PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production Recording and mixing vocals - your help is appreciated

I use Reaper. I have a bad voice so my own vocals are over processed but with other folk's voices it's usually an easier time.
Comping from three takes is good. V7 of Reaper has some excellent comping tweaks.
Running three takes does, in the head, even out some pitch issues but also adds a chorus effect.
Doubles are less chorusy but require impeccable timing. There're a few ADT plugins available that can do it for you and the Reaper Delay's Vocal thickener preset does a good job of adding girth.
Using a de-esser is often pretty bad as there're likely a couple of freqs that need addressing - plosives are in the same boat. This means setting up multiple de-essers to address your needs and deadens the track.
REAPER MANIA on Youtube is a great place for a manual de-essing tutorial. The Manual process from there that I apply uses the preFX volume automation line, the Razor Edit function and the Spectral image as well. Essing, plosives and mouth noises can all be addressed in a process that won't affect the overall sound.It's time consuming but, once I learnt to listen and not cut off every ess it became just a routine to run through.
Compression is cool and I use it for the "sound" , (Distressor type like Modern's Deathcore suits my reedy voice), but I use automation or item levels for evenness - sometimes on a very rough take VOLA2 can be handy. Light compression can, when lucky, add to the track.Compression o the way in cut damage your attack unless things are set up JUST RIGHT the same can happen in the box PLUS the auto "make up" gain can wreak havoc.
Personally I try to not sing INTO the mic. I use a pop screen & a pop filter AS WELL AS the pencil and rubber band method. They all work to some degree but nothing but well practiced technique will really prevent unwanted bits n pieces. I can't sing well enough or often enough to bother learning mic technique - that'd be like teaching a frog to drive.
With all that said looking at the representation of your voice in a EQ display like ReaEQ will show you where problems may be that boosting & cutting gently may help...trying to gently even things out give a good basis for other FX. Remembering to put any EQ AFTER the compressor as comp can/may/will bring back some of the things you cut/boosted.
Care with a high pass is also required as voices sound thing of too much of the bottom end or fundamental is cut.
FINALLY, using the old Motown Exciter process is great for lifting a vocal < (it's a duplicate of the vocal SQUASHED with compression, bottom end rolled off and high end exaggerated..then blended with the original just a little until you can hear it...works a treat on every voice but mine as all my probables are in the high end.
Here's a dangerous one. AirWindows' IRON OXIDE classic dropped on a vocal track will help the voice cut through the mix. I don't change the settings as the way it comes works a treat, (for bass too).
I spent an hour working on a friend's vocal today. He has a nice voice but at his & my age things get essy, whistly etc so I used tyhe Pre FX Razor edit process and he sounds great as well as younger.
OHHH, reverb...whatever reverb you send your vocals through try to put that on a separate track -send the signal to it so it's parallel with the actual vocal so you can EQ the problem address areas that the reverb accentuates - as well as the bottom end which can boom in reverb land - before it meets the vocal again in your vocal bus or where ever you combine things.
Theeeeeeeeere's also the rather fabulous Frequency Matcher to be found on the Cockos site. It'll read a vocal and create a preset of it then apply that reading to another vocal to make it sound similar. It takes more effort than that BUT is pretty cool and has made my last couple of self sung pieces a little easier to listen to.