N
Navil Jabs
Guest
here s the song but my vocals sound isolated from music what can I do for a better vocal mixing
https://soundcloud.com/navil-jabs/living-to-travel:(
https://soundcloud.com/navil-jabs/living-to-travel:(
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here s the song but my vocals sound isolated from music what can I do for a better vocal mixing
https://soundcloud.com/navil-jabs/living-to-travel:(
Wow, pretty tense. It's simply a bitter melody chord combination, you cannot do so much about the singing, it's going to remain this bitter. If you like the bitterness, you have to like the sound of the singing too, I would say it does a great job of bringing that out. Now, if that's not what you want and that's what you do not try to achieve, then that's an issue that requires you to take apart the production. So it's all up to you what you want to create. Nothing is invalid, it's just relative to what the listener wants. I rarely listen to bitter music, therefore this is for me the kind of music when I pretty quickly would click on the forward button to skip to the next track. That I do purely just due to my musical taste, I'm not doing it because it has some issues, because it really does not, the production is bitter, the singing is bitter, the combination of then having the vocals a bit quiet in a dizzy/confused/chaotic chamber type of sound makes it really bitter. So it's all "good". But ask yourself, if I wanted it this bitter and I have really achieved it like that, why am I not pleased? I find it does its job very well, but to listeners that don't want to listen to bitter music, it is a pure pain. For those that love bitter music, it's a pure pleasure. So what type of audience are you going for with this type of music? I think it is almost punk, it's very close. You could therefore, if you want it to be that, speed it up too. If you want to bring out some of the punk nature of this creation, you can speed it up. If you want it to be more heavy, then you need to slow it down and make it have more low end. If you want it to be an old school type of vibe, then you'll going to have to lower the bitterness and make it more guitar centered. So you can do a lot of things with it. In most cases the singing would sound better if it was more loud with less of the echo chamber/delay on it.
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Navil Jabs
Guest
Hey darkred thank you for your reply I appreciate , I m new at recording that s my 3d attempt to try record a song , what do you suggest \i can do to improve my mixing in future?
Milo Burke
New member
Everyone has different tastes. I'll share my opinion:
It sounds a little like an amateur band in a garage. But I think that's almost entirely the mix, and a lot can be done to fix it.
- The drums are too loud, relative to everything else.
- The entire mix is missing high end, from the snare to the hat to the guitars - bring out some sparkle and some snap and some grit!
- Guitars should be louder.
- The vocals sound very distant, likely due to the heavy vocal effects - is this a stylist choice?
- Are you putting the reverb directly on the vocal track? Or playing the vocals clean direct to the master bus, and separately routing the vocals to a reverb bus? The second will sound clearer and more pro.
There are some things I like:
- The musicianship feels really tight, very in-sync.
- The guitars are spread nicely, doubled nicely.
- It's arranged well - you have a good sense of which instruments should be sounding at what point, and what they are playing.
I think your composition is well written and arranged and performed. It's the mix that needs work. I'd focus a long time on EQing everything just so. Compare to a great sounding reference track, instrument by instrument. Does your snare sound as crisp as their snare? If not, adjust. Does your lead guitar sound as edgy as their lead guitar? If not, adjust. Etc.
Greg Wells recently put out a plugin with Waves called VoiceCentric, supposed to be a one-stop-shop for vocal mixing for many pop tunes. Now, there are serious limitations from what is close to a one-knob plugin. But, in advertising it, he disclosed his typical vocal chain: input > EQ > de-esser > fast compression > slow compression > output. But also, slow compression separately runs to adjustable amounts of delay, reverb, and doubling, which each separately go to the output. Try mixing your vocal this way, see if it sits better.
- For the doubler, crank it until it sounds nasty, then slowly dial it down to where you like it. I often like it just below where that phasey-ness stops, but it still makes the vocal sound thicker and more pro.
- Your vocal delay sounds a little slappy, a little like what Elvis used. Try making it quieter, cut the lows and highs from it (leaving it mid-range), and play with how long the delay is. You may find you like the volume just below what's audible on an average system, yet you still feel something is missing when you mute it.
