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Pro Vocal Chain: Achieve Commercial Vocals

Pro Vocal Chain: Achieve Commercial Vocals

You just recorded your vocals, and your take sounds as you wanted to. Now, you're questioning yourself "How do I mix those vocals so they sound commercial?". Let us help you there!

Here is the chain we'll be looking into:

Optional 1: FabFilter Pro G (Gate)
Optional 2: Izotope RX9 (De-clicking)
Optional 3: Auto-Tune (Tuning)

1. FabFilter Pro Q3 (Subtractive EQ)
2. FabFilter Pro DS (De-esser - compressing sibilances)
3. CLA-76 (Peak compression)
4. Maag EQ4 (Additive EQ)
5. Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines (Tape Saturation)
6. LA-2A (Tube compression - Warmth)

Send 1: Valhalla VintageVerb - reverb
Send 2: Valhalla Delay - delay
Send 3: Sonnox Oxford Inflator - parallel upward processing

Achieving great vocals and those that sound commercial can be either a quick challenge or an absolute nightmare. Mixing vocals is the process where you have to dedicate a lot of listening and patience, so it's basically - art.

However, it doesn't always have to be frustrating and time-consuming. There are chains where pro engineers used an EQ with 3 filters (hpf, bell, high shelf), some compression and some saturation. But, that depends on the quality of the recording itself, so you have to have that into consideration.

 

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Optional 1: Gate

Gating isn't always necessary. It depends on your recordings.

Usually before we start our chain, we tend to take care of background noises that could potentially be introduced in our recordings. This is not always the case since recording engineers usually take care of that with an external gate on their preamp. However, there are cases where we have to take care of that in mixing, so that's why we're beginning our chain with our gate.

Optional 2: De-clicking

De-clicking is also an optional step, depending on your recording.

This process comes in handy many times since there are countless number of recordings that have certain clicks in them during either bad recording, bad conversion etc. Using Izotope's RX9 De-click plugin, you can determine the sensitivity, frequency & other settings in order to get rid of those annoying clicks in your recordings. Very useful tool!

Optional 3: Tuning

We placed tuning in optional for a very good reason.

Why is tuning optional? Well, as far as we're working with vocals, we usually use tuning for the purpose of soft note correction in our recordings. However, there are cases where engineers actually do this within the recording part or they simply avoid tuning at all using Auto-Tune. That's why this is an optional stage of mixing vocals. Some will agree with this, some won't... but this is just our opinion and how we think.

Insert 1: EQ (Subtractive)

FabFilter Pro Q3 - Our favorite subtractive EQ.

Using Subtractive equalization, we're actually aiming to shape our vocals around the track/beat we're working on (said in simple terms). First, we're engaging our high-pass filter to remove all the unnecessary low end information (that we don't need from our vocal) so we can avoid it from messing up with our low end instruments in the frequency spectrum. We gently amplified our fundamental frequency (mainly located around 200-250Hz). Wide cut in the range around 500-900Hz or so can help to get rid of boxiness and mud. That's how we approach subtractive equalization.

Insert 2: De-esser

De-esser is helping us to control the sibilance better before we use other processors later in our chain.

Annoying sibilance can give you a headache if you don't treat it properly. That's why we're using FabFilter Pro DS (Try out Weiss Deess too) to control the sibilance in our vocals. Please make sure to avoid too aggressive de-essing since that'll lead to not-natural sounding vocals. There are vocals that don't need de-essing, so have that in mind too.

Insert 3: Compression (Peak)

Any 1176 emulation works in this example. We liked CLA-76.

With this compressor, we're aiming for peak compression. What does that mean? Any high peaks that cross the set threshold will be turned down by our compressor, but we're aiming for only highest one. For that purpose, we used a fast attack, fast release, higher ratio (you can even go for 12:1 or 20:1) and only 1-2dB of gain reduction.
You can also go with different approach to compression here! Try using a FabFilter Pro C2 with vocal algorithm, fast attack, faster release, and 5-6dB of gain reduction! That works great too! It depends on the vocals you're working with. Just make sure to turn lookahead on to avoid distortion. Also, oversampling (2x or 4x) come in handy.

Insert 4: Additive EQ

SSQ is one great FREE SSL EQ emulation that works wonderful as an additive EQ. Our advice is to absolutely try it!

