Good stuff! Definitely my type of track. Everything fits perfectly but the vocals aren't blending in properly with the overall mix.
I am not the best vocal mixer/engineer but I will share some of my tips that I learned on mixing vocals.
This is going to be a long post so prepare yourself.
EQ
Create a bus mix for the vocals so you can use the same settings for the backing vocals (if you have any)
- You want to low cut all the unnecessary frequencies that might interfere with your Drum and Bass sounds.
- Remove little bit of around 2000~3000 hz (Play around with it until you find the settings you want)
- One trick I learned from an engineer is that if you boost 8200hz by 4db it gives you a "Professional Recording" sound.
- For backing vocals cut around 780 hz
What you want to achieve at this stage is to remove any unwanted frequencies and adding little bit of subtle "color" to the vocal track. Look for "resonance" to remove any unwanted frequencies, if you don't know how to do this just look it up on youtube.
Tuning (Melodyne/Autotune)
I won't go too much detail about this because its not really necessary for this track but a good practice is to tune your vocal to perfection or as best as you can.
Create a stereo bus track (bus plugins must be in stereo and your vocal track has to be mono)
Find the key of the song, mess with the "Retune" setting accordingly.
Remember, you will hear some difference but it will be subtle, you're not making a dramatic change here.
Compressor
Then we come to the compression which will allow your vocals to stand out in the mix.
Compressor I recommend is CLA-2A by Waves, which is a remake of a famous rake that is used for a lot of vocals.
I don't know what DAW you are using but whether you use waves plugins or not, a lot of compressors come with "VOX" settings so look in to that and make adjustments accordingly.
Some engineers like to combine CLA-2A with RVox by Waves but this step is completely optional.
DE-Esser
This compresses the "S" noise of the voice. Check out DE-ESSER by Waves.
Reverb
- Use a send track for reverb, so you can leave the dry signal of the vocals.
- Keep in mind that "Plate" is usually the standard for vocals.
- My recommendation for reverb is Lexicon [LexVintagePlate Golden Plates]
If you want to be even more intricate, add a stereo imager to your Reverb bus to widen the signal of reverb.
Remember the settings on reverb will mostly depends on the "sound" you are looking for in the vocal but you won't be making any "dramatic" effects here to your vocals
Stereo Delay
Until now, I have listed all the essential tools that you want to add to your vocals. Stereo delay is not strictly necessary, but it adds some nice effect so it really depends on the taste and on the timbre and the effect you wanna achieve with your vocal. Stereo delay allows you to fill those empty spaces around the vocal. The use of stereo delay will heavily depend on the genre of the song and your personal willing.
Supertap
This is a plugin that's used quite a bit when mixing vocals and its a plug-in by Waves (yet again) called SuperTap
What it does in a nutshell, it lets the vocals stand out in the mix a little bit more, its very subtle.
It will make your vocal sound "stereo" and widens it without affecting too much of the dry centered (mono) signal of your vocal. Its not something you can't live without but its a great tool to add to your vocal mix.
One another quick note I want to make here before we continue is that all of the steps I gave you are all small steps/subtle changes that will eventually glue together and help the vocals stand out.
Final Touches
- Throw in another EQ at the end to make any subtle changes/remove resonance.
- If you want to soften up the "Attack" of the vocal, add another reverb on the vocal channel instead of the bus.
- Add a Stereo Imager on your bus track. It adds very very short delay that gives impression that vocal is panned and you do this to "Center" your main vocal little bit more. Remember you only want to apply very very little bit of the settings (0.1 or 0.2 on all 4 bands)
Ducking
Sidechain some of your instruments (mostly your main element of the track) to your main vocals so that the instrument ducks when the vocals come in. You want to have very quick Attack on your compressor (around 1.0 ms) and your release should be around 20~25 ms. Adjust the threshold accordingly to the instrument that it's being applied. Keep the ratio around the middle. Make sure you turn your "Gain Reduction" off.
Final Notes
- List of things that you will probably need every time = EQ, Tuning , Compression , Reverb(Plate) , Desser and Ducking.
- List of things you may want to add to create particular atmosphere = Delays (Stereo, mono , Ping Pong delay) , Doubling your vocals if you want your vocals to be more "stereoized" instead of letting your vocals just sit on center, backing vocals, Long Reverb, SuperTap.
I hope I didn't overwhelm you with too much informations but I hope you can learn a thing or two from it. (Took me a long time to write this lol.) You don't have to try to apply all of this at once. Try to understand each step before moving on to the next, I'd advise you to do some personal research on everything I've listed here. Use what works for you and apply it and reject anything that doesn't work for you.
