The lead vocal (if you have one) is the most important part of your mix. It contains both the melody of the song and the lyrical content that gives the song weight or meaning. That being said, whatever we can do as mixers to keep the lead vocal interesting and exciting to the listener we must do. One way to do this is to make the lead vocal wider than it really is.
Making It Jump Out Of The Speakers
You typically want to mix the lead vocal straight down the center of the stereo field. Simple enough. Today’s technique, however, can help you get your vocal to come not just from the center of the mix but from the left and right as well! It makes your vocals sound like they are jumping out of the speakers, and that is really cool! Sit tight for 5 minutes and see if this tip can help you in your mixes…
Comments
I’m speechless… Awesome trick!
I’ve also seen this done with a very short stereo delay via a send.
Dont´t you get problems in mono?
Really love your videos, Graham!!
Greetings from Germany!!
Not really. It just sounds like a chorus effect or double. If it’s too distracting in mono however, I would go back to stereo and bring it down in the balance.
I knew of the nudge trick to fatten them up, but not the panning, that is a great tip Graham… can I made a suggestion though?… Rename these series of videos to 365 days to a better mix (hint, hint)
I love it! and agree with Alan, keep it going all year!
wow. that sounds really good.
Hey