Tips for vocal mastering?

[Penumbrah]

I'm pretty new to any type of vocal music and was wondering if anyone could offer advice on getting the right sound out of them. I have a decent mic and use audacity if that helps.

[Lavender_Harmony]

Mixing* mastering is for a whole track.

Check out this article, and look around for some others on SoS:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov01/a ... vocals.asp


Welcome to the forum!

[Spirit]

Yeah, masterig is the act of making the track as loud as possible, and adding stuff like stereo width among other shit
Mixing/mixdown is getting the sound how you want it from individual track
On topic, For recording vocals, try to be in as soundproof a room as possible. keep the mic level low, its always possible to boost volume, but almost impossibe to remove peaking without doing another take. for mixing, the advice i would give you is level them correctly in the mix, then you want to EQ them, so they dont clash with your other elements in your track, some subtle compression can also be effective but its not "needed" (some would say otherwise, depends on what style") After this i would say you should SEND to a reverb (if you dont know what send/return tracks are, just google them) if you send to a reverb instead of just placing one on the track (also known as an insert effect), you can retain the original audio signal as well as having reverb, if you use an insert, you end up with completely processed vocals, then its up to you if you want to add any other effects like a delay, chorus etc etc

[Versilaryan]

That compression isn't optional. Not only does it tame those unruly peaks, it makes the vocals more agreeable and sit better in the mix.

You want the compression to be as transparent as possible, though. Make it so it sounds better but doesn't sound compressed.

[Lavender_Harmony]

Yeah, masterig is the act of making the track as loud as possible, and adding stuff like stereo width among other shit

Just want to put this here, Never add a stereo widening plugin to the master out. Just don't.

Mixing/mixdown is getting the sound how you want it from individual track
On topic, For recording vocals, try to be in as soundproof a room as possible. keep the mic level low, its always possible to boost volume, but almost impossibe to remove peaking without doing another take.

There is clip removal, but ideally yes. However don't have your recording too quiet either, as that will amplify room noise.

for mixing, the advice i would give you is level them correctly in the mix, then you want to EQ them, so they dont clash with your other elements in your track, some subtle compression can also be effective but its not "needed" (some would say otherwise, depends on what style") After this i would say you should SEND to a reverb (if you dont know what send/return tracks are, just google them) if you send to a reverb instead of just placing one on the track (also known as an insert effect), you can retain the original audio signal as well as having reverb, if you use an insert, you end up with completely processed vocals, then its up to you if you want to add any other effects like a delay, chorus etc etc

I agree with a lot of this, especially the point on Sends. I'll add some clarification on terminology for the OP:

Send: This is when you send the signal to a separate track AFTER the output. This is often accomplished by sending the signal to a bus/auxiliary track (An extra track, if you like) Where you add effects. If this is too complicated, you can achieve the same thing by duplicating the track, and putting Insert effects on it, and reducing the level so it sits underneath the main vocal. So you are essentially doubling the signal, one with effects, one without. You can also add compression to your second version, this is called Parallel Compression, and is very, very useful.

Insert: An insert is where you insert an effect BEFORE the output. So none of the original vocal will go to the master output, it will all be processed in the effect. This is useful when you want the entire vocal to seem compressed, gated, and your EQ should go here.

That compression isn't optional. Not only does it tame those unruly peaks, it makes the vocals more agreeable and sit better in the mix.

You want the compression to be as transparent as possible, though. Make it so it sounds better but doesn't sound compressed.

Wrong. Compression is entirely optional, in every element of a song. Compression is never a must have. Compression does bring up the quieter parts in a vocal, which can often be the unwanted things, like the subtle nuances of the voice, wet lip noises, quiet breaths become more noticable and so forth. This is ENTIRELY dependant on the style.

"Make it so it sounds better but doesn't sound compressed."

This doesn't really make much sense. By compressing the vocal, it will sound compressed, even if you use it in a very minor fashion, or if you use parallel compression, it will be noticeable. A clean, well recorded vocal should not require compression, as it dulls the dynamics that the human voice is extremely adept at producing.

It's all about the song and the mix. If your final mix sounds better without any compression on the vocals, don't feel you have to add it because the rulebook says so.

[Navron]

Yeah, masterig is the act of making the track as loud as possible, and adding stuff like stereo width among other shit

Just want to put this here, Never add a stereo widening plugin to the master out. Just don't.

There's a whole lot of mastering tutorials out there that say the opposite.

So far nearly every mastering tutorial I've read talks about adding stereo enhancement to the mastering chain, so I don't know where you're getting that info.

[Versilaryan]

Compression is one of those things you almost always want to add to vocals. Unless you're working with an experienced, professional vocalist, it will probably sound better compressed. And depending on the genre of music, you probably want to compress it anyways. For example, people have come to expect compressed vocals in every form of pop. Uncompressed vocals will sound like crap in a pop song.

Even for other forms of music, I'd use a compressor to limit unruly peaks even if I don't use the makeup gain to bring it back up. Sometimes, the microphone will refuse to pick up certain things correctly.

I think you took my last statement too literally. All I meant to say was that you should generally use more transparent compression in vocals.

[Penumbrah]

Thanks for all the feedback! This has definitely helped me out a lot. I hope to be getting a better mic some time in the near future too, cuz the one I have right now just doesn't sound like I wanted it to.

[Lethaargic]

Use a pop filter to make sure your initial recording is better. Also there are de-esser vsts to help remove "s" and "sh" hissing sounds in vocals. I'm not aware of any stand alone de-essers though but maybe there are.

[Versilaryan]

^ Going off of that, if your vocals have problems with huge 's's, just rerecord it. De-essing just adds an unnatural lisp to your singing unless you go through and manually de-ess all of the esses yourself, which is a lot of work.

Also, poor compression can directly lead to huge 's's, so be careful with that, too.