Vocal Chain: Where Soothe2/RVox?

[TomTom79]

Hi,

I'm not experienced in vocal mixing, watched only some vids, copied vocal chains, made experiments., perhaps 300h.

In the moment I'm experimenting with the chain of Marc Daniel Nelson (Amazing Vocals for Pop...): DeEsser --> AirEQ (HP, Dip@250Hz, HiShelf @8K) --> Fabfilter Pro Q3 (Dynamic, problematic f: 160/250/550/2K/12K) --> MJUC (Model 3 = FET, Fast Att+Rel) --> MV2 --> C4 (Dyn dip @ 130-2K) --> DeEss --> Decapitator --> CL1B (Att/Rel=fixed) --> El Rey (I don't have that)
I know: frequencies are dependent on the voice, but I think it's good to have some frequencies for orientation. Gainreduction of each of the compressors are only 1-3dB. Result is pretty good for my ears.

I have also soothe2, experimented with that in the past. What do you use it for? Makes it sense to place it anywhere in my chain?
I have also RVox, never tried it, but read a lot of good things about it. I guess if I replace a compressor with RVox, it would be the MJUC, because both have a fast Att.
What do you think?

[andymcbain]

I like to “clean up” vocals before they start hitting stuff like compressors, saturation and broad EQ boosts. So if I was going to use Soothe2 (which I would occasionally) it would be early in the chain. RVox would come later.

There’s no rules here though - every vocal recording is different and everyone has their own approach to mixing them, so after trial and error you’ll find a way that works for you

[The Main Event]

First of all, calling "problematic fequencies" without hearing the source material is pointless. Mixing vocals is not a matter of numbers at all.
Where you put soothe in the chain is not really important. Try it out yourself, it takes 10 seconds to judge if it makes any minor differences if its in the first or last slot of the chain. The differences are minor.

[TomTom79]

I like to “clean up” vocals before they start hitting stuff like compressors, saturation and broad EQ boosts. So if I was going to use Soothe2 (which I would occasionally) it would be early in the chain. RVox would come later.

There’s no rules here though - every vocal recording is different and everyone has their own approach to mixing them, so after trial and error you’ll find a way that works for you

Thanks. That was my thought too: early in the beginning. Are there specific Freq. you use Soothe2 for? nornally Vocals are too dark so I thought, it could be good for low mid frequencies, without making it thin.

[TomTom79]

First of all, calling "problematic fequencies" without hearing the source material is pointless. Mixing vocals is not a matter of numbers at all.
Where you put soothe in the chain is not really important. Try it out yourself, it takes 10 seconds to judge if it makes any minor differences if its in the first or last slot of the chain. The differences are minor.

Thanks for your input. I have to disagree with you, mixing vocals is a matter of numbers, if you try to add some structure into the process. At least you can say, which frequencies areas are for which problems:



Also in Bobby Owsinskis mixing engineer's handbook are magic frequencies on Pages 177/178 (fifth edition) for instruments and vocals. Like I've said: its good for orientation. When we think about the proximity effect, I would say: for a normal vocal recording situation in a booth, we have too much low end and boxyness. So for a normal Popmix, where we need some prescence, I would not start by boosting 100-1K. But I don't want to start a discussion.

The idea of my thread was more, if other made some specific experiences, e.g. with specific freq.-areas or chains in combination with soothe2.

[The Main Event]

First of all, calling "problematic fequencies" without hearing the source material is pointless. Mixing vocals is not a matter of numbers at all.
Where you put soothe in the chain is not really important. Try it out yourself, it takes 10 seconds to judge if it makes any minor differences if its in the first or last slot of the chain. The differences are minor.

