Okay so, whenever i try mix my vocals or my mates vocals, i EQ them (not too much cause it ain't needed) and compress it, add a little bit of delay, etc... and it sounds good and all, but my vocals are kind of like squashed inside the beat, they are quiet , (You can hear them clearly no problem cause they are mixed nicely with the beat and all but I want them louder/brighter so then when i try to increase the gain from the compressor, it will start clipping, (goin red) which obviously i dont want that... and even then,, the vocals don't sound "bright"
any suggestions? tips?
What you said made literally no sense..... No I am serious you have to explain that again because I will tell you why it makes no sense.
First you said "vocals are kind of like squashed inside the beat, they are quiet" <---- This is word for word what you said
So first I am thinking your voice is too low because you said your vocals are quiet
but then you contradict your last statement and say this "You can hear them clearly no problem cause they are mixed nicely with the beat"
Now I am confused
How can your vocals be quiet/squashed inside the beat YET you can HEAR them and they are CLEAR because they are MIXED NICELY with the BEAT??????
That makes no sense to me....... literally.... it is wort then giving me a confusing math problem that has no real answer and is a riddle....
When my voice is squashed in the beat my voice is less hearable, less clear and lower, yet you say your voice is clear and hearbale yet quiet at the same time....????
Out of all that confusion this is the only thing I can say because I still do not understand how both of those statements can be true at the same time because I have yet to see it when I record stuff.
LIST OF THINGS THAT MAY HAPPEN
#1 - The beat was badly mixed/mastered. This is the number 1 problem I had most of the time when I can't get any of my vocals to sound good, usually who ever made the beat mixed it very crappy and no matter what I do my vocals conflict with the beat and just never sounds right, but if I record vocals on a different beat I will notice my vocals are much better which shows its a problem with the beat and not with me mixing it. So maybe the problem is simply the beat is not mixed well and parts of the beat is conflicting with your voice and no matter how well you edit your voice your voice will still sound like it can't "Fit" or is "Squashed", the only way I think you can fix this problem is to have the files to the beat and mix the instruments correctly so they don't mess with your voice.
#2 - PANNING - maybe alot of the instruments on the beat are panned where your voice is??? Pan your voice in different places and see if it fixes anything, if it doesn't then this isn't the problem
#3 - The beat is too loud or clipping ? I assume its not clipping though if you are checking your voice for clipping
#4 - You compressed way to much or need to re-EQ your voice.
- This could be the problem if the problem is not the beat itself, maybe when you EQ'd your voice you raised parts of your voice that conflicts with a certain instrument in the beat? If that is a problem then you would have to go back in your EQ and lower that so its not conflicting as much.
Also if you compressed your voice too much then your voice will sound drowned out very bad like someone took your voice and just smothered it with a pillow, but you said you can hear your voice CLEAR???
The other thing I do not get is you said your voice is CLEAR but its not BRIGHT???
Maybe I am a noob when it comes to certain terminology but I thought clear and bright is sort of the same thing when it comes to EQing vocals or maybe I understood that wrong...
All I know is when I raise the high end of my voice it makes it more clear and bright, go EQ the high ends, but you'll need a program to lower the "S's" in your voice that get raised as well from doing that.
Or maybe your mic sucks
but if you can hear yourself clear maybe your mic does not suck
Your gonna have to let us hear it to really hear whats going on. Nobody cares if you sound bad or good, upload the file then just delete it after we hear it if you don't want anyone to hear it. You can't get better if you don't know whats going on.