Vocal work

[olyko12]

I'm currently doing a tune with vocals, and I've run into a problem

My vox dont sit well in the mix at all. It sounds like there is a well-mixed track sitting right behind vox that were recorded in a soundproof room, rather than a singer singing "in the music" if you know what I mean. They just sound very distant from eachother.

What are some tricks/tips to help vocals mix better?

[Sonika]

If they're sitting on top of the mix too much, reverb is definitely the go-to effect to use. Use it artfully though, don't just soak it in reverb.

[wormcode]

I love using volume automation to the vocals as well as the lead elements of the instrumental. It's simple and can make them blend much better. Not huge gains/cuts, just be subtle and put it where it sounds right. Bring down instruments when there's a main hook or lyric, bring up instruments a bit when there's a break in vocals or right after the chorus etc.

[Volatile Psycle]

a little bit of saturation can work wonders.
look at the vocal with an spec analyser, find where is peaks and try eqing some of that out of the other parts of the song, so the vocal sits in there nice. perhaps then automate this eq'ing to only happen when the vox come's in
if all else fails try sidechaining (possibly frequency specific) some of the lead elements with the vocal by a couple of dB

Not wanting to offend you or the signer but is it tuned well?

[hudson]

This is an extremely common problem. Whenever something stands out too much in a mix, I try compressing it a little bit and bumping down the volume. Vocals are a tough thing to mix though, especially in electronic music. Light delay and reverb could help in addition to compressing, but I think the best way to approach it is to mix around the vocals so that everything else sits well with them first. This way, you're not angrily drenching everything in reverb and saturation because you're stuck with shitty sounding vocals and awesome everything else. I got one of my friends to sing on a song of mine a couple months ago and she recorded her vocals on a usb mic on her bed, but by carefully making everything fit around the vocals before adding too many effects, I got the vocals sounding amazing and more or less professional. So try it out, save a copy of your mix and then tear it apart and start again.

[Today]

a reverb send with small size (not one with long enormous decay)
with a little bit of several elements sent to it (including the vocal) will help glue it
good tip from hudson about compressing and lowering the volume
squash the vocal sufficiently so that it has good presence, allowing you to turn it down
besides that, a little EQ boost on the sweet spots and a low cut
cut the same frequencies that are hot in the vocal away from other elements

[Sonika]

Yeah but if it's a full vocal thing (as opposed to little chopped snippets of vocals) don't EQ too hard. I've EQed vocals much too strongly in the past, it makes them sound more instrumental than vocal.

[hudson]

It depends what you're going for. I'd never EQ vocals (beyond a highpass) in the mixes I'm doing for bands, but electronic music is different. They could stand out by sounding too natural, and you can fix that with some very light, tasteful EQing.

[Sonika]

yeah what I was saying was that if you were making a track where you wanted the vocals to sound mostly natural (but obviously not sit too much on top of the mix), don't EQ too much

[SoundNuisance]

Like others said, add some reverb. I have also noticed that if you make 2 tracks of the vocals, one hard-panned to the right and one hard you can do some cool tricks. For example, putting reverb heavily on the left side while the right side would act as the dry signal. You can also pan the left vocals to the right or in the center etc. to add a cool effect.

[Sonika]

That's a cool idea. I should try that!

[Sharmaji]

Compress, compress, compress, eq, compress.

[olyko12]

Wow! Lots of sweet tips here. Can't wait to get to work
Thanks everyone!