THE world's shortest vocal mixing course you’ll ever need

[00:00] You don't need a $3,000 microphone to get professional sounding vocals. Billy Alice recorded Ocean Eyes on a $100 audio tectica AT2020. The secret, it's not the mic, it's how you mix it. And the next 90 seconds, I'm gonna teach you the only vocal mixing steps that actually matter.

[00:14] No fluff, just where it gets results. Step one, get the right recording. Mic choice matters less than performance and environment. A cheap mic and a quiet, treated room beats an expensive mic and a bad room every time.

[00:26] Performance is 80% of the mix. If you have bad input, you will have bad output. So get into a closet or put a blanket over your head. I know it looks weird, but we only care about the sound, not the looks. Then record 10 takes and grab the best parts from each.

[00:39] This is called vocal comping. Step two, we need to make space with EQ. Grab a high pass filter and cut everything below 80 hertz. Fix the harshness around two to five K if it's piercing. Then cut the mud around 200 to 500 hertz if it's a bit too boomy.

[00:51] Good vocal EQ isn't about boosting all the time. It's about removing what's in the way. If you wanna clear sky, you remove the clouds. If you wanna clear sounding vocal, you remove the junk. Once the junk is out of the way, then we can start boosting some frequencies. Step three, we need to make it consistent with compression.

[01:05] We wanna keep the vocal smooth and up front. Grab a compressor and turn the ratio all the way up. This is like adding a magnifying glass to the compression so that way we can really hear exactly what's going on. Then we can adjust our threshold, our attack

[01:17] and release and other parameters of the compressor. This is going to be different depending on the type of music you make. If you want Billy Eilish soft style vocals, you're gonna want light compression with a solo attack. If you want aggressive metal vocals, heavy compression, fast attack.

[01:30] Once you've set your parameters, then you can take your ratio back down to a more musical level. Step four, reverbs and delays. Use reverb like salt too much and you lose the flavor. Let's grab a reverb and throw it on a bus for individual control.

[01:42] Let's adjust the length of the reverb, then let's also adjust the pre-delay. This adds clarity by separating the vocal from the reverb. We can also use short delays instead of long reverbs. This keeps vocals clear but deep. Step five is automation. This is the secret sauce.

[01:54] Pro mixes don't just set it and forget it. They ride the fader. Bring the volume up on the vocals so that way they don't get lost in big parts of the mix and then bring them back down so that way they're not overbearing on everything else. You can also automate the reverbs and delays

[02:06] to add those effects in spaces when the vocal is not present. And then bring it back down to get it just tucked underneath the vocal. The difference between amateur and pro vocals is an expensive gear. It's these five steps. Master them and you'll get radio ready vocals with any mic.

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