A great mix without a great vocal sound, is no great mix at all. Maybe you think the key to great vocals is a better channel strip plugin or a secret compression technique. Ironically getting killer vocals starts not with gear or technique, but rather a simple philosophy.
Via Rick Harris Flickr
No One Hears Anything In Solo
If you’ve listened to any major rock mixes in the past 20 years you’ve likely heard a Chris Lord-Alge mix. The guy is a monster mixer who always seems to get the punchiest mixes with in your face vocals and drums and I’m a huge fan of his work. Recently on the every insightful Pensado’s Place, Chris said something that is critical for us as mixers to understand if we want great sounding vocals.
No [listener] ever hears anything in solo. Period. So the only way to get a great vocal sound is when it’s competing with everything else in the mix. – Chris Lord-Alge, Mixer (Foo Fighters, Green Day, Dave Matthews Band, Switchfoot)
It’s so simple that it might not be obvious at first. What CLA is saying is that we have to think like a listener. The end “user” of your mix (your audience) will never, ever hear your vocal soloed, by itself. They will hear it sandwiched between the rest of your tracks. This begs the question: Why spend anytime at all mixing your vocal in solo?
Don’t Start With Your Vocal
By way of preface, there are no hard and fast rules in the art of mixing. That being said, it seems that the first thing you could do to improve your vocal sound is to stop mixing it first. If you fire open a mix and start tweaking the vocal in solo (because it’s easier to do that), then when you bring in the rest of the instruments your EQ and compression moves might just fall apart in context.
Mixing is hard enough as it is, let alone if you spend time on something only for it to not work in reality. This is a big reason why I prefer to mix vocals last. It’s the best way I’ve found to help them sit “on top” of the mix in the prominent position they deserve. If you at least have the majority of your band mixed before you bring in the vocal, then you’ll know that whatever vocal treatment you are doing, will sound good in context of the mix.
Don’t Be Tempted To EQ In Solo
It is so natural to want to solo a track in question when administring surgical EQ moves. Why? Because we’re having a hard time hearing things for crying out loud! But ironically that is the point. If it’s hard to hear what the EQ is doing to your vocal in context with the rest of the mix, you’ll be forced to listen harder and EQ smarter.
To get better mixes and grow as a mixer, you’ll need to fight with all that you have that urge to hit the solo button. It’s generally a fruitless endeavor. Learn to train your ears to hear things in context. If it’s not making a difference to your ears then you likely don’t need to use that plugin. You will hate working this way, but it’s the smartest thing you could do.
Have The Big Picture In Mind
My final thought regarding CLA’s point about no one hearing anything in solo is that it’s a mindset that would serve us well if we applied it to all aspects of the mixing process. In essence CLA is saying, “Think like a listener hearing the entire mix as a whole.” Think big picture. We spend so much time and energy zooming in on the smallest details of our mixes that we can miss the forrest for the trees as the analogy goes.
Don’t lose sight of the big picture. Try to think of our mix as a whole, and not as tiny parts. You’ll get farther, faster.
Do Not Create Another Song Until You Read This Guide
(Price: $17 Free Today)
Discover the 6 Steps for Creating a Radio-Worthy Song From Scratch
My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
Great info, I will certainly give this a try. I really believe it will actually make it easier to mix them.
I’m so glad to hear that I’ve not been doing it all wrong; I always start by putting all my faders up and creating a balance before any EQ, panning, etc., and only solo (PFL) for gainstaging.
Also good to hear Graham saying that mixing is hard.
It seems like the more ‘experienced’ one becomes, the less easy it gets; like you’ve always been crossing this busy highway blindfolded and now you’ve managed to take the blindfold off and discover that it is not as easy as it appeared when you still had the blindfold on.
But it is ‘hard’ in a good/satisfying way, though.
Regards,
Yes, CLA, He came to speak to my school earlier this year. He mentioned a lot of the same stuff. It’s always refreshing to hear from someone of his caliber.
Good advice!
Personally, I tend to use the hybrid method, when I first shape the sound in solo mode, then then I shape it in the context of the whole mix. Double precision =)
Wow,,,am very happy to say that hearing from seniors like you guys gives me the moral and energy to learn more……thanks for that good information
Very good advice. Thanks.
Sometimes there is a shitty sound at a certain frequency on a particular track, which can only be identified and removed when solo’ed.
You said something great: “Learn to train your ears to hear things in context.” The solo button has it’s uses, but it can be a crutch. Every voice, every instrument has its own unique timbre, and when you learn to pick them out in the context of the whole mix, it’s easier to give them their proper place in the mix and to hear the mix like the audience will, not as pieces of dead sound glued together but as something organic, that breathes.
Great advice I think the most important thing is the big picture,cos its always easier when you know what you want to achieve-and truly nobody hears anything in solo
Big picture is crucial, yes!
I have a quick question… Do you usually mix your instruments and Drums before you record your vocals? Or do you record it all at once and then mix them in together at the same time?
Reply
I have a quick question… Do you usually mix your instruments and Drums before you record your vocals? Or do you record it all at once and then mix them in together at the same time?
I record everything before mixing. Then I treat the mixing stage completely separately.
Depends sometime i use “parallel project” which u record all tracks and mix them and if u feel like u wanna put more elements (instruments , drums , Vocals,FX ) to the progect . by pass all the plugins on the tracks and add theme and try balance them with the old sounds and u done .
note : i use a lot with EDM ,ART-POP ,DNB , RE-MIXES .
Thank-you*
So much respect to the big CLA .
but for me it is not , may be he talking about kind of music as rock music . I’m working a lot with art-pop hip hop which you need work more on solo vocal .
