Welcome to Sage Audio.
Today we’re talking about how to blend vocals.
But first, If you have a mix that you need mastered, send it to us to receive a free
mastered sample of it with the link in the description.
Blending Lead with Double
For the first 3 chapters, let’s focus on blending aspects of the lead vocal.
Doubles are an important part of creating a powerful lead performance - minute differences
will cause the listener to perceive the 2 signals as one, more complex signal.
The easiest way to blend a lead with its double is to compress the double with a quick attack
and long release.
Then lower the double’s level via the channel fader.
Let’s listen to a double that isn’t blended, and then blended.
Creating Harmonies from Lead
Similar to doubles, harmonies can be perceived as being a part of the lead - even if no harmonies
were recorded, we can create some and then blend them in.
I’ll duplicate my lead, and then use a pitch shifter to reduce the pitch by 1 full octave.
I’ll create another duplicate and pitch shift it to a higher octave - then, I’ll
compress both and lower their levels.
Let’s listen and notice how it sounds like the lead is more powerful.
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Blending Lead with Instrumentation
If your lead vocal is too separate from your instrumentation, we can use an EQ to blend
the 2.
I’ll place an EQ on my instrumental and an EQ on my vocal, and amplify 200Hz and 3
- kHz on the instrumental while dipping these same frequencies on the vocal.
This causes masking that’ll lower the presence of the vocal.
Let’s listen and notice how this pulls the vocal back in a way that simply lowering its
level doesn’t.
Blending Multiple BGVs Together
BGVs should typically be blended with one another to create a cohesive and consistent
sound.
The best way to do this is through heavy de-essing on individual tracks to reduce noticeable
timing differences, significant compression on a BGV bus, and then reverb on this same
BGV bus.
These 3 steps will create consistent dynamics while attenuating aspects that indicate various
timing in the performance.
Let’s take a listen and notice how the BGVs become cohesive.
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Importance of Removing Sibilants in BGVs
We touched on this in the last chapter when we de-essed.
but sibilance is one of the biggest aspects that’ll make BGVs sound separate or stick
out.
Since sibilance and some consonants are transients, these transients are very noticeable when
they occur at different times.
We can use clip gain to reduce these, a de-esser, or if possible, have the singer hold back
on these aspects during their performance.
Let’s listen to BGVs just with the de-essers on and off to understand the importance of
this step.
Blending BGVs with Formant Shifts
If we want our BGVs to have a wider array of sounds, we can use formant shifts to change
the timbre of the vocals and make the overall sound more complex.
We can do this in an extreme way, but it may be better to shift the formants subtly.
This way they stay blended in.
Let’s listen to the BGVs with their formants shifted both up and down.
Supporting BGV with MIDI
A subtle instrument behind the BGVs, especially something like a pad or background instrument,
can help fill the gaps in the performance.
If the melody is simple, we can easily recreate it with a midi controller and then choose
an instrument that doesn’t stick out.
Again, pads typically work well, so long as their attack isn’t too slow.
Let’s listen and notice how this pad helps blend the BGV melody in.
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General Compression Blending Tips
Since compression plays a big role when blending, let’s cover it in more detail.
Some of the best settings for compressing BGVs and harmonies are a quicker attack, longer
release, soft knee, higher ratio, and lookahead - all of which will minimize transients and
greatly balance dynamics.
It’s best to avoid a super short attack and hard knees since they’ll emphasize transients
by introducing distortion.
Let’s listen to 2 compressor settings, the first not suited for blending BGVs and the
second better suited for the purpose.
Using Harmonics to Blend Vocals
Saturation can be used to blend vocals in a couple of ways - it’ll cause compression,
and in the case of tape saturation, attenuate higher frequencies to reduce transients.
Conversely, we can use saturation with various harmonic formations to create more complex
BGVs and fill out the frequency spectrum.
If I use warm tape saturation on one BGV and tube on the other, we’ll combine harmonic
formations.
Let’s listen to the effect saturation has on our BGVs.
General EQ Blending Tips
Similar to chapter 3, we can use EQ to blend just about any signal - for BGVs and harmonies,
it might be advantageous to attenuate the lows past the fundamental, and leave the fundamental
only for the lead.
Then dip 3 - 5kHz, and the high frequencies by using a high shelf.
These settings will reduce a lot of what makes a vocal stick out.
Let’s listen to these settings on our BGVs and harmonies and notice how they blend in.
Lesser-Known Reverb Blending Tips
When using reverb to blend in vocals, isolate the reverb to the mids frequencies, use a
low to non-existent pre-delay to ensure reverberation is happening to the full signal, and increase
modulation while emphasizing earlier reflections for a dense sound or later for a washed-out
one.
Let’s listen to these settings on our BGVs and notice how they blend with the lead, but
know these settings can be used on a lead to blend it with the instrumentation.
If you have a mix that you need mastered, send it to us to receive a free mastered sample
of it with the link in the description.
Thank you so much for watching.