hello and welcome back to the channel. on this episode i thought we would talk about five tips
to improve your live vocal mixes and there's a few bonus tips at the end as well so let's get started
number one really listen to the vocal turn off the compression reset the eq mute any effects and then
set your gain everything starts with good gain structure starting with a pure solid signal helps
keep you from missing something and from starting with yourself in a hole on your vocal channels
you don't even really want to do any eq at this point you just want a solid signal and to really
listen to the voices and to start to think about what you might want to do with the eq as we move
along through these steps obviously if a vocal tries to feedback when you first bring that vocal
fader up then you need to address that either with the system eq or the channel eq and this is where
having your rta engaged on a console like the x32 or the xr18 can be really helpful it will clearly
show you where that feedback is at as for eq'ing the vocal for sound shaping purposes you ideally
want to hear the vocal in context of the music to make those decisions what you might try and
what you might think you need to do now with the eq with the vocal solo and no music could cause
you to do too much you might remove the character from the voice that would ultimately help it stand
out in the mix and this is how some people get a little overeager and create problems for their mix
as you gain experience you might be better able to predict what you'll need to do before you hear
the vocal with music and just tweak from there but that's because with experience you'll get a better
reference to understand exactly how the vocal will translate to the full band mix there's no shame in
taking a conservative approach and not digging yourself into a hole at this early stage of the
sound check and there's little to be gained by rushing to the eq right now anyway and that brings
us to the next thing we want to address at this early point in the vocal check number two using
our low cut filter also known as the high pass filter the low cut can serve a couple of purposes
for one it could be used as a sound shaping tool to roll lowes up a source and to thin that source
in most cases though and in this case we're going to use this so that the channel isn't
picking up sounds lower than the voice of our singers this will remove low end stage
watch from the vocal mics you can essentially think of this as making the mic less sensitive
to things like the low end from the bass guitar and the drums on stage technically
though the mic is still hearing those things but the board is fillering those things for us
unless you're dealing with a deep baritone vocalist generically 100 hertz is a fairly
safe setting if you want to be more precise you can bring the high pass filter frequency up until
you hear it start negatively impacting the low end of the voice then just bring it back a bit
not only will this help our vocal channel not sound as muddy but it'll help to reduce if not
eliminate plosives plosies are the p-pops you sometimes hear on certain consonants
particularly words with a p or a b and has an aside this technique is also useful for
things like a pulpit or electric mic where this problem can get both annoying and bad
so now we've got our gain set and we've set our high pass filter ideally while we were
doing those things we've been listening to the vocal and analyzing it and thinking about what
we might want to do by eq for the vocal and that brings us to number three eq'ing the vocal
first let's address a common eq'ing mistake made by some people one common mistake that gets made
is people will try and boost way too low on the eq to fatten a voice to try and give it some body
they'll even think it worked but what generally happens is the operator raised something like 80
hertz several decibels when they really needed to raise 160 hertz only a few decibels if we
look at the graph you can see how raising 80 hertz eventually does raise 160 hertz as well
all that excess low end was really raised for nothing except to increase the chances
of picking up low end mud and increasing the odds of low end feedback you really want to make
sure and strive to do your eq work where it's centered on the area you want to be working on
that way you get maximum benefit for minimum eq adjustments
it really pays to learn where instruments and voices have dominant energies before you reach
for an eq knob i'll post a link to an eq cheat sheet in the text description below
without warning and advice out of the way ideally you get your singer to sing now with the band so
that you can address the vocal eq within the context of the actual mix the first thing you
want to do now is listen for where you can cut cut first should always be your first consideration
and work in small steps not big bites don't be surprised that the vocal actually sounds okay
just as it is the high pass filter could have been enough many a mix has been ruined by too much eq
you definitely don't want to cut and adjust the eq so much that you suck the life out of your signal
let's talk about some general eq tips if the vocal sounds harsh that is likely a high mid
region cut that you need to make if the vocal sounds honky that is likely a 600 hertz range
issue that needs cut if the vocal sounds too thick maybe look at around 250 hertz and cut there
these probably won't be huge cuts just a few db when you make these cuts you might sweep left or
right to really listen for the target area that seems to best pinpoint the area that you don't
