Your vocal is buried. Stop reaching for the fader.
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Ask a question →Pull the vocal fader up — it's loud and obnoxious. Pull it down — it's drowning. The middle ground I keep hearing about doesn't seem to exist in my mixes. What is the trick I'm missing?
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Community Discussion(2)
The fader isn't the answer — it never has been. You don't make vocals louder, you make the rest of the mix get out of their way. Here's the move I do on literally every pop/indie mix: 1. Group everything that isn't the vocal. Call it 'BED'. 2. On the BED bus, dynamic EQ: -2 to -3 dB notch at 2.5–3 kHz, sidechained to the vocal. 3. On the vocal, +1 dB at that same frequency. 4. Vocal compression: 4–6 dB GR, fast attack, medium release. Two compressors in series each doing 2–3 dB beats one doing 6. Now the vocal sits 2 dB lower on the fader and feels louder. The ear hears the 2.5–3 kHz region as 'the singer is in the room with me'. Owning that band is worth 6 dB of fader.
If you're new: clip-gain the vocal first. Every word within 2 dB of the next, by hand, before any plugin. 30 minutes of clip gain is the difference between 'home vocal' and 'pro vocal' more often than the plugin chain is. Compressors are not supposed to fight a 12 dB performance — they're supposed to add tone.
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Speak from experience. Specifics > opinions. Other working pros may flag it for a correction — that's the point.
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