] my mom all right so let's blend that in the context of the mix [Music] that's pretty cool that sounds actually pretty good so what I like about using delay Styles like this one is just to add a bit more color to the delay a bit more character also and it also Blends well in the mix and makes that delay more transparent colorful also and you can even end up adding a bit more delay without being too distractive you know and this is something that I like to do but sometimes a digital delay that is pretty clean is going to work well but a lot of times I'm going to reach out for a different style of delay or just a cue the delay itself adding saturation myself with on with the use of another plug-in so it depends on with which plugin I'm working with if you don't have plugin like the echoboy and the only delay you work with is a stock plug-in delay you can just mess around with EQ saturation on the effects of Channel track and create your own delay tone and that will work as well so there you go my friend those are my top five vocal delay tricks that you can use in your mixes again you don't need to use them all at once but it gives you different possibilities to work with on your next mix [Music] goals and this time around vocal saturation now this is going to be the last video of a quick series I've made on mixing vocals here on YouTube the first one uh was published back in October with five vocal delay tips if you want to watch that video and all the other videos part of that series I'm Gonna Leave a link down below so we can watch the full YouTube playlist there's one like I said on delays one on the vocal Reverb vocal EQ vocal compression and this one is the last of the series and it has to do with vocal saturation which is an important aspect on mixing vocals something that I use all the time and I'm going to show you what I do on my side when it comes to work with saturation while mixing vocals so let's jump in Cubase and start this one up now for the first tip add warmth and color to your vocal using saturation alright so in Cubase let's have a quick listen into the song we are going to work on today [Music] so this is a song that I co-wroted with the good friend of mine the lead singer of this song Angel we actually released that single a few months ago so again I'm gonna leave all the infos down below if you want to listen to the full song now what I'm gonna do here I'm gonna solo that lead vocal for the verse let me remove the effects like the reverbs and delays I'm going to try to keep this one as dry as possible there's a bit of compression and EQ going on so something I like to do is to use a console emulation Plugin or a preamp type plugin like the arturia pre-1973 just to give a bit more fullness to the Sound by adding some natural harmonics created by saturation now if you don't know a lot about saturation or you're a bit confused about how saturation is created you can actually watch my full video talking about saturation that I'm going to leave down below now the reason why I like to use these types of plugins like a preamp Plug-In or a console emulation plugin is to get that natural type of analog vibe that we get when recording through those devices you know when you actually record in a preamp or in an analog console now for a lot of people using the interfaces preamp is the option you have to work with which is going to produce a very clean and transparent recording which is fine but at some point it's actually very nice to add a bit more fullness to a very clean and transparent sound and this is why I like to use these types of plug-in so let's try it out with the pre-1973 where I can actually add increase the input gain level of the preamp to uh to create more saturation so more signal is going to go through the Transformers of the um the preamp itself which is going to produce saturation which will create harmonics and the goal here is not to distort the signal it's just to add a subtle amount of saturation just to create a bit more fullness by uh by getting more harmonics out of the sound okay so let's check it out here [Music] if I increase it to the max now I'm getting a lot of saturation this is not what I'm looking for okay it's gonna be good enough okay that's pretty cool so that is one way you can add a bit more fullness to your sound and make your clean and transparent signal sound a bit more exciting I can also use tape emulation so let's bypass the preamp for now and go with the Kramer Master tape uh by waves which is a very good taping militant plugin let's try this one out [Music] if I increase the record level I'm increasing the amount of signal going to the tape and that creates also saturation now the saturation I get from a tape emulation plug-in is going to be a bit more warm and more uh dark in a way um and that's because of the roll-off that I get on the top end of the signal that is produced by tape saturation all right let's add the uh the preamp on top of that and listen to what we have [Music] um [Music] foreign [Music] analog color and fullness to your vocal sound as far as the order in the chain where I put those plugins uh the pre like if I use a preamp plug-in I'm gonna use that straight on top or a console emulation plug-in I'm going to tend to use it as one of the first plugins in the chain and as far as the tape goes