Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

May I have some suggestions for making vocals sound great in a final mixdown.

1. What plugins should I use and in what order in the chain when mixing vocals?

I know I said suggestions, what I really mean is (can the real mastering engineers please give some suggestions). Not to offend anyone but the reason behind this is that I am getting alot of different answers from alot of people that do not have mastering studios. The mastering engineer usually has alot of calculations in their head already preset to what they hear. Engineers such as myself and others don't know or are trying to know these frequency calculations and spectrum calculation, so please can we have some plugins and what order to use them when mixing down vocals.

Thank you very much.
Please do not take as an offense, don't mean to offend anyone. Just asking questions.
"Knowledge it power"

Start with a singer that has a great sound. Have a good mic - nowdays you can find good ones for about $750 - $1000. And have a good preamp - preferably a tube preamp.

Then you won't have to do much.

If you've recorded a lousy sound, no plug-ins will fix it.

The better the sound IN the less you'll find it necessary to do anything.

Make sure that you don't over-compress. You can't take that away after the singer leaves. You can always 'add' that if you need to or what I do is micro-edit and manually reduce pieces to 'level' out if needed.

Add some delay and reverb if appropriate to the style.

I've seen many Pro-Tools sessions from other 'engineers' sent to me with an unbelievable chain of plug-ins inserted. I always DELETE. and start over.

Often I send the recorded vocal into my Avalon 737 to EQ and compress slightly and re-record the track. A touch of delay and reverb, and that's about it.

Having said all of that, my favorite plug-in and it's not really a plug-in is Celemony Melodyne,

After I have made all my edits and leveled out the performance, I consolidate the track and send it to Melodyne.

Let Melodyne detect the pitch. Then 'snap' the notes in place and 'save'. Send the file back to Pro Tools (in my case).

Melodyne is so far ahead of Auto-Tune.

Once again no pun intended on this question. Just a straight answer. I've used

1. Auto-Tune
2. Steinberg
3. Wavelab
4. Soundforge

Without good results.
I'm use to analog not digital, I think this is why I am getting annoyed

Thank you so much zumbido.

"Knowledge is power"