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On my current project I have 4 singers backing me up. When I mix them all in it seems their sound is too fat. They sound great on their own, but in the mix they cover up instruments and lead vocals that I want to be heard, even when I turn them way down.
I think what I need to do is EQ the vocals to eliminate all the unessential frequencies. Is this right?
If it is right, what frequencies should I be messing with? Which frequency ranges are needed for musicality and intelligibility? Which frequencies can I try slicing?
Do I apply the same EQ to all four voices - S,A,T,B? Or does each range get its own treatment?
I have used the graphic EQ that comes with RealBand in the past. Is this the right tool?
I realize that there will be no substitute for trial-and-error on my part. Still, any guidance y'all can share from your experience will be gratefully appreciated.
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Anonymous
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Try more fruit and walking more....
I would cut 1k and one left and right of it.
Actually I would send the sound out through a 31 band EQ but that's me, and I just happen to have a stereo 31 band EQ in my rack.
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Journeyman
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Before I went digital I always used a parametric EQ. It was always easy for me to find the frequency to raise or lower.
I had a dual 31 band graphic EQ too, it was great. But I almost went blind with all the little sliders. They were so tiny.
I shopped around for a paramtric EQ and they are too much money for me now.
Last edited by redguitars; 08/05/11 10:43 AM.
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I bought a Behringer with lights. They have an "FBQ" feature where you can press the button and it lights up the frequencies that are causing the feedback. Love it.
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There are a lot of ways to deal with this. I am not sure what DAW you are using, so I don't know if you can do sub mixing but here is 2 ways I deal with it... 1. Go & Grab Multi-Inspector Free and place it in your Master out. Submix your Drums, Bass, Guitars-Keys, and background vocals. This will allow you to see the frequency range of the 4 sub mixes, and you can then cut the vocals at the frequency they are masking at. 2. I treat BV like an instrument, so I am not "gentle" with them. Sub-group them & then roll of the bass starting at 150Hz & go up until they quit masking everything. Divide them into low-high range and then balance them between L-R with 1 low & 1 high per side. Pan them to 9:00 - 11:00 - 1:00 - 3:00 to spread them out but not to far. Place a light Chorus on the sub-mix to add a little motion to them. This has worked for my a lot, and even if it was NOT what I was looking for it was a good starting position. Every song is different, but there are some basic ground rules to this stuff no matter what all the "arm chair mixers" say...including me!   Hope this helps! 
i5 3.20GHz, 32gb RAM, 1tb SSD OS, 12tb HDD, 4gb gForce vid card, 32" monitor, Audient id44, Win10 x64, BiaB/RB 2023, Reaper 6,IK Multimedia Total Studio 3.5 MAX, Waves 10
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Journeyman
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Mine had the lights but didn't have "light up the frequencies" feature yet. It was older. Sounds cool.
I want everything electronic effect I ever owned back again.
I also want my 64 Malibu SS.
OK, I'll stop,
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First thing I would do is solo each vocal track and EQ out all frequencies that don't affect the character of the voice, in other words get rid of all unnecessary content. It's additive when you mix them all together.
Maybe everything below 250Hz on females and 100Hz on males (unless it is a deep male voice).
It really is something you have to tinker with. I had a female vocalist that was not happy with the sound of her voice on her recordings, and by boosting 330Hz a little she suddenly liked it.. she said it put back the sound of her voice that the recording had lost. With Barry (a vocalist I work with often) I cut 330 quite a bit when I need his voice to come through better.
Working with multiple voices I would treat each one individually so their character still has the punch to get through at lower volume, without all the frequencies that are adding the mess.
The old 'trust your ears' approach.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Flatfoot - there's a common thread in the previous posts and I'll pile on - you likely need to do some hi-pass EQ on all of the vocals. Where you do the cutoff frequency depends on the voice, but you'll likely find jcspro and rharv's starting points as an 'aha' moment. And, just plain cut down on the volume of the BGVs can do wonders AFTER you've done the eq on them.
Hi pass filtering is probably the most neglected tool in the home recordist's toolbelt, that can make the most difference in un-muddying a mix.
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Quote:
First thing I would do is solo each vocal track and EQ out all frequencies that don't affect the character of the voice, in other words get rid of all unnecessary content. It's additive when you mix them all together.
Maybe everything below 250Hz on females and 100Hz on males (unless it is a deep male voice).
It really is something you have to tinker with. I had a female vocalist that was not happy with the sound of her voice on her recordings, and by boosting 330Hz a little she suddenly liked it.. she said it put back the sound of her voice that the recording had lost. With Barry (a vocalist I work with often) I cut 330 quite a bit when I need his voice to come through better.
Working with multiple voices I would treat each one individually so their character still has the punch to get through at lower volume, without all the frequencies that are adding the mess.
The old 'trust your ears' approach.
This is how its done, son.
After that, I'd likely add a separate instance of Audio Compression to each voal track as well, use it to iron out amplitude issues and also to better effect a good gain staging for them that will match the backing tracks.
--Mac
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Wow!
What a great response. I can see it will take a while to work through all your advice. Thank you very much.
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Seconding the compressor. I often start with the Classic Compressor and use the second vocal preset. It can be found on jcspro40's website I believe (I hope I got the name right so you can find it in his signature on his posts). Its a fairly simple compressor with decent presets as starting points. Adjust the threshold and compression ratio to suit. These are often the first two I tinker with.
When doing this, and this applies to other effects too, remember the sound goes through the track settings first (including slider), then thru the Track FX. Then you can send *some* of that sound to the AUX (using AUX dial for track), and then both the Track sound (after Track FX) and the AUX output get sent to the main out (A1 in lower right of mixer for most users). That is the routing for the mixer.
So if you want to reverb them, set a reverb up in the AUX section of the mixer and use the AUX dial on each vocal track to feed the single reverb effect. That way they sound like they were all in the same room, you can change the reverb for all the vocal tracks at once, and you can control the wet dry mix manually by adjusting the AUX out volume dial to match the dry being sent from the Track.
For this reason (the routing mentioned above) it is wise to set the 'wet/dry' mix ratio on the reverb effect all the way to wet when using reverb in the AUX position. Otherwise, if you let the AUX send more dry out, it is sending more dry again to the main out. It's better to have the out from the Track (which also gets sent to the main out seperately) be your dry. Avoids some complexities (and problems) when mixing.
Last edited by rharv; 08/05/11 04:45 PM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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If you are using RB, there are some pre-set DX Effects for background singers in the PG DX list. Load those up and tinker with each tracks effects until you find that sweet spot  Trax
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I think that it is in the category options.
Right-click the track name area, then select 'track category'.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Thanks everyone for your excellent advice. Tweaking the backup vocals turned out to be much less daunting than i had anticipated, especially with y'alls encouragement. At times I thought I was thinning out the singers so severely that they would waste away to nothing, but it turned out the opposite. With a little experimentation I found the frequencies that gave each voice its character and cut back on everything else. This let the instruments get to an audible level without straining. Perhaps I should have told you that would be doing every thing in BiaB and RealBand. I used the EQ, reverb and comp that come with RealBand. The EQ did not even have notches for the freqs you mentioned, but it worked out anyway. The last thing I did was give every backing vocal the same reverb, to make then sound like they were in the "same room." Thanks especially for that tip. Anyway, here is the result: https://www.youtube.com/user/flatfoot50#p/u/0/nH7amRKeoks
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Excellent song and excellent track. My Songs
My TunesPsalm 57:7 My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music.
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