Thanks for your input. I have to disagree with you, mixing vocals is a matter of numbers, if you try to add some structure into the process. At least you can say, which frequencies areas are for which problems:

You clearly didnt mix a lot of different vocals yet, which also shows as you are using a fix vocal chain from someone else on a different material. Some vocals need a boost where you described a cut for example, all depending on the singers voice, mic characteristics, music style, room, place in the mix,...
I just wanted to let you know that learning by these numbers wont get you the optimal results but you can disagree with me if you like, you've seen a lot of youtube tutorials it seems (most of the youtube videos in this topic are really bad btw, thats not a good way to learn in my opinion. The good channels on yt are rare)

[TomTom79]

@Main Event: Like I've said at the beginning: I'm not experienced, so I have to somehow orientate myself on other people's ideas, change them step by step, to try to make my sound better. I know the most tutorials on youtube are bad, so I orient myself more on people who mixed for grammy winners or are grammy winner themselves. Like I've said, I've also read bobby Owsinskis Mixing Handbook. So if not that way, what would be your recommendation?

[hightyde]

To main events point (and he is correct by the way) there is no one way. Because vocals are recorded in different rooms, on different mics, with different tones of voice… the only correct way to mix vocals is to listen for problems, identify the problem, and then fix the problem. Plugin chain order does not really matter. Getting a good result is what matters, and that just comes with experimentation, good ears, and eventually experience.

Listen to the vocals. Identify what’s wrong with them first. Fix that problem. Sometimes it might be compression first. Sometimes it may be soothe, sometimes it might be eq or saturation.

Sometimes vocals need a lot of work, some really good vocals may only need compression and/or eq only. Don’t be afraid to use references of popular songs. The last thing I would ever recommend is using a YouTube tutorial. They’re notoriously full of bad advice

[CinningBao]

I think the target most folks (should) aim towards is just learning to use your ears to know the 2 'things' - what needs to be 'fixed' (high-passing low-end rumble, EQing out resonant frequencies which could be a product of the singer's style, or the space/mic it was recorded with) and how you want to 'add your mark'.

Watching experts do their thing is great, but you have to learn what you're actually learning from them because it definitely shouldn't be "notch this frequency out to make your vocal sound like this" due to all source material being different by its very nature. Them notching a frequency out to make their source material sound 'better' is very unlikely to have the same effect on the material you're working on.

Most of the experience you need is born from simply getting on with mixing stuff (other people's stuff will be easier to learn from because you won't constantly be judging your own performance) and comparing to target mixes. Doing a mix, compare it, see what you did right and wrong, go back and do another mix with improvements. At some point, you'll get to a point when you're happy you've implemented the thing you were doing wrong, better. You've leveled-up!

And then do that 4 hundred gazillion times and you'll be a mix engineer! Well, not quite, but that's how get useful stuff from all the drawl on the videos you might be watching.

With the right approach, you _can_ learn from presets, but unless you know the presets were constructed by actual professionals, or just people hitting 'random' on the interface, you just don't know. But you can learn from loading up presets to see what they actually do, then deconstructing them to see how the different settings affect other settings.

Load up a thing, listen, wiggle a knob, listen, is it better or worse? Waggle the knob in the opposite direction if worse..

that's what you need to get on with Ultimately there aren't shortcuts to training your ears.

[TomTom79]

Thanks for your advices. I know it just makes no sense to just copy someone, without knowing why he's doing something. That's not what I'm doing. My experience is, that I've learned quite a lot from these vids, but I'm always aware, that there are basically many ways to solve a problem.

[jtsterays]

Yea, it's not a good idea to copy someone else's chain cause that chain is tailored to their specific setup (room acoustic, voice, mic, preamp.....) even if they were made by pros. Like the guy above said, there are no shortcuts, you will just have to train your ears to identify problems cause that's the hardest part, the fixing process is actually quite easy.

- Soothe is used to reduce occasional loud resonances/frequencies, rather than constant ones. I recommend placing Soothe after compression so that it doesn't over process on the louder parts of the vocals or under process the quieter ones.

