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willashland 15 April 2010

I'm working on a song which I'm really excited about, but I can't seem to hammer down the vocals. I know what style I want to sing the song in, a soft, dreamy sort of style. The sound I'm getting is thin and seems too quiet in the mix. If I turn up the volume of the track, it distorts. Should I turn the other tracks down, compromising the big sound feel of the song?

I'm using an mxl 990 condenser through a PreSonus power strip preamp. There is minimal eq on the vocals.

Any suggestions are welcome.

voxonly.mp3
(i promise it's no malware of any kind, just my singing. excuse any pitch inconsistency, it was one take with no warmups)

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Comments

bouldersound Thu, 04/15/2010 - 00:58

The body of the song is at about -9.5dB RMS, with peaks at 0dBFS. That's really hot.

What are you using to mix this? What are your main bus levels during the mix?

Turning the tracks down shouldn't compromise the "big sound feel of the song". It's just amplitude. Track and mix with peaks somewhere between -18 and -12dBFS (assuming 24 bit digital). When the mix is complete you can put a "mastering" limiter on the main bus to get the average level up to some arbitrary target, at the expense of natural dynamics.

planet10 Fri, 04/30/2010 - 09:06

im not seeing anything in this sample that you are describing. the vocals arent THIN and they are loud enough for the type of song you have?????.......
what you need to do is work on the mix more, the guitars are very tinny sounding and the mid of the vocals seem dropped.
maybe try not using eq first off when mixing, see what the track sound like with nothing first, adjust fader levels that suit you and then add some comp to the vocal to SLIGHTLY even it out and bring more of your "voice" into it. then add some air to the vocal by taking 12-20khz and SLIGHTLY add gain and the same with the low end, go to about 60-90hz and drop the gain to get the "mic" sound out of it, then check your mids at that point to see if the nasal sound is there or not.
THEN eq the guitar SLIGHTLY. i think the guitar has no bottom to it it doesnt sound like a hollow body guitar to me
do all this EQing NOT IN SOLO MODE.
its ok to set your faders down a notch. just turn up the output of your speakers. you want to MAKE SURE YOUR stereo bus isnt peaking at 0db, keep it at around -10 - -6 db so that a mastering guy has something to work with so it can be louder YET still have dynamic range.
good luck, send me a sample afterwords if you take my advice
jimmy@p10studios.com

Big K Mon, 05/03/2010 - 23:03

Lol... a place of mixing & mastering competitions for the extremely bored engineers...
Why not? Just don't let us have an editing contest. The tracks should be fairly usable.
I just finished a session of this ever so much loved pushing & pulling, stretching & pitching, cutting & ....yaaaawn...
Maybe some friends want to dig into their archives for some material of not too many tracks, as well?
Big K

Willashland, where are you???
:-)

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