Making vocals stand out

[Standanddeliver]

Can you share how to make lead vox stand out . Thanks

[Tiles]

Hey,

There is not the one right way, but some general steps. Country music for example is usually nearly unaltered. Pop music is heavily tuned. So it already depends of the music that you want to make. And everybody has its own favourite toolset.

It is a mixture of the right gain. EQing, for example remove mud and boxiness and decent pushing frequencies above 8 to 10k for the sparkling. Compression, sometimes a Limiter instead, or both. Ducking of reverb and hall. Ducking the instruments in the song when the vocals plays. Something like Soothe to minimize the harshness and bad frequencies (or finding the bad frequencies manually with at least a dynamic EQ). And most important, the recording of the vocals itself needs to be good already. Not too close at the mic, a somehow decent room to record. And a singer that can really sing. You cannot turn mud into gold.

This can be achieved with single tools. Nowadays you can also use something like Izotope Nectar. Even the elements version gives you already a decent result.

[BertKoor]

Can you share how to make lead vox stand out .

Without knowing what sort of track you're struggling with, I'd say over half the work is in the arrangement: what else is fighting for attention, especially in the frequency ranges which are important for vocals.
Another important thing is the EQing of the vocals to emphasize them, and EQing of the other instrument tracks so they don't get in the way.

But I guess you just need to practice a lot. Listen carefully. What stands in the way of the vocals? What can you do against that? Try that. You may find a hundred things that don't work well, but each song is different and needs other ways to make them sound better.

Thanks

No problem, you're welcome...

[donkey tugger]

Others above have covered arrangement, ducking/eq etc, but a couple more little tricks whilst I remember;

Use a healthy pre-delay on the reverb (if not ducking it) to let the dry signal establish itself. I find about 80ms or so works. Also cut the reverb below around 500hz, so there's no mud.

Great trick to add presence is to duplicate the vocal track, gate it, then bang it through a distortion. Mix this very low down so it's almost inaudible, but you notice if you mute it.

[Tiles]

Use a healthy pre-delay on the reverb (if not ducking it) to let the dry signal establish itself. I find about 80ms or so works.

Pre-delay and reverb is a little bit science. And also depends of the tempo of the song. Here is a time calculator.

https://anotherproducer.com/online-tool ... alculator/

Also, i usually have a hall plugin in the chain too, not just a reverb.

Also cut the reverb below around 500hz, so there's no mud.

I also low pass above 5-6k to get rid of harshness and essing.

Great trick to add presence is to duplicate the vocal track, gate it, then bang it through a distortion. Mix this very low down so it's almost inaudible, but you notice if you mute it.

Yup, forgot to mention vocal doubling.
There is also a free plugin from Izotope for that around. https://www.izotope.com/en/products/vocal-doubler.html

[donkey tugger]

Also, i usually have a hall plugin in the chain too, not just a reverb.

Depends on the song, but a subtle ADT/slapback delay low down before the reverb can add depth too, without making the vocal too distant.


Keep 'em, coming!

[Uncle E]

Side-chain the vocals to other tracks' compressors and dynamic EQ's. Neutron and other plugins make it easy.

[donkey tugger]

On doubling/multi-tracking, whilst doing multiple takes is always best, the plug-ins aren't bad at all these days. My fave is Melda's MUnison, which is also a stellar harmonizer.

Another approach is to (legally!) use AI to duplicate the vocal using a different singer, and use Melodyne to add slight random timing/pitch variations. I've made AI models of my own vocals, and also from public domain samples, and use Replay t generate the copies.

https://www.tryreplay.io/

[Tiles]

When talking about fine details, next would be the frequencies and how to EQ them ...

unwanted low end (1 Hz–100 Hz)
body and warmth (100 Hz–400 Hz)
hollow or boxy frequencies (400 Hz–800 Hz)
unwanted resonances in the nasal cavity (800 Hz–1.5 kHz)
presence and intelligibility (1.5 kHz–5 kHz)
sibilants (5 kHz–8 kHz). Here also resides the deessing
sparkle (8 kHz–12 kHz)
airiness (12 kHz–20 kHz)

And every vocal has some nasty whistling resonances somewhere. Which differs from singer to singer. I have one at 3.4khz for example. You will find these with making a EQ band very small and sweep through the frequencies.

This is no bad advice, and can be done with every EQ : https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/how-to ... 8RostXKyFD

[osiris]

My favorite way is to make two duplicates of the main track, lower the volumes but route them to the same mixer bus. Then pan one hard left and the other one hard right. Works every time.

[Tiles]

When you now add a slight phase shifting to these channels, then you do manually what Vocal Doubler does. I have worked that way for quite a while by using a pitch shifter plugin before i migrated to Vocal Doubler.

[ferretrock]

My favorite way is to make two duplicates of the main track, lower the volumes but route them to the same mixer bus. Then pan one hard left and the other one hard right. Works every time.

don't feed this troll.


In general, there is no set rule, but as others have mentioned, working on the arrangement first, and trying to get everything working together well will be half the way there.
Each style of music has its own norms... whether saturation or autotune is helpful to you is down to the style and your personal taste.
While sparkle at 12K is often nice, it doesn't mean it'll fit the song, or the source.

So OP, can we hear the song and then maybe help you in this specific case?

[andivax]

1) record your voice in "mid heavy" mic like Neumann U87 (and clones) or Sony C800 G (and clones). For raps I would recommend Neumann TLM 103 but don't use it for regaetton because 103 has massive harshness on the highs which will increase drastically after vocals processing.
2) record very close to the mic. don't forget the pop filter
3) use type A from Audiothing - it will give you that bright mids and sparkle highs. It is a MUST for this kind of "regaetton vocals"
4) use good opto compressor. hardware or software. Kazrog MBH is very good for you, it will rise highs even more!
5) Properly EQ your vocals. I am using my own pack of presets for FabFilter Pro-Q 4 (you can google "andivax presets"). The main idea is to tame harshness and to increase loudness of the important parts.
6) don't forget to add ambience reverb with UAD EMT 250 emulation or Wave Alchemy Dawn.
7) use Waves RVox in the end of the chain to add even more fattness
use Waves CLA Vocals to add wideness and other effects (to your liking)
Rays of love from Ukraine

[DCrown]

Don't use reverb. Learn gain staging.