[00:00] So you want to get great vocal mixes, but you're worried you've got to invest like 30 years and become a grizzled grumpy veteran audio engineer before you have a chance at getting great sounding vocals. Good news, that's not true.
[00:13] Or perhaps you think, man, I gotta get a huge collection of plugins and spend a whole bunch of money on those before I have any chance of getting great vocal mixes. Also not true. Today I want to share with you a simple framework to use
[00:25] on your vocal mixes to help you become confident in your vocals, but first I've got a story. I want you to meet my buddy Jeff. Jeff and I met at a business mastermind group. He's a video editor, I'm an audio guy,
[00:37] but we're both musicians. Jeff and his wife came to visit me and my family all the way from California out to Tennessee. And as we were hanging out, Jeff said, hey, let me hear something you're working on in the studio.
[00:49] I happened to be working on an EP and was really excited about this one song. So we went down to the studio. I fired up my DAW and started playing the tracks that I've been recording for this song. As it happens, Jeff is a phenomenal piano player.
[01:04] He grew up playing piano, kind of virtuoso, kind of piano player, kind of guy. But I had kind of forgotten that. I'd never heard him play. I just remembered in conversation that he played piano his whole life.
[01:16] And he sat down at the keyboard, which was right next to the computer, as I was playing this song and just started riffing. And it sounded incredible. And I said, do you want to maybe just record that? Real quick.
[01:28] So what began as a nice dinner with me and my wife, him and his wife, hanging out turned into a quick recording session down in the studio.
[01:40] But he did it in like one take. I said, here's, it's in the key of E. Do you need a chart? He's like, no, I'm good. And I just hit record and captured something magical. Let me just play you a little bit of what Jeff recorded.
[01:53] So here's the outro to that song. It has kind of a breakdown. Then the drums come back in. And this track here, this Rhodes track, is what he played. Here we go. Yeah, I still get goosebumps to this day listening to that part.
[02:28] And it all happened almost randomly. He comes to town from the other side of the country, was on his way to do something else, happened to take an evening to come hang out with us, happened to ask if he could come
[02:40] to the studio, and then just lays down this beautiful, sick, jazzy, bluesy Rhodes part on my song, which now I have forever in my arsenal in my body of work. I've got Jeff playing some sick keyboard on one of my songs.
[02:54] OK, so why am I talking about this random keyboard recording session when this video is about vocals? Because Jeff demonstrates something that I deeply desire for you, this idea of making it effortless.
[03:07] It took him less than five minutes. He sat down, played something amazing. But really, it was his lifetime of preparation of practicing his skills and getting to a point where when the opportunity presented itself,
[03:19] he was able to sit down and crank out something amazing. I want that for you and your music production in general. But specifically, vocal mixes. Vocal mixes can be jerks. They just can't.
[03:31] You get a great instrumental mix, but the vocal is being mean to you. I want you to get to a point where you can effortlessly crank out great sounding vocal mixes every time. If you're new to mixing vocals, this video is going to give you a starting point on your journey
[03:44] towards making it effortless. OK, I'm going to give you my three step framework for mixing vocals. And at the end of the video, I'm going to share with you one of the biggest mistakes people make that really sabotages their vocal mixes.
[03:56] And I'll share how to avoid it. Let's jump in. The first component is level. If you don't get the vocal level right, it really doesn't matter what else you do. Now, you may think, oh, Joe, of course, I got to get the level right. But you'd be surprised.
[04:08] I've done hundreds and hundreds of critiques of people's mixes. And this is one mistake that people consistently make over and over again. They get the vocal level wrong. And then they try to use things like EQ and compression,
[04:20] which we'll talk about in a second to fix that problem. And it doesn't work because if the vocal's too quiet, no amount of fancy EQ is going to get it to the proper level. If it's too loud, no amount of fancy compression is going to get it down to where it needs to be.
[04:33] You need to put it at the right level and then maintain that across your mix. Let me show you. Here's the first verse of that song we were just playing. I'm going to grab the fader here and bring it up until it's at the right level.
[04:45] Now, the question, of course, is what is the right level? For me, I like to visualize it. Imagine that the rest of the mix is sitting right here at my nose. I kind of want the vocal to sit just on top of it.
[04:58] I don't want it to be way above the mix standing on its own. I also don't want it to be buried down here where I have to really strain to hear the voice. Different genres have slightly different rules as to where the vocal goes.
[05:10] But generally speaking, that's what I like. I like the vocal to just peek over the top of the mix. That's the visual that I have of what I'm trying to accomplish with my ears. So let's do that now. I'm going to grab this fader and turn it up
[05:22] until I get the vocal to that level.
[05:52] Now, you'll notice certain phrases will jump out louder than others, like this one. We'll deal with that in a second. But the overall average level of the vocal, I'm trying to get to where really where it's sitting right there with the snare drum.
[06:04] The snare drum is pretty loud in this mix. I'm cool with that. I don't want the snare drum to bury the vocal. So I've got those two kind of in the same ballpark. This level feels pretty good to me. You might think it's better than it was a couple hundred years ago,
[06:20] but I think you better take a look. The next step of this framework is compression. Compression, if you're not familiar with it, I can't go into what all it does. But it basically turns down loud things
[06:33] so the vocal can have a more consistent volume. That's an oversimplification, but that's the idea. So what you're going to do, I'm going to tell you exactly what settings to use to get you started. We're going to put a compressor on this track and here are the settings that I want to use.
