5 Simple Tips To Mix Vocals Like A Pro
Generally speaking, vocals are the focal point of any song. Therefore, knowing how to get them right when mixing music is a crucial skill to master when it comes to mixing music.
Only when you know how to effectively mix vocals like a pro can you hope to have the most success. While almost every vocal is unique, differing from genre to genre, the process we follow to mix professional vocals is virtually always the same.
However, if you’ve never mixed vocals before or you’re relatively new to doing so, mixing them can seem quite daunting.
Luckily for you, we’re here to help. To help you start mixing vocals like a pro, we’ve outlined 5 simple tips that will get you started and improve your mixing skills.
If you want to know how to improve your vocal mixing skills, make sure you stay tuned!
1. Bring The Vocals In Early
The first tip we have for you is to bring in your vocals nice and early. When you start mixing, you essentially start with a clean slate. Whatever you start with has complete freedom and plenty of space. You won’t need to mix your vocals with anything to make them fit.
As you can imagine, this makes the vocal mixing process a lot easier and more manageable. As you proceed with your mixing process, space will fill up and new tracks start getting in the way.
More often than not, people then process them to fit the rest of the track. This can result in smaller tracks. By bringing in the vocals early, you can play around, pull up the fader, and solve any issues without having to worry about room.
2. Remove Any Unwanted Noise
You should always remove any unwanted noise if you want the best-sounding vocals. There’s nothing worse than a vocal track that hasn’t had simple things like mouth noise and breath control removed.
Removing simple things like these from your track will leave you with a crisper, more professional-sounding track.
We recommend performing any necessary vocal repairs after you’ve comped the vocals in a few tracks. You can use RX’s Mouth De-Click and a Voice Denoise tool to remove any mouth sounds and any unwanted background noise.
It’s also a good idea to remove any irritating and distracting breath sounds. RX has a Breath Control tool you can use for this.
3. Don’t Be Afraid To Use Auto-Tune
Some artists hate auto-tune while others swear by it. Either way, it’s a tool you should get used to using. Auto-tune isn’t a required element when it comes to vocal mixing but it can be used to enhance vocals and produce an overall better track.
You can use auto-tune to adjust notes that a person sings or an instrument so that it fits the scale of your song. Essentially, it’s a correction tool.
A great way to look at auto-tune is as a creative tool that allows you to edit and enhance your vocals.
4. Create Clarity Using EQ
One of the key things that separate professional vocals from amateur vocals is how the mixer treats the frequencies of the vocals. More often than not, professional vocals are both present and warm at the same time.
The majority of this tonal quality is produced by sculpting the vocals using an equalizer or EQ for short. You can use an EQ to help your vocals shine throughout your mix. You can use a high-shelf filter to boost the high-end, use a high-pass filter to roll off unnecessary low-end, and add saturation to fill the frequency spectrum.
5. Find The Best De-Esser
One of the great things about mixing vocals is how many tools we can use to do so. We can create professional mixes using a huge range of different tools, including plugins in our DAWs. However, there is an exception.
That exception is de-essing for example. De-essing is the process of reducing the volume of sibilance in a vocal recording. To make your vocals sound as good as they can be, you need to use a good de-esser tool.
A bad de-esser will leave your vocals sounding flat and dull.
Final Thoughts
In this post, we’ve given you 5 simple tips that will help you improve your vocal mixing ability. If you take these tips onboard, you’ll be able to start mixing vocals like a pro.
While there are other things you need to know, these 5 tips are things that will quickly improve your ability to mix vocals.
Now all that’s left to do is implement our tips into your mixing process.
