VOCAL STACK PRODUCTION/MIX BREAK DOWN

This is a song by The White Lakes called Cannot Get Enough. I was part of the production of the track and later mix and mastered.

In this blog post I'm gonna go through the production choices for the vocal stack in the track.

The goal was to achieve a Pop style vocal in a rock track. The vocal shouldn't sound natural but still contain some of the gritiness of a rock vocal.

SCREENSHOT OF THE VOCAL RECORD PROJECT

The vocals were recorded and pitch corrected using melodyne in a separate project over the instrumental demo stem. After the pitch correction was done they were bounces and added to the mix project.

SCREENSHOT OF VOCAL ROUTING IN THE MIX PROJECT

All vocals are running to a vocal bus (seen on the far left of the screenshot). This allows me to better glue everything together with compression and saturation, and to also use a D-esser on everything together.

This vocal stack consists of a couple of different elements:

• LEAD VOCAL

• LEAD DOUBLES (just to add width to the lead)

• HARMONIES (these harmonies follow the lead vocal line)

• COUNTER MELODY VOCALS (Backing vocals that "answering" to the lead line

• AD LIBS (the scream every 8 bars)

LEAD VOCAL PLUG IN CHAIN

I didn't feel that much processing was needed for the lead vocal, so I kept it simple. The plug in chain for the vocal is as follows:

• Low Cut 24dB at 127Hz followed by a True Peak Limiter. This first part of the chain was just to clean up spikes and rumble from the recording. If cleaned up before going in to the compressor, it will achieve a cleaner sound.

• Pro C compressor on Vocal mode with heavy compression on a quick release. The goal was to thicken the vocal line and keep it forward in the mix the whole time.

• Fresh Air plug in. This was used to give character to the vocal tone.

LEAD VOCAL DOUBLES PLUG IN CHAIN

The doubles didn't need to be noticed, they were meant just to add width to the lead. So the plug in chain was made in order to achieve that effect. The chain is as follows:

• Pro-Q plug in cutting a lot of the low end in order to not mask or phase with the fundamental of the lead vocal, and a high shelf to cut some of the presence in the high end and make the vocal feel a bit further in the mix.

• a limiter to shave off some spikes.

• the compressor high a high threshold, fast attack and release. The goal was to make it a thick compression effect to further improve on the effect of pushing the vocal back in the mix by shaving the transients.

• Nectar 4 Pitch to just add the "auto tune" effect.

HARMONIES PLUG IN CHAIN

The harmonies were not meant to sound natural at all. So I could take some bold choices in the processing. The plug-in chain is as follows:

• EQ Eight used just as a low cut, to take out any rumble and plosive sounds that would heavily affect the compressor.

• Limiter with 15dB gain. This was just gain staging as the recordings were a bit too quiet to use the compressor.

• Compressor with quick attack and release, to shave off the transient and push it back in the mix.

• Nectar 4 Pitch with heavy tuning setting to make it sound unnatural.

COUNTER MELODY PLUG IN CHAIN

As these vocals were just "answering" the lead vocal, and only for a short moment sang at the same time as the lead, these were allowed to keep more of their fundamental frequency. I have then also added some tube saturation to add some gritiness and presence.

SCREAM PLUG IN CHAIN

This plug in chain was a bit more interesting with the effects. The goal was to get this screaming vocal to sound distant and interesting. And having a 1/2 note delay running into a washy plate reverb does the trick. The plug in chain is as follows:

• Limiter and compressor to just have volume control. Fast attack and release with high threshold for a thick style compression to enhance the back in the mix effect.

• Soundtoys EchoBoy on a 1/2 note delay. with some low end cut and in "Space Echo" mode. I also had the delay dragging just a little bit to ad a bit more groove.

• Pro-R in plate mode. A really washy long reverb. the width was only set to 40% just to make sure it was not adding any spacial effect, but just a style effect.

• A final compressor just to glue everything together.

VOCALS RETURN TRACKS

These are the return tracks for the vocals.

• "A" is the room reverb for the lead.

• "B" is the room reverb for the backing.

• "C" is a slap back delay to groove with the lead.

• "D" is the final bus where everything is being routed to.

  
  
  
  

  

  ROOM REVERB FOR THE LEAD AND BACKING VOCALS

  I wanted the lead and backing vocals to feel like they are all in the same room, but in different positions. In order to achieve this a did two different things. I have set the "Distance" setting different in both reverbs and the brightness. More high end makes a sound feel closer, so take out some of the brightness was essential. I also felt that the backing vocals were washing a bit too much in the reverb, and it was losing the groove. So I set the decay time a lot lower for the backing vocals compared to the lead.

  
  

  

  LEAD VOCAL SLAP BACK REVERB

  This is the plug in used for the slap back reverb. Only the lead vocal was being routed to this return. It was meant to had groove. Just one repetition on a 1/8th delay. Telephone mode with a heavy low cut gave it the sound I was after, slightly saturated high fi sound. I was also set to be dragging and swinging a little bit to further enhance the groove

  
  

  

  VOCAL BUS CHAIN

  At the very end on the vocal bus where everything was being routed to, all it was needing was to glue everything together. So I use a Glue Compressor going into a Warm Tape Saturator.