This realy guud fr me ,am an engineer frm ghana..and i always seems to v problems with d loudnes standrd of ma final out put …it sometimes ok buh at times too very low when compared to traks alredy in the system… And ma vocals atyms is tooo hard not that smooth pls help me out
Isaac,
Vocals too harsh??? As for your final output, sounds like the pre-mastering side of your projects. There are some easy solutions for final output and I would be happy to share with you what I do know if you like. Let me know. Happy mixing.
Good advice and the more you mix the more you understand this philosophy. It takes time to train your ears. I’ve been working on learning mixing seriously for the last 2 ½ years or so (been an artist and songwriter for much longer) and I’m only JUST beginning to truly understand what I’m doing and how to use the tools and my ears. I do think though that there are times when you must solo and do some basic EQ on vox (as well as other instruments) outside of the context of the mix and this is when there may be some problems with the existing track like not a great mic was used or the recording environment was not the best. You can do some basic pass filtering here to make sure it’s as clean (or not!) as possible and it’s a good way to begin understanding and studying where certain instruments live in the frequency domain and the tools you can use. Don’t be afraid to do it and learn. Saving any other EQing for the context of the mix will always give you the best results regardless of genre. But, also remember, THERE ARE NO RULES!
Solid one that. Howeva, i av a question as i use fl studio for beats and cubase for vocals. My vocals always sit below my beats and am confused if it’s frequency or volume problem. Though i mix my beats b4 recording vocals. Help pls
sounds like a reverb issue
This may be semantics; but I never put the instruments before the vocal in a mix; unless of course that is the aesthetic of the song. Usually I start a mix by thinking about how every part (drums, vocals, bass, etc) of the recording should fit together in support of the vocal. I then create a vocal mix that sounds amazing. Next I do a lot of high and low pass filtering on every channel. With the instruments panned where I want them, my fourth move (usually) is to mix the drums and bass in context of the rest of the song. Moving on, I EQ and carve out each instrument in the context of supporting the vocal. My mixing vision is always locked squarely on making that main part (the vocal in most cases) prominent.
財布コピー、バッグコピー、腕時計コピー、ベルトコピー靴コピーネックレスコピー、手帳コピー、小物コピー、SS品、N品、価格激安、品質の保証，2015人気ブランド偽物，歓迎光臨楽天★送料無料(日本全国)典雅気質！シャネルバッグCHH67723(*^^*)11月シャネル手作り新作(*^^*)時流の先端快適美品！シャネルブーツCH783283四季向け「 シャネル靴」最高な選択！ブランドコピー 代引きコピーブランド 代引きスーパーコピー 代引きスーパーコピーブランドバッグルイヴィトン コピーシャネル コピー
プラダ スーパーコピー,プラダ 財布 コピー,プラダ 新作 財布ブランド財布コピー，ブランド スーパーコピー 財布,プラダ スーパーコピー 財布，シャネル財布コピー,グッチ スーパーコピー 財布,エルメス スーパーコピー 財布,ルイヴィトン長財布コピー,スーパーコピー財布,エルメスコピー財布，各種のブランドはかばんをコピーします偽物ブランド,激安偽物,ブランド財布コピー,エルメス財布コピー,ブランドのコピーブランド財布,ルイ?ヴィトンブランド財布コピー,偽ブランドグッチ財布,D＆G,コピー財布偽物,偽物時計コピー,時計,ボッテガベルト,,靴,その他のバッグコピー,ブランド財布激安,ブランド激安販売,偽ブランド激安市場,通販送料無料專門店 ルイヴィトンコピー 児玉店，当店ルイヴィトン コピー 財布、ルイヴィトン コピー バッグ 全MAX80％OFF！期間限定SALE。最短即日発送。送料無料ルイヴィトン コピー,ルイヴィトン コピー 財布,ルイヴィトン コピー バッグ http://www.okakaku.com/brand-9-copy-0.html
Mixing in context is a logical point. BUT….
It seems like an easy thing for a master like CLA to say.
What do I mean?
Well, I’m curious about whether he ‘ALWAYS mixed in context’ or whether he first spent years soloing parts so many times that he got used to hearing problem frequencies in vocals and other instruments, as well as hearing sweet spot frequencies in each instrument, to the point where he no longer needed to solo things anymore?
My guess is that he did & that years of practice enabled him to zero in on these frequencies of an instrument in context.
The reason I say that is because personally I can now hear certain problem frequencies & sweet frequencies specifically because of years of soloing instruments within a mix. But I know I have a very long way to go before I get to a level where I can simply mix everything in a mix in context without soloing.
It’s frequency ear training.
In stark contrast, I’ve been touring as a live musician for years, often having to mix myself, which is always mixing in context. Sure I eventually started hearing problem frequencies relatively well, but that took over a decade! It wasn’t until I started soloing instruments that I really began hearing specific frequencies properly.
So where does that leave the rest of us?
I know that kinda negates the point of your article to some degree, but it’s a salient question.
I consider the vocal to be just one of the main instruments, no more nor less important the drums, for example. A lot of classic rock was mixed in this way; vocals, guitar, drums, bass all at more similar levels. I find the trend to mix vocals on top of the rest of the instrumentation to be very off-balance; the effect is that of a lead singer and backing band (possibly in another room!).
It really makes a lot of sense! I’ve found myself a couple times eqing an instrument and hearing it change.. only to realise a few minutes later that I was processing a different track to what I thought yet hearing the difference it made to the track I thought it was.. you have to listen to the whole thing.. changes to one track affect everything!
Great advice, as always!!!!!