My tricks for keeping a voice prominent in the mix involve compressing it quite a bit—often with a limiter and around 10dB of gain reduction. I also frequently use Trackspacer or Soothe for more detailed work. The Focusrite Fast is great, but it lacks mid-side processing and can sometimes produce an unpleasant effect!


I struggle to maintain the voice consistently centered, especially when there’s an almost empty intro followed by a super dense chorus. I don’t like to automate the vocals; I prefer to "manage" the beat so that it’s tailored around the voice.


What are your tricks? What suggestions do you have?

 

waves vocal rider

 

At one point I used the waverider tg to then apply compression and more effects... but now sometimes I even do it by hand... it's not that much work... but these plugins make the work a lot easier.
Then it is opto compression + another fet compression, distortion just to generate harmonics and then some limiter.

 

I have never had luck with extreme limiting and vocal riding. It all creates far more problems to fix than is worth it... I just use reasonable compression and mix, like ye olde days. With Automation and envelope drawing what could be simpler? Nothing's better than your ears for this kind of work.

 

Comp excellent tracks. You cant polish a turd.

Tune using melodyne

Align BY HAND. Zoom in and align the syllable by hand to the main vocal. This is more for pop vocals or even hip hop.

clean your tracks. remove all clicks, pops, noise etc.

Volume automate. Turning down esses etc drastically and using clip gain to automate syllables or words that need it.

Light autotune to give it that sound. Shouldnt be noticeable since you already tuned using melodyne.

Depending on genre, section of the song etc.

Lead - centered

2-4 layers - panned

Spots 2-4 panned

Harms - same as Lead, one centered 2-4 layers panned

Now focus on the Lead, processing that alone. Use first fast attack compression to tame, then slower compression to glue / shape.
EQ as needed, be sure not to overdo it

you can process individual elements if needed, but it may be easier to process the layers in subgroups.

Bring those in slowly to where they sit nicely against the lead.

glue compression, MB Compression, EQ, Limit, De-ess, soothe the group.

 

Inward Connections TSL4.

 

used to have access to one of those. beautiful piece of gear.

 

Which is what exactly ...

Help me here mate. So "that sound" isn't noticeable? Why do it in the first place then hehehe

 

its a subtle smoothing. Its become such a huge part of pop records nowadays. You dont want that t-pain classic auto tune sound, just to gently paint the autotune on. Smoothing out some of those pitch transitions. I meant to "give it that pop sound". It shoulnt be noticeable, as in it shouldnt have the drastic in your face t pain sound.

 

vocal riding to me is a must.
never had luck with limiting my vocals either.
what has been working the best to me is parallel compression, i like it

 

I only record choirs so it's never an issue.

 

Or in other words:
Don't apply the artifacts caused by the pitch correction of autotune.
Apply the artifacts caused by the resynthesizing process.

 

BIG +1 for trackspacer for sure

i use to use vocal rider but its a pig resource wise

i got introduced to TB Pro Audio's DynaRide2 a while ago and thats been my goto ever since. dont get me wrong i like Vocal rider just like alot of waves stuff just too much of a hit for what it does

 

I know what you meant mate, i was just messing with you

 

haha. if you know what you are doing, melodyne can and should be transparent.

trackspacer is great too! i use soothe in SC mode the majority of the time, but trackspacer often works better.

hahah for sure its impossible to tell nowadays

 

Sidechain The vocals with mentioned plugs above or these.
Focusrite Fast Reveal
Melda MSpectralDynamics
Wavesfactory Trackspacer
Oeksound Soothe
Soundtheroy Gullfoss
Baby Audio Smooth Operator

Also wanted to add iZotope Ozone Master Rebalance on vocal setting +1-3 db boost on your master works well too.

As for the mid side feature. I use ableton and you can make a rack that separates a mid/side. You can put any of these plugs on the mid channel.

 

I just soothe it out on the sidechain mode on melodies, and apply regular compression (on the source and/or parallel). No limiters, vocal riders and that kind of stuff. Everytime i did it, i got artifacts, unwanted distorted/squashed feel, so i just level it up on gain and automation like a normal person.

 

Reaper stock compressor
EQ
Waves MV2
Limiter

Sometimes tracks spacer, sometimes not. Depends on the song.
Fix way off vocals by hand. This has worked for me for years.

 

Automation, limiting (not 10dB GR though), EQ and dynamic EQ (focusing in on that 800-2k area which is "upfront"), compression and parallell compression, saturation, de-essing.
I also use parallel processing with filtering and compression/saturation in order to enhance (but control) the upfront frequencies and articulation/intelligibility. Consistency is key. "Upfront" is also relative to the equal loudness curve and whatever else goes on in the mix. It's not all about frequencies, dynamic range, etc but also the space, distance, width/narrowness to other things in the sonic landscape.