Hey everyone,
So I loved music from the day I was born. Now it became a great stress relive and a hobby by making music. Please help me set up settings to maximize the vocal over track. maybe suggest some effects you guys use. Anything I would greatly appreciate!
If you’ve tried amplify (to 0dB) and it still isn’t loud enough,
you need to compress the vocal track (with make up-gain to 0dB enabled).
If clipping is stopping you turning the vocal loud enough , you need to use a limiter, (with make-up gain enabled).
There’s also ducking : where the music volume automatically dips when the DJ/singer/rapper vocalizes.
Note that mixing is done by summation so it’s easy to get clipping. The easiest solution to that is to export to floating-point (which can go over 0dB without clipping), then re-open the floating-point file and Normalize or Amplify to bring the peaks safely-down to 0dB. Then, export to whatever final-format you want.
Some compression & limiting is standard on commercial recordings (to make them “constantly-loud”). But, these effects can “damage” the sound and you are unlikely to get as much loudness that a pro mastering engineer gets (without excessive damage). So take it easy, listen carefully and make sure whatever you are doing is an improvement.
A little reverb can help with vocals too. Typically, just enough reverb that you don’t notice it but so that “something’s missing” without it. But, it’s up to you… Any/all effects are up to you!
EQ can be used to correct for microphone frequency response variations (to some extent).
It’s also common to filter-out the low frequencies (below about 100Hz) from the vocals, and almost anything else that’s not specifically-bass (like bass guitar or kick drum). The idea is that if there is not supposed to be low-bass, any low-bass is just noise.
And, don’t just blindly apply effects and don’t apply someone else’s “presets”. Use your ears!!! …I like to start with the philosophy that a good recording doesn’t need any effects.