- Reverb often sounds best dark and midrange-y too. You could try a medium-short length verb that just hugs the vocals, only slightly audible. And then a much longer dark reverb (also low in volume) to make the room feel bigger. Use a touch of pre-delay on the short verb, and more pre-delay on the longer verb.
- Unless you're going for something tricky, always run the vocal output (with tuning, EQ, compression) straight to the rest of the mix bus or master bus, and separately route the vocal through effects (delay, reverb, doubling, etc.). Have each effect 100% wet, then just dial in the volume of each effects channel to where it sounds good: supporting but not overwhelming.
Best wishes.
It sounds a little like an amateur band in a garage. But I think that's almost entirely the mix, and a lot can be done to fix it.
- The drums are too loud, relative to everything else.
- The entire mix is missing high end, from the snare to the hat to the guitars - bring out some sparkle and some snap and some grit!
- Guitars should be louder.
- The vocals sound very distant, likely due to the heavy vocal effects - is this a stylist choice?
- Are you putting the reverb directly on the vocal track? Or playing the vocals clean direct to the master bus, and separately routing the vocals to a reverb bus? The second will sound clearer and more pro.
There are some things I like:
- The musicianship feels really tight, very in-sync.
- The guitars are spread nicely, doubled nicely.
- It's arranged well - you have a good sense of which instruments should be sounding at what point, and what they are playing.
I think your composition is well written and arranged and performed. It's the mix that needs work. I'd focus a long time on EQing everything just so. Compare to a great sounding reference track, instrument by instrument. Does your snare sound as crisp as their snare? If not, adjust. Does your lead guitar sound as edgy as their lead guitar? If not, adjust. Etc.
Greg Wells recently put out a plugin with Waves called VoiceCentric, supposed to be a one-stop-shop for vocal mixing for many pop tunes. Now, there are serious limitations from what is close to a one-knob plugin. But, in advertising it, he disclosed his typical vocal chain: input > EQ > de-esser > fast compression > slow compression > output. But also, slow compression separately runs to adjustable amounts of delay, reverb, and doubling, which each separately go to the output. Try mixing your vocal this way, see if it sits better.
- For the doubler, crank it until it sounds nasty, then slowly dial it down to where you like it. I often like it just below where that phasey-ness stops, but it still makes the vocal sound thicker and more pro.
- Your vocal delay sounds a little slappy, a little like what Elvis used. Try making it quieter, cut the lows and highs from it (leaving it mid-range), and play with how long the delay is. You may find you like the volume just below what's audible on an average system, yet you still feel something is missing when you mute it.
- Reverb often sounds best dark and midrange-y too. You could try a medium-short length verb that just hugs the vocals, only slightly audible. And then a much longer dark reverb (also low in volume) to make the room feel bigger. Use a touch of pre-delay on the short verb, and more pre-delay on the longer verb.
- Unless you're going for something tricky, always run the vocal output (with tuning, EQ, compression) straight to the rest of the mix bus or master bus, and separately route the vocal through effects (delay, reverb, doubling, etc.). Have each effect 100% wet, then just dial in the volume of each effects channel to where it sounds good: supporting but not overwhelming.
Best wishes.
Hey darkred thank you for your reply I appreciate , I m new at recording that s my 3d attempt to try record a song , what do you suggest \i can do to improve my mixing in future?
I think what will definitely help is that you think more about what you are really going for in terms of production and sound, and then ask yourself have you really achieved that or have you achieved something pretty different? And when so, is that cool or not. If it's cool then keep building around that, if it is not cool, abandon it. My perspective on the kind of music you've created is that is tries to be an old school The Black Crowes kind of vibe and if so I find that it has to have a bit more rock and pop in it, so that its bitterness turns into a lighter groove instead. So in that case focus on the groove and then put chord progressions around that which are not bringing up a lot of bitterness. So a bit more rock and roll would take this from the bitter tense state to a less tense and more mild type of sound. If that is what you want then focus more on the groove, especially with the guitars and then make the vocals intense but sweet, listen to Steven Tyler. As a producer I would have wanted you to go in that direction, that's what I would have created from this.
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