that could actually follow the uh the preamp emulation Plugin or I can also bring that at the end of the chain and that also works pretty well so it depends on what I'm mixing so it's just a matter of experimenting and see what works best for you now for the second tip use saturation in parallel now this is very useful if you uh you want to add like higher level saturation uh but you know blended with the dry signal that actually works pretty well so I'm gonna add on this one the arturia dist up amp21 which is a nimulation of the Sans amp and I just made a copy of my vocal track and this is my paradel channel that I'm going to be using so if I just blend that with the unsaturated vocal this is what I get [Music] okay on its own this is how that saturation or Distortion at this point sounds like [Music] um [Music] so it adds a bit more Edge and character to that sound uh you can hear that saturation but you can actually blend it so you actually don't hear but you feel it more than anything else and that again can add more like I said more character uh more edginess to the sound getting that sound a bit more upfront also this is going to help a lot so using saturation like heavy saturation in parallel to the vocal is a great way to do it also it's not something I do all the time but it's something that is very useful when I need to now for tip number three filter out the signal before saturation this is also something that is going to help to get the best out of your saturation especially if you work with heavy saturation on your track or in parallel like I'm doing right now so something I can do is to filter out the signal going into the saturation so in this case what I'm going to do here is to add a high pass filter 10 down the low mids and add the boost on the top end and we'll see how that goes [Music] now that's nice because I'm getting rid of all that mud that was feeding the saturation something else I can also do if I'm dealing with a lot of sibilance I can add a de-esser prior to the saturation so this way I'm not feeding my saturation with some sibilance I'm gonna get more control over the sound before it ends in saturation [Music] foreign so that actually works pretty well something else you can do with filtering and EQ before getting into uh saturation is to emphasize on specific frequencies if you want to to saturate you know a specific Banner frequencies whether it's the mid-range or the high mids or you know whatever you want to emphasize it can boost those frequencies so those frequencies get uh get saturated more than anything else so that is also something that can be done if this is what you're looking for but what I like to do on my end is to get rid of the mud add a de-esser and there you go now the cool thing with this is that I actually shaped the tone of the saturation and while I'm balancing that out with the unsaturated Vocal Track I'm actually changing the overall tone also which is going to make my vocal a bit more uh brighter a bit more up front which works well for paradel processing and this is a way to ache your vocal and change the tone of your vocals without adding EQ but by using saturation now for the next tip multi-band saturation this can be useful so let's bring that down my parallel saturation down and I'm going to open at the end of my chain the quadrophos plugin by Steinberg that is a stuck Cubase plug-in that actually works pretty well so this is the multiband saturation plugins meaning that you can add saturation on different bands of frequencies and the activate saturation on some other bands if you want to or different types of saturation depending on the bands you're working on so which can be very useful so on my side what I have here let's go and focus on the mid-range by adding a bit of the tube saturation on the channel itself so it's not in parallel but straight on the channel so let's have a listen foreign [Music] which is going to create some harmonics to the sound now I'm only focusing on frequencies uh between let me check here between 1.5 kilohertz to 10K so those are the frequencies that are getting worked out by the saturation plugin sure [Music] so using a multi-band saturation plug-in is a very good way to tone shape your sound with saturation by just focusing on specific bands or frequencies now for tip number five use saturation on effects like delays and reverbs okay so what I have here I have a vocal troll channel right here um where I have the echoboy as a delay and I'm going to use this channel just to add some delay on some specific words something that can be done and this can be done on any type of delays and you can also experiment using the same type of approach with reverbs also but on this video I'm mainly going to use it on a delay which works very well so for this one I'm using the echo boy delay by Santos which is one of my favorite delay plugins I've been working with this one for years it has served me well so far so I have on this plugin desaturation knob which is going to add some saturation to the delay signal which is very cool to work with so let's have a quick Listen by just soloing the delay only [Music] okay so if I add some saturation there you go that is pretty cool that's very nice now this is a ping pong delay uh going from left to right let's blend that with the uh the actual vocal [Music] s thank you [Music] that's pretty cool so it actually adds a lot to that vocal delay now I might overdid it for the sake of this video but that gives you an idea now if you don't have a saturation knob on your delay you can just add a saturation plug-in after the delay on your effects Channel track and blend that out you know and that will work perfectly you can add this on a slap back delay if you want to on any types of delete you have on your vocal so I love using a bit of saturation on my vocal delays just to get them to sound different to stand out a bit more now before I wrap this one up let me give you one extra tip so tip number six as a bonus tip add the saturation on back vocals so what I have here on my end is doubles okay where I recorded the lead vocal on the verses two extra times separately so I can create a more wide vocal sound so I'm painting one of the doubles left and the other one right and I just blend that with the lead vocal so like I'm getting like a wider a wider vocal sound so if I solo my uh double Channel which are grouped into a uh a group Channel I'm getting this [Music] okay so uh I have like a de-esser an EQ a bit of compression and uh if I add this plugin which is the tape mellify by arturia which is based on the milotron I'm getting some preamp and tape saturation which adds a lot of tone to the signal so let's have a listen [Music] that's pretty cool so a bit of pre-m drive with some tape saturation also I'm getting a lot of focus on the mid-range especially low mids a bit you know which works great uh for this part and it Blends pretty well with the lead vocal also so let's blend this up with the lead vocalypse [Music] [Music] so there you go my friends this is what you can do with vocal saturation there's a lot of options here a lot of tips that I shared with you now there's way more stuff you can do with saturation and vocal and also on other instruments of course so basically what saturation is going to do to the signal it's going to create some harmonics and also some light and natural compression to your sound and that gives you a lot of Leverage when mixing vocals and also other instruments [Music] foreign so now let's jump in Cubase and check what we have now the first tip I have for you is to use an expander instead of a gate on the lead vocal so I'm gonna open uh my gate plugin which is the C1 gate from waves you can use any gate out of your Daw most of them will have a gate and also the option of an expander so I'm going to explain to you what the difference is between the two now the gate is very simple to understand everything below a certain threshold point is going to be cut off the door is going to close or the gate is going to close Okay so that is the the idea of a gate and an expander if I activate the expander it's very similar and close to what a gate does but instead of fully removing the audio below a threshold point it's going to turn it down okay so it's going to sound smoother on a vocal so I'm going to have you listen to the difference between in the gate and the expander so I'm going to solo my vocal track right here [Music] and I'm going to play around with the amount of threshold of the gates [Music] okay now I'm doing it to the extreme so you can actually hear what a gate is gonna do if my threshold point is higher so everything below that point is going to be cut off now if I activate the expander instead this is how it's going to sound like same parameters [Music] now even if I'm not at the threshold Sweet Spot level um I can hear that the sound is smoother okay so I'm gonna find my sweet spot here [Music] what I like about using an expander instead of a gate is that I can keep all those like natural noises like breaths okay but in a very gentle way just by reducing the volume of those type of noise so by using an expander instead of a gate I get to keep those noises but at a lower level so let's do the same with the gate [Music] so you know this is again why I don't like to use a gate especially on the lead vocal it's going to get rid of everything below that threshold point and in this case I'm actually losing all the breaths sometimes breaths can be annoying can be distracting can be too much when they are too loud and using a gate yes we'll get rid of those breaths but if you remove too much in my opinion anyways it's going to remove the natural sound of the vocal also now in some situations the use of a gate is going to work very well so in that case what I do is I pay attention to the release time of the gate so the more you increase the release time the more time it's going to take for the gate to close and this will result in the more smoother sound without hearing some cuts at the end of each line [Music] another vocal gate Pro tip is to do it manually Yes you heard me do it without the use of any plug-in and this is very useful if you want to get rid of unwanted noise like for example the singer hit the microphone stand while recording between two vocal lines and you want to get rid of that that noise you can do that manually or just to clean up your vocal your vocal recording you know like if I don't have anything going on in the chorus for one Vocal Track I'm simply gonna clean that up and remove those empty spaces and even to tame down vocal breaths which I'm gonna do a case-by-case