Using this analog emulated EQ, our goal is to add the frequencies that we want. Usually, we'll be adding more to our fundamental, but we already did that with our first EQ. That's why we're going to only add some top end using SSQ by Analog Obsession. Maag EQ4 might sound even better in this case, but we wanted to mention this free plugin which is very underrated!

Insert 5: Tape Saturation

Virtual Tape Machines by Slate Digital adds a very pleasant sounding harmonic distortion.

Using this emulation, our goal is to add unique characteristics, coloration and harmonics to our vocals. As you can see, we went with default settings, and just readjusted the input and output gain. You can feel free to experiment with different settings since every vocal is different. We won't advise to use this without a purpose. Try out other plugins too. Our advice is to also try Fab Filter Pro Saturn since it has some great modes which you might find very interesting for your vocals.

Insert 6: Compression (Tonal)

Slate Digital FG-MU, an insane plugin that not so many people use on vocals. However, we did! It's a hidden gem for sure!

Not only this tube compressor sounds good on vocals, but it actually gives a very unique characteristics, vibe and colouration. By just putting it in your chain, without even touching anything you can hear what it does to your vocals. By default, it's a buss compressor, but in this case we used it on vocals and we don't regret it at all! The only thing that can cause you trouble is that this compressor works in stereo, so you'll have to route the output of the vocal track to a stereo aux in order to make it work in mono. Other than that, it sounds amazing!

Send 1: Reverb + Sidechaining

Valhalla VintageVerb is the reverb we wanted for this vocal.

In terms of reverb you're going to use, that's all up to your experimentation and taste. In this case, we used Valhalla VintageVerb as our reverb for our vocals. In terms of settings, we adjusted everything by ear, so we went for slight predelay, around 2 seconds of decay, EQ curves at 600Hz and 10kHz (Abbey Road Studios curve). This reverb is applied to our SEND channel which means it's not directly on our vocal channel, and that's why our mix knob is all the way up to 100% (since we're controlling the desired amount via channel's fader).

FL Studio's stock compressor is the plugin we used to sidechain our reverb.

To trigger the reverb only when our vocal isn't playing, or at the very end of certain phrases, we used a compressor on our send channel (where the reverb is located) to sidechain our reverb. The key here is to control the release to your liking and taste in combination with threshold and ratio.

Send 2: Delay + Sidechaining

Valhalla Delay is the delay we wanted for this vocal.

As you probably know, Delay is another time-based effect we're using for our vocals. The same as before, we used it on another send channel so we can control the exact amount of delay we're going to introduce to our vocals. In terms of settings we used, we went for PingPong style (1/4 & 1/2 note because that sounded good to us), readjusted feedback, slight colouration and again our EQ filters adjusted so our Delay blends nicely with our vocals.

FL Studio's stock compressor is the plugin we used to sidechain our delay.

To trigger the delay only when our vocal isn't playing, or at the very end of certain phrases, we used a compressor on our send channel (where the delay is located) to sidechain our delay. The key here is to control the release to your liking and taste in combination with threshold and ratio.

Send 3: Upward processing

Using our EQ to isolate the mid range frequencies only.

With our 3rd send channel, we're going to isolate our mid range frequencies only using our EQ, because those are the frequencies we're going to affect with our upcoming upward processor. Make sure you're using a linear phase mode for this since you don't want to introduce phase shifts to your vocals.

Sonnox Oxford Inflator - Legendary plugin.

In this case, we used one of our favorite upward processors - Inflator to bring more detail and fullness to our vocals. After we isolated our mid range frequencies using our Linear Phase EQ, we inserted Inflator to bring more detail and finally blend our 3rd send with our vocals using faders. Consider that you can also use FabFilter Pro MB for upward compression and any saturator that you like to achieve kind a similar effect like we did here.

Conclusion:

As you can see, there's a lot going on in this chain, but that's not always the case. As mentioned in the beginning, there are chains where engineers used only an EQ, compressor and slight saturation to get their vocals to where they wanted them. That highly depends on the quality of recording and outboard processing you have on your vocals while recording them. 

Not a single chain will be the same, so have that in mind too! This chain was one example of how we personally process vocals and how a pro vocal chain looks like. Go against the rules in some cases, because that's how originality comes.

If you want to share your vocal chains with us, or you have some recommendations that you want to tell, feel free to reach to us on social media or via e-mail address provided on our site.

Filed in: Mixing, Vocal Mixing, Vocals
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