like you'll probably only need one or two cuts and as you do make these cuts it's going to change the
perspective of what you originally heard with the voice and expected you might need to do for
example a cut at 250 hertz might negate a 2.5 k slight increase you originally thought the vocal
might need to cut through the music always listen at each step and make sure what you just did
actually helped before going forward put it back if it didn't help don't dig a hole and then make
it deeper for vocal eq the lower end is one thing but the high mids and highs can be tricky
for one thing cut that area too much and the vocal quickly gets lifeless boosting
those areas too much and the mic becomes more susceptible to feedback and it can also make the
voice sound harsh or brittle therefore a little usually goes a long way always use your ears
a high mid lift can really help a vocal cut through a mix especially a guitar heavy mid-range
filled mix a 10k lift can really help give the vocals a bit of air some vocalists might have a
problem with sibilance that's a problem where you'll notice their esses stand out too much
that is generally a 5k to 8k problem and a small cut here can help
this is also a place a de-esser can be used and inserted on a vocal channel to help you
instead of attacking it with eq whatever you do with your eq typically a conservative
approach will pay dividends within the mix and that brings us to number four compression
this is another area where a light touch can pay dividends generally you'll just want to take some
peaks off and narrow the dynamic range a bit you don't want to squeeze all the life out of
the vocal also if you're doing monitors from front of house your singers aren't likely to want to be
singing into high levels of compression the video link above talks about this monitor issue in more
detail so if you're doing monitors from front of house you might want to check that link out
even if you're using a different mixer regardless of the mixer the concepts will remain the same
for vocal compression generally a ratio of two to one or three to one are fairly safe
settings especially if you pay attention to your threshold setting and your gain reduction meter
you won't want all or even most gain reduction lights to light up for typical vocal compression
settings flickering the top couple or three of the gain reduction lights can be sufficient
especially if you're not really confident about compression we are more interested in smoothing
the peaks here if your compressor has a setting for auto time or auto attack and release then
vocals are a perfect place to use that setting once you set a light ratio like i mentioned
you can then adjust the threshold control to get the meters reading like i just described
in a recording situation you can get away with being more aggressive with the gain reduction
live you need to tread a little bit more carefully if you have a singer that's inconsistent or overly
dynamic you could certainly try sliding up to a four to one ratio but that said live shows have
live dynamics it's part of the excitement of a live performance always be willing to
take a step back for a moment and try and listen to the performance both from the perspective of
an audience member and from the perspective of the band and on to our fifth tip effects
reverb can really enhance and lift a vocal or it can bury it literally i have a few
general rules i use as bass lines faster songs i typically go with a shorter decay
slower songs like ballads i usually go with a longer decay i consider 1.5 seconds as a
baseline decay setting for vocals and then adjust their up or down for the actual song tempos
standing on my own standing on my own
standing on my own hold your body and exhale we're into the realm of subjectivity here
and you have to use your ears and you have to consider the band and the music
really just remember most times the effects are to enhance the vocal not overwhelm the vocal
rarely is the effect something that's at the forefront of a song always try and be tasteful
if you wonder if it's too much the odds are greater you can reduce the effect and not hurt
anything versus maybe it actually is too much there's another situation you might find yourself
in you can't just consider the effect you want to hear you also have to consider the venue you're in
if you're in some large overly reflective room you might be better off just muting
the effects for that gig if you're outdoors with nothing for the sound to reflect off of
you might need to mix wetter than you're used to in either of those cases you need to use your ears
and understand your surroundings physics has a way of winning these type of situations alright that's
our five tips but here are some bonus things to consider it's probably important to point out that
you should never forget to let the mix breathe don't get caught into thinking you constantly
need to be changing things on the console sit back and listen to your mix listen to the band
don't get caught up fighting the natural dynamics of the band thinking that it's always bad if
something stands out maybe it's supposed to stand out maybe you're just being hypersensitive and
listening too critically rather than artistically you don't always want to try too hard to put
things in a neat and tidy box sometimes you just need to let the band be the band
let me know of any tips and tricks you use for your vocal mixes in the comments section below
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follow these links to check out some of the other channel videos and i will see you next time