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How to Edit Vocals : 5 Best Techniques !
Editing and recording vocals can be a difficult task if you are unfamiliar with the right set of tools and skills. But do not worry, through this article we will be teaching you to make your recordings sound much more natural, vibrant, airy and professional.
Vocals are the most important element in a track. You should consider it as an instrument in your mix. Now your goal should be to make this instrument sound as best as possible. Your vocals should feel natural as well as cohesive to the mix.
The very first step in editing vocals is to start with a good clean recording.
Always try to record the best possible quality of vocals
A good recording can be made to sound brilliant but a bad recording with lots of room noise and cannot be made to sound magical.
- Try to record using a professional condesor microphone , a good audio interface and an accoustic treated environment.
- Make sure to rehearse and practice vocals several rounds before start taking recordings.
- An accoustically treated room will help you in recording a much better quality.
- Use a pop filter on your condensor microphone.
5 techniques to improve your vocal recordings !
Create volume automations
Use reverb and delays to fill emptiness
Apply compression on vocals.
Use a de-esser on vocals
Experiment with subtle saturation
- Create Volume automations : When a singer sings, there is a huge fluctuation in loudness levels of the recording. Some parts of the recording can be too loud when compared to the others or some words can be louder than the rest of the verse. Our very first approach will be to create volume automation. Through this technique we will try to manually curb down the louder parts and try to boost the quite parts of recording. Always remember if you are able to adjust volume levels correctly, you have completed 50% of mixing process. By creating volume automations you are controlling the dynamic range of the recording without using any effects that might make it sound processed or unnatural.
- Use reverb and delays to fill emptiness : Reverb and delay are great set of tools you can use to bring the life outof your recordings. These tools can make your mix sound huge and give a theatre like perception to your audience. using reverb can fill the emptiness in your recordings and adds a magical touch. Try using Valhalla room, one of our favourite reverb must go to plugins.
- Apply compression to vocals: Compression is the secret sause !. It helps you control the dynamics of the vocals, helps to add warmth and excitement to the overall recording. Pro Tip : use La-2a compressor on vocals.
- De-essing vocals – A De-esser is a tool used to tame harsh frequencies. When applied to a vocal recording it can help you in reducing ‘shh’ and ‘ess’ sound and making it more pleasing to ears.
- Saturation – Although we do not recommend you to use this everytime but make sure to try it once in a while. Saturation adds harmonics to the original signal and increases percieved loudness. The only drawback – you loose transient material from your sound.
