First of all I would like to say a huge "Thank You" to all the members here on this forum. All my silly questions get answered here!

I am trying to record my vocals on a karaoke track. What I generally do is lower the track volume of the karaoke so that the the loudest peak of the track hits under -6 dBFS then I make a vocal track for myself and put Waves RVox on it with a threshold set to -6 which helps me to record not too hot on the preamp but keeping my vocals above the track so that I could hear myself while tracking.

Q1. Is there any other technique I could use while recording my vocals?

The story doesn't end here! *no*

Here comes "the pain" for me! MIXING THESE TRACKS TOGETHER!

Q2. What should I do so that my vocals sit top on the mix? Sometimes the track gets louder and sometimes my vocals! Side-chaining? If yes then how? I have the waves bundle!

Q3. The karaoke itself is a mixed and mastered track. What should I do to master my whole song?

 

Ok so if I understand correctly you're recording your vocals on an instrumental track am I correct?

For the vocal recording just try your best and get a clean sounding recording, there's no need to have a compressor working while recording. You can add compression at the mixing stage to get the vocal levels under control. So what I'm gonna do is lay out some simple steps you can do from recording to mixing and hopefully this will make things a bit easier for you.

1) Record vocals, no compression

2) Process the vocals
- Use EQ to low cut the vocals and get rid of any muddiness and muffled frequencies. Usually, a low cut until 100-120Hz will do the trick and also a cut of 2-3dB around 300-500Hz. Also add a high shelf starting at around 10K Hz. A 2-3dB shelf boost should do the trick to brighten up the vocal and help it sit on top of the music more
-Compression - After EQ'ing use compression to get the vocals under control, I usually use 2 separate compressors for this. The first compressor is used to control fast peaks. So use the first compressor with an attack time of 3-4ms, release of 20-30ms, a ratio of 4-5 and pull the threshold down until it catches only those quick peaks. The waves C1 is an excellent choice here. The second compressor is used to smooth out the levels gently. Use the CLA 2A plugin for this and set the peak reduction so that it gently compresses the vocal when it gets loud.
-EQ again if you need to at this point because compression tends to bring up frequencies that you might not have heard before. So this is like another quality control step to make sure the vocal sounds the way you want it to sound. Usually the 2000-4000Hz area tends to get a bit too harsh so cut a little bit out if you need to.
-Use a limiter at the end of your plugin chain and make sure it barely only catches super quick peaks, you don't want to crush the vocals you just want to make sure it stays put.

At this point your vocals should sound the way you want them to and now you need to mix them with the music.
To mix them smoothly, first find where the main frequency of the vocal is. Usually for a male voice there are a couple main frequencies: 100-300Hz and 1000-2000Hz. Try cutting 2-3dB at each of these frequencies on the instrumental. This should make the vocals sit a little better on top of the music.
If you find that at some points the music gets louder than your voice then you can use some gentle compression on the music to turn those parts down. Or you could even use volume automation on the music to manually turn the volume down when it starts to cover up your vocal.

As for mastering the whole song there's really not much you can do since the instrumental is already mastered. So most of the work is in the mixing. You could add some very gentle compression on the master channel to help glue things together a bit more. Nothing crazy though. If you get a good recording and do the things I talked about earlier you should get them to play nice together.

Let me know if this helps.

 

Thank you so much fuad!
I'll follow these guidelines and let you know how it sounds like!

 

to me it depends How dynamic of a Singer you are if you are going to sing powerful and belt out the vocals then i would use a Compressor if you don't have a external Mic Pre with a Compressor to control the loud peaks.. then use a plugin i have a Rapper that is very loud when doing his vocal and i use a Waves Kramer PIE Compressor works great dont over do it just enough to control the loudest parts

also find a tutorial ( Matthew Weiss ) How to Mix Rap Vocals to a Pre-Mixed Instrumental https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysuEJN54njk&index=19&list=PLe1lxu8fHox8c64vbopKfdirrSzFgLIZy find the Full one its out there he explains how to open up a instrumental to let the Vocal sit in the Music even though you are not Rapping