In this video i’m going to show you 3 tricks for getting clear vocals. If you ever have vocals that don’t sound like they’re cutting through the mix enough this will probably help you.
As a caveat, please make sure your vocal is recorded without any crazy effects on them. Make sure you’re annunciating your words and the original vocal take is as good as you can get it.
So the first thing that will help you get clear vocals is eq. Here’s how we use eq to get clear vocals 1:22 timestamp
If that doesn’t work let’s move on to this next trick
The second trick I like to try to get some clarity out of my vocals is distortion. Be careful when using distortion that you’re using a saturator. If you use a harsher distortion it’s going to make the vocal too distorted and hard to understand. We’re looking for nuance here. A little bit goes a long way. 3:44 timestamp
Lastly, if that doesn’t help you get what you’re looking for we should try this next trick...
This third trick is called parallel compression. Parallel compression is a trick that was used in old new york recording studios. It had the nickname New york compression. Basically the concept is that the original vocal channel strip has no compression and then you run a parallel aux bus channel that contains a super hard slamming compressor. We mix the 2 signals in together and get a cool effect that make the vocal sound loud but still retain it’s dynamics. 6:12 timestamp
Thanks guys. Hope this helps. Let me know if you would like some more videos in the comments below
-Ryan