The Big One - The Lead Vocal

Ironically, after all the effort you've put into everything so far, there is one musical "part" which if you screw it up, everything is lost.

All the time and money spent doing everything else is just money down the drain if you can't get the vocal right.

So what are your objectives?

Primarily, you are trying to ensure that what the vocalist is saying can be heard. I don't (just) mean physically heard, but emotionally heard. That has a substantial impact on the kind of things you will want to do to the lead vocal as part of the mixing process.

Secondly, you need to get the vocal to "fit in" with everything you've been working on for the last few hours. Hopefully, if you've followed this article so far, you'll remember that everything has been mixed with at least a little of everything always present, so you should have been listening to the vocal - at least to some degree - all the time you've been mixing so far. If you haven't, then you may have a very nasty surprise when you fade it in. It may sound, tonally, quite different from everything else, and you will realise that much needs to be done to the sound to get it to "gel" with everything else.

But shouldn't the lead vocal be "pure"? Should it not be unaffected, uncompressed, unEQ'ed, with just a little specially prepared reverb?

Well, try that for starters. It might work. If so, well... erm... that was easy... skip the rest of this section!

In all likelihood though it won't be. If you've done a good job of the mix so far, then everything should sound very impressive and polished, and the vocal will probably not sound as stunning as everything else.

There are - needless to say - so many different ways you can approach the lead vocal that an entire book could be written on the subject. But here are some tips anyway:

• Consider using a different reverb for the vocal that you have not yet used on anything else on the track. Normally, reverb on the vocal benefits from much less "damping" than general-purpose reverb, and - if you can - try taking some low-frequency out of the reverb return or send. Both the vocal, and it's reverb should be clearly audible above everything else in the mix, without being overly loud. Generous pre delay on the vocal reverb is often very effective, as it makes the reverb sound like it is reflected off the back wall of an auditorium, or off a mountain or canyon. Be careful not to overdo the vocal reverb, as it can sound either somewhat dated, or just plain tiring to the ears.
• You may have to "thin out" the vocal a little, and add some very top end to give the vocal a little polish, and you might also need to use a de-esser to counteract the effects of this EQ. You instead might consider using an Aural Exciter processor effect to add more top end without sibilance, or try playing the vocal through a Dolby encoder (as if it is recording) which will make it brighter. "Switching off the Dolbies" on playback was a standard technique on both lead and backing vocals in the analog days.
• If the vocal needs compression, then expect to spend a fair bit of time doing it. The lead vocal exposes poor compression, so it can take much time to get the settings right. You are trying to get the vocal "present" for the duration of the song, without it sounding squashed or restrained - the vocal should (normally) - sound spacious and open, and able to move freely. An over-compressed vocal actually sounds claustrophobic! (naturally though, this can sometimes be desirable). Sometimes however, you might find you need to "expand" a poorly recorded, over-compressed vocal in order to put some "life" back in it. If you thought setting up a compressor is hard, then try setting up an expander to correct an over compressed lead vocal! Believe me, you won't want to over compress a lead vocal when recording one in future after that experience!
• I often use chorus on the lead vocal. What? Is that legal? Well, yes it is. I'm not talking about swamping the vocal, or making it sound like it's been double-tracked - I'm talking about just the weeniest, weeniest amount of very slow chorus at a low level. The level should be so low that the chorus effect itself is inaudible. Instead, the effect is that the high frequencies sound fuller, and the vocal sounds "bigger" and more powerful in a way that is hard to describe. You need to try this to understand what I mean. Just very, very faint chorus on very subtle settings - hardly even there at all.
• Sometimes, using an "old-fashioned" equaliser such as a "Pultec" or other valve-style equaliser can let you change the vocal sound, without making it sound like it has been deliberately equalised. I've personally known a Pultec "rescue" a mix that seemed doomed because the vocal didn't fit with the rest of the track no matter what was done, but two minutes with a Pultec and the vocal was perfect. This is no guarantee though.
• Generally, use only the highest quality effects and processors on the vocal. If you've used them up already whilst mixing, consider hijacking them back for vocal purposes, and reworking the other instrument using a spare, unused, cheaper effect unit.
• Using a delay with fairly generous feedback - either on the beat, or perhaps in triplets - can be very effective on a vocal. Often it works well throughout the entire track, other times it works best when you just "spin off" occasional words at the end of particular sentences. Be careful doing this, or it will sound too "corny".
• Make a final check on the vocal sound, and make sure that it doesn't sound too "effected". The human ear is especially sensitive to vocals (we hear the human voice every day more than probably any other sound), and vocal parts can reveal poor processing or poor choice of effects very easily. When this happens, it sounds like the vocal is somehow "crumbling apart" and it somehow sounds "bitty" (even on an analog system!).
• Vocal levels should be set whilst monitoring at a very low level - make sure the lyrics are clearly audible at all levels.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 829