Getting vocals sitting nice in the mix

Macka83

Hi, so I'm working on an album, at home, primarily using direct interface guitars with EZdrummer plugins, and EZDrummer drums, in Reaper.

The issue I'm finding is that any vocals I record are too 'clean.' That is, the quality is good and clear, compared to the music which is raw, a bit gritty etc.

I don't know much about EQing etc. (even though I've done some EQing on the guitars) so that might be a factor, but does anyone have any good mixing techniques to get the vocals 'blending' more with the music, rather than sounding like a voiceover?

thanks!

highmtn

Think of the mix as a "whole". You want the vocals to be predominant in the mix, yet you also want the instruments to sound strong.

You want to give certain parts of the tonal characteristics to the voice, and carve some of that out of the guitars or other instruments, so you don't have competing parts all within the same part of the tonal spectrum.

So give the bass to the bass guitar and the kick. Some to the toms. Then lower mid, and upper mids may be vocal. Center mids may be primarily guitars.

This is kind of simplified, but the idea is that there is only so much room in a mix before it's overdone. So you have to work with the different elements to get a whole going that is musically and sonically pleasing to the ear, has the amount of punch in it that you want, and other qualities that you are aiming for.

Unknown

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Timbur

You got some very sound advice above in regards to EQ and mixing above. One thing I can add is that if you want some grit to your vocals you may want to try to add some distortion to your vocal track. I don't know if you have a stock distortion plugin in Reaper but I use Studio One 3 and it comes with a stock plugin called Red Light District and it works on many tracks including vocals. I hope that also helps you out.

Tim

[Deleted User]

How many tracks total are you mixing. How many guitars, and at what distortion level?

When I first started recording distorted guitars it was very hard to get a handle on mix wise because when you distort a guitar the sound gets pretty thin in the mix, and cause your vocals to really pop out, and be out of place.

Here are a couple of things you can do.
Double your distorted guitar tracks, place them 75% left 75% right. That will fatten the guitar sound.
You can also double the distorted guitar track, and add a third cleaner guitar track that sits in the mix to give it more definition.

Punch up the bass guitar, and kick drum as highmtn suggested. (look online, and you can find out how to do these things fairly easy.)

Peace, Tony