Need help with mixing vocals!!

some questions before I listen

do you make your own backings or do you buy them? do you mix your backings or just get the stereo outs?
 
or a better i dont really know what you mean by backings. if your talking about the adlibs i make my own effects
 
This particular song- here's what strikes me:

The Kick's pitch is out of key and I honestly think that's the majority of what you're talking about.

If my song is in C major and my kick's mostly at 70 hz, which is where C sharp lies, it's going to sound off not matter what processing I do.

When every melodic instrument and drum (and vocal) are in key, it allows you to raise the overall level of every track because it sounds naturally appealing.

Beyond that, I wouldn't be eqing more than high shelves and high pass filters. If you need more than that, you're either a 10 year vet in the industry or trying to do too much using eq.

Oh and I didn't check for it when I listened, but make sure you're "de-noising" your vocals. :)

Wow... just read that you said "the beat is from youtube"..

That, I believe, is your problem sir...

Not going to delete what I already typed.

De-noise your vocals, pitch them if you're educated on it, high pass filter them to 80-200 hz, compress them 3-9 dB, and compress the entire mix, beat plus vocals, 1-2 dB.

Cheers
 
Last edited:
Free Spirit said:
This particular song- here's what strikes me:

The Kick's pitch is out of key and I honestly think that's the majority of what you're talking about.

If my song is in C major and my kick's mostly at 70 hz, which is where C sharp lies, it's going to sound off not matter what processing I do.

When every melodic instrument and drum (and vocal) are in key, it allows you to raise the overall level of every track because it sounds naturally appealing.

Beyond that, I wouldn't be eqing more than high shelves and high pass filters. If you need more than that, you're either a 10 year vet in the industry or trying to do too much using eq.

Oh and I didn't check for it when I listened, but make sure you're "de-noising" your vocals. :)

Wow... just read that you said "the beat is from youtube"..

That, I believe, is your problem sir...

Not going to delete what I already typed.

De-noise your vocals, pitch them if you're educated on it, high pass filter them to 80-200 hz, compress them 3-9 dB, and compress the entire mix, beat plus vocals, 1-2 dB.

Cheers
Click to expand...


thanks, that helped. i figured it was the beat ive been telling my team its hard to get the mix right if i have limited control over the beat. can you give me a quick run down on pitching vocals?
 
Hey PureBeatz, To pitch-correct vocals, you've got to know/figure out the key of the song. Then you can use Autotune (your DAW might have a similar plugin) and put in that key. Set the correction speed to its slowest, then gradually slide the adjustment to faster and faster until it starts sounding like T Pain. Then curb the adjustment back slightly slower until you hear it correcting the pitches without any weird artifacts.

You can even use Melodyne to correct the pitch, but I don't think it's really needed in this case. But if you want to use Melodyne, you just manually move the pitches on the grid in the proper key. With Melodyne, you want to make sure not to pitch-correct every note 100% or it will sound artificial. Concentrate on the notes that sustain or accent notes in the phrase that really stick out the most - those are the notes that (in modern times) you want to have at 100% pitch correction on.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
'Mixing vocals' to a premixed stereo track (in this case taken from YouTube) means that the only sacrifices you can make are to the vocal; which is never what you 'really' want to sacrifice...

A full mixdown will always glean better results (unless you totally **** it) because you're able to sacrifice elements in the back of the track (almost) unnoticed in order to make those sounds at the front (think vocal in this instance) really shine.

Tracks taken from YouTube also carry the disadvantage of already being over compressed... A huge loss in dynamic range... Just less to play with overall; and less as a stereo track instead of stems. Effectively nothing there 'to' mix.

You don't need help learning to mix your vocals G.
You need to learn how to mix.

Sorry if I come accross as harsh... Not meaning to offend... Just feel it an important point that you should be looking at.
 
i dont take offence to it. for the most part when i'm recording off my own prodcution the product comes out really good. im just unsure of how to make a youtube beat mix well with the vocals i record with it.
 
PureBeatz said:
i dont take offence to it. for the most part when i'm recording off my own prodcution the product comes out really good. im just unsure of how to make a youtube beat mix well with the vocals i record with it.
Click to expand...
It's tough... You could over-compress the vocal to match the lack of dynamic range in the over-compressed YouTube beat...
You could concentrate your efforts in trying to excite the beat...
Either way (or in combination) it's gonna be tough to mix to the same standard as your own stuff...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top