How to Record and Mix a Vocal Audio Track

Vocal Recording & Mixing Articles

How to Record and Process Vocals in your Home or Project Studio

Overview: It seems easy; you just get some lines of words into an audio track and tweak it down. But it is not. The truth is that recording and processing a vocal is one of the more challenging things for a studio to do. Basically, there are two phases to getting a good vocal. First is the recording process where the vocals are recorded. It's important to get your recording process as perfect as possible. Why? Because there are some things you just can't "fix in the mix". It is very hard, no, impossible, to fix damaged, sustained overloads which result from poor recording technique. You have to get the level right the first time. Not even the best restoration software will help. The second process of getting a good vocal sound is "post-processing". This is after your vocal tracks are recorded. Here's where you can fix things like off key notes (with pitch processors), surgically remove short clicks and pops (with a pencil tool in an audio editor), replace words or phrases if necessary to make a great sounding "composite" vocal track. This is also where you apply effects and other processors to make the vocal tracks sound more professional. Well get to as much of post processing as we can.

How to Mix a Vocal Track Tutorial Guide

Step 2: Cleaning Silent Clips

In order to reduce noise level, chop out the silent part of the vocal clip. The result won't be significant. But if you don't do this trick for every other audio tracks, the noise would be stacked up significantly. I never cut out the breath sound. It makes the singing more natural. If you listen to some Whitney Houston's songs, you will notice her breathing sounds so clear and crispy in the recording.

recording techniques and equipment for recording vocal tracks

For our annual look at vocal-recording techniques, we chose four stylistically different recent CDs and talked with the engineers about the gear and methods they used to capture the singers. This time around, we looked in on album sessions with rock titan David Bowie, up-and-coming chart-topper Avril Lavigne, the talented and sophisticated singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik and the incomparable soul vocal group Boyz II Men.

Recording Lead Vocals

A great lead vocal sound can make all the difference between an average demo and a potential single. Paul White and Mike Senior answer some of your questions on vocal recording.

One of the most common concerns of SOS readers is that their recorded vocals leave something to be desired. The lead vocal inevitably generates the largest number of vocal-related reader queries, and rightly so ? many tracks have been transformed into hits simply by an inspired vocal. It is in recognition of the importance of the lead vocal that top producers often spend such a large amount of time and money working on this one element of a finished track.

Square One: Loud and Clear | A beginner's guide to vocal processing

Learn the ins and outs of vocal processing with this tutorial. Vocal processing works on the basic properties of level, timing, timbre, and pitch, but also includes reverberation, spatial placement/movement, or just plain mangling.