approach [Music] these are not too bad and they will not be distracted uh on the long run but if I go towards the end of that verse now these are a bit too loud in my opinion so I'm gonna tame them down I'm just going to select my selection tool and just click on the shift X to split that into its own event and bring that one down okay now it sounds way smoother uh but you know doing all those steps can actually be long at some point everything adds up so I actually create myself a key command uh with a bunch of different commands in Cubase to make this process faster so I'm going to select this breath here and from my controller I'm going to activate that key command now if you want to look for this key command I'm going to list it right in the video description below so check it out and you can create your own assign this key command to a keyboard shortcut or straight on a controller like I did on my end and this way it's going to be super fast to bring down one specific part of a recording like I just did right here there you go now it sounds way more smoother and this manual approach is usually what I'm going to reach for um you know especially when I have a clean vocal recording now if you're dealing with a noisy vocal recording where where you have like a tiny background noise going on maybe using an expander in that case as a plug-in insert is going to work well you know but for the most part this is how I do it on my side in a manual waves now if you're working with a vocal that has a bit of a noise into the recording or that you can hear the uh the natural Reverb of the room the vocal was recorded into that happens especially if the room doesn't have a lot of acoustic treatments in that case working with a gate or an expander is going to work very well to get rid of that room sound that you have on that vocal recording now my next vocal gate tip is to remove breaths and noise on back vocals and is something that I do because I don't want to end up especially with breasts I don't want to end up with breaths bouncing left and right especially if my back vocals are stacked vocals doubling the lead vocal like I have right here so let me have you listened to those vocals with the lead no female [Music] okay so now what I did is I removed all the breaths out of the double back vocals and I did that on purpose again not to be stuck with some some unwanted noise and breaths between lines bouncing left and right because those vocals are panned left and right so I only gonna keep the breaths in a very gentle way only on the lead vocal so this way everything is well controlled and I keep the natural sound of the vocal so I'm going to show you something here I'm just going to get rid of these edits and start that over so again you can simply clean that up manually you can use a gate also on those vocals that can be done but if you work in Cubase there's a nice feature here that you can use I'm going to select my lead vocal double and I'm going to go right on top under audio go down to Advanced and click on detect silence and this is actually very well done so this will detect all the silence out of this selection so I have the open threshold and close threshold linked together this is the way I do it if I have to use this feature and I just bring that down to the amount of threshold that I need just to get rid of the silence like I can see right here on the visual part of this window the minimum at the time open I leave that at zero milliseconds and minimum time closed I set it up to 30 milliseconds and that works pretty well pre-roll and post role important to add some you know or else your your vocal sound is going to be cut off too soon okay so this is going to help to keep the tail of the vocal sound intact so I keep that at 150 milliseconds you know around that level is good and then I have the amount of selections detected and this is what's going to happen when I'm going to click on process there you go I have no more no more breaths or you know all the silence part of that selected event are gone basically important that case though is to just add some Fades okay just gentle fades it to smooth everything up and you're good to go so if you work in Cubase this is actually a very fast way to remove silence out of a vocal recording but again I'm going to use this type of approach mainly on stacked back vocals [Music] [Music] I hope those tips were helpful if so share like subscribe to the channel if you're new here there you go my friend I hope you enjoyed this complete guide to mix vocals like a pro don't forget to download the free mixing guide the link is down below and also to share like And subscribe to this channel if you're not already until next time take care and see you

Channel: Chris Selim - Mixdown Online

Views: 52,836

Keywords: audio, audio engineering, audio mixing, chris selim, cubase, cubase 9, cubase pro, home recording, home studio, home studio mixing, home studios, mixdown, mixdown online, mixing, mixing audio, mixing tip, mixing tutorials, music, recording audio, steinberg, the recording revolution, tips, tutorial, VOCAL NOISE, VOCAL SATURATION, VOCAL DELAY, VOCAL EQ, VOCAL COMPRESSION, VOCAL REVERB, The Complete Guide to MIX VOCALS Like a PRO

Id: Qu5_r2Zx3EA

Length: 98min 2sec (5882 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 29 2023