Hello sound lovers, I might need help on compressing my vocals. Basically I tried for days to achieve this result in term of mixing. To me, the voice is very well compressed but still with a lot of dynamics. It sounds very natural while being glued to the beat :o

And now .. here is my song:


Aha as you can hear there's lot of difference, if you guys could help me achieve my goal by telling me how to improve my mixing, it would me amazing!
I am pretty sure I could achieve better results by improving my compression but if I compress my vocals a bit more than as it is now, it'll sound very squashed and unnatural. But maybe you guys will tell me it has to do with EQ or something else ..

Here is my setup:
- I am recording in my home studio (closet with foams on the wall)
- Hardware: Pop Filter > NT1-A > 76-KT compressor (2-3 gain reduction) > GA Pre-73 Jr preamp > Focusrite 2i2 > ProTools 12
- Plugins: Pro Q3 for surgical EQ > Pro Q3 to remove a lot of low frequencies (raw vocal very boxy cause of recording in a closet) > MultiBand C4 to again work on the lows + compress a bit the midrange + add a bit in high end) > CLA 76 2-3 db reduction > CLA2A 1-2 db of db reduction
- Sends: Waves Doubler4 to widen a bit > Vintage Valhalla Verb



Best,
Izem

 

Upward compression for 6 - 8dB, high shelf at 4 - 6kHz ~ +3 - 4dB can make it a bit better but I think it's mainly the basic performance and recording which makes Dragovic sound more upfront and clearer.
If you provide stems of this snippet (instrumental and untreated voice) we could try our own approach.

 

Anyone want to take a bet the Dragovic track was recorded/made using a Focusrite Scarlett?

Do you mix using headphones? The headphones output on the Focusrite is probably doing you no favors either.

I listened to the track first, and then went to look and see if that's what was used. Lo and behold, there it was in the gear list.