[06:46] The first thing I want to do is set the ratio to four to one. That means we're going to get some nice decent amount of compression. And I'm going to set the attack and release both to 10 milliseconds. That's fairly quick. Then I'm just going to turn the threshold down
[07:00] until I'm getting about 10 dB of gain reduction. So to review, four to one ratio, 10 millisecond attack and release, 10 dB gain reduction. Great starting point. So let's do that now.
[07:12] I'm going to solo the vocals so you can hear what's going on. You might think it's better than it was a couple hundred years ago, but I think you better take a look.
[07:24] Final piece, use the gain, the makeup gain to make up for the volume that you lost. This may seem weird why are we turning it down and then turning it back up. We're really squishing it. So we're making the loud parts quieter
[07:36] and then we're using this to make the quiet parts louder. So the overall vocal is at roughly the same volume, but from note to note, it's a more consistent level. Here's what that sounds like. You might think it's better than it was
[07:49] a couple hundred years ago, but I think you better take a look. So now the quiet whispering parts are almost the same level as that loud peak because of the way we've got this compression set up.
[08:03] The third step of the framework is EQ. Now I've got a philosophy towards EQ that's not very popular, but boy, it really works. It's called subtractive EQ. Generally speaking, I like to use EQ
[08:15] to remove things that don't belong versus boosting things that sound good. Let me say that again, I like to use EQ to remove the bad stuff rather than only boosting the good stuff. Most people, when they first get into mixing,
[08:27] they think, oh, this vocal sounds nice. I'm gonna boost all the highs. Yeah, it's bright. Nope. That can sometimes work, but what ends up happening is what really was wrong with the vocal is it was muddy. It had too much lower frequencies,
[08:39] but you just came in and boosted the highs. You didn't fix the low problem, but you did add potentially more high end problems by doing your boost. Cutting the problematic frequencies first before you think about boosting
[08:52] is always a great approach, especially in the beginning as you're learning how to do this. So a couple of things to think about. Whenever I EQ a vocal, first thing I do is I roll off the low end, probably around a hundred hertz or so,
[09:04] using what's called a low cut or a high pass filter. Just to make sure there's no boominess down there. You might think it's better than it was. Next thing I do is there's almost always some muddiness in the vocal.
[09:17] That muddiness is typically in the low mid frequency area, typically somewhere around 250 hertz or so. Let's find that mud and let's cut it out. You might think it's better than it was.
[09:31] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That will interfere with everything else in the mix, especially kick drum and bass guitar. Ain't nobody got time for that. Let's cut this down. You might think it's better than it was.
[09:44] Then there's almost always something going on in the upper mid range in the 2.6K range. I don't know why that's it, but it is. And it's usually annoying and kind of nasal sounding like this.
[09:56] You might think it's better. So I just do a big narrow cut there. And with those three moves in place, the vocal already sounds pretty stinking great. You might think it's better than it was
[10:10] versus this before. You might think it's better than it was. Now, your first inclination will be, oh, I like the one without the EQ better. It's got this beefiness to it. We don't need no beef in a vocal.
[10:22] Beef doesn't work because beef makes the whole mix sound muddy. Listen to how this vocal sits in the mix. You might think it's better than it was. A couple hundred years ago,
[10:35] but I think you better take a look. If you take those three steps, those three parts of that framework, and you get really good at making really great vocal mixes with just those three steps,
[10:48] you're laying a foundation that you can build upon to make great sounding vocal mixes for the rest of your life. Okay, as promised, here's the number one mistake that people make when mixing vocals. They mix the vocal too early.
[11:00] For me, when I'm starting to mix, I'll take that vocal and turn it all the way down. I'll mute that sucker and say, I'll see you later. And I'll spend the next hour or two just getting a great sounding instrumental mix.
[11:13] I'll make the mix sound amazing. Then and only then will I reach for the vocal and put it on top of the mix. Why do I do that? Because the mix is where most of the magic is happening, especially in the low end.
[11:25] I want my kick drum, my bass guitar, my guitars, my keyboards to all have that perfect balance in the low end so that my mix sounds thick and big and awesome and makes me have goose bumps.
[11:37] Then I let the vocal sit on top of that. So I showed you how I remove a lot of low end from the vocal. This is why I don't need low end in the vocal. I've got low end elsewhere. If I start with the vocal, I'll make the vocal too thick
[11:50] because that just sounds better to me when I'm only listening to a vocal. And then as I build my mix around that, everything's going to sound wimpy because I can't have too much low end because the vocal is taking up all the low end.
[12:02] The solution to that problem, of course, is to just mute the vocal, make the mix big and thick and awesome, and then find a way to sit that vocal on top. Vocals can be a lot thinner than you think they can be and still sound amazing and warm and full
[12:14] and all those catch phrases that we love. But it's easier to get there if you save it until the end. Okay, this video is more than enough to get you started. However, if you're itching to learn more, if you want to learn my entire vocal mixing process,
[12:26] I've created a course called Vocal Mixing Guide and I've steeply discounted it for you so you can access the material to start getting great sounding vocal mixes every time. To check that out, go to homestudiocorner.com slash vocals.
[12:40] Thanks for watching, see you in the next one.