[The Main Event]

Forget about certain chains or plugins for now. Start with really getting to know how to use eq and different kind of compresson right. This alone is an seemingly endless task, with constant learning. Thats the basics you need for mixing a vocal. The rest are the cherries on top. Get yourself a parametric eq with listening function where you can listen only to the filter you are activating (delta). For example FF pro-q can do this. This way its easiere to hear what you are manipulating and if it sounds good at the end. You can mix the vocal in solo mode but always listen to it in the full mix and re-evaluate your eq decisions in the mix. Dont just cut or boost certain frequencies cause someone else is doing it, thats pointless. Same goes for compression, there are many different styles and ways to compressor a vocal. It can get you far but also destroy it, try it all out.

[TomTom79]

Thanks a lot. I know you have all good intentions, and you are all right in some way. I'm not completely new in mixing, in vocals I have the less experience.
The thing is, that there are good tips for vocal mixing, that make also sense: like EQing before compression (because you don't want a frequency trigger the compressor, that will be filtered out afterwards), a fast Compressor at the beginning (for the peaks) and a slower afterwards, some harmonic distortion (for more presence in the mix, instead of boosting just the highs, or to use already a comp with some distortion like an 1176), Multiband compression (or dyn EQ). DeEssing, parallel comp for more upfront/punch. You see these elements in a lot of chains and this has it's reasons. Doesn't mean you always need all of them. But I'm quite sure, you see more equing at the beginning of a chain than a limiter. lol
I think it's always good to know, how others do it. Of course you can say: these are all fundamental elements/processes in mixing for every instrument.

[billinder33]

Across all my mixes, I doubt any two vocal chains look the same. And what frequencies to adjust, compression to use, de-essing strategy, saturation/distortion (or not at all) changes on every track. I guess that's my real issue with this approach.

I know copying chains is a thing for some people, especially in the Ableton world, but I've never been into it. I have a set of plugins that I use on most everything, but how and in what order changes every time. That's why I only have one chain saved in my DAW, which is strictly for mastering. And it only exists to bring all my commonly used plugins in at once with some handy default settings so I'm not working completely from scratch. All but a few plugins are disabled by default and many will get reordered, and many others will get deleted by the end of the process. So by the time I'm done, this chain likely won't resemble any other mastering chain I've used previously.

I don't know anyone who's stuck with the same chain for any extended period of time. By the time you watch whatever video that was recorded a year ago or more, that YouTuber's chain probably changed several times since it was recorded. Bottom line, If there's some lesson to be learned somewhere within someone else's chain, learn whatever that lesson is, add it to your bag of tricks for whenever it's needed, and move on. If there was a cookie cutter chain for everything, people wouldn't need mixers.

[Tiles]

May i throw in Izotope Nectar at this point? The AI assistant in the newest version gives you already a decent starting point. And it is an all in one solution.

What steps you need also heavily depends of the genre. Country is for example nearly unchanged. And modern pop music nearly needs its own mixer just for the vocals. But when you need to do too much changes at the vocals, then have a look to improve the source material first. The better the vocals are recorded, the fewer you need to tweak it. I've just kicked out a mic out of my chain for exact that reason recently. It gave me too much mud and boxiness.

RVox,soothe2

Not sure for RVox, it is imho just yet another compressor/limiter. But a plugin like Soothe2 is a must have nowadays. Back in the days you sweeped through the eq bands to catch the overshooting frequencies that made your vocals (or any other instrument) sound bad and weak. Soothe2 does this automatically for you, dynamically. Works also fine at the sum, and makes the vocals and even the whole song sound much smoother. It removes the harsh frequencies. As with everything, don't overdo though.

I still don't have Soothe2, i find it ways too expensive. I use some alternatives that goes into that direction. Nektar, and also Neutron from Izotope comes with a module called Sculptor. I also sometimes use the free Smoothe for FL Studio, which is a patcher preset. Silk Vocal from Waves was free for a while. And Waves has released a plugin called Waves Curves Equator for a small buck. Black Friday is coming ...