“He who sings scares away his woes.” ― Miguel de Cervantes SaavedraWhen it comes to mixing there is no other element more important than the vocal. Engineer's will allocate hours, days, however long it takes to sculpt that perfect vocal. They'll throw every thing they got behind it to make it stand on top of the rest of the mix. After all it's the singing that tells the story, evokes the emotion and pulls on the heart strings. It's the vocal that spins out those unforgettable lyrical lines, that seem somehow, more spiritual effecting our thinking, our moods, than even the staunchest atheist would care to admit.
Now for some the thing that draws them to a song maybe the guitar riff, the bass riff etc. but for me personally it has always been the sound of the vocalist. Add to that meaningful lyrics that provoke thought and interest and I'm gone.
So taking all that into consideration the importance of the vocal, usually the final and last thing to be mixed for most engineers, can't be stressed enough. Throw in a thousand different things to be considered from dealing with plosives (P and S sounds close mic'd) to automating levels on the most transient of all instruments, the human voice, and you've got your work well and truly cut out for you. You never want a single word to fall by the wayside or not be heard or have it buried beneath the mix. It has to somehow float above everything in it's own space and getting that right requires years of experience. You can't just slap on a compressor, add a smiley face eq and some reverb and think you're done, no, this goes way beyond all of that.
Watch below as I offer some popular methods of creating that perfect vocal, and no I don't mean moving faders like a man possessed and turning on autotune, that unfortunately has it's place but when you are presented with a true super talented vocalist, who can actually sing, it's your job to make sure everyone gets to hear and enjoy the exact same experience that your own ears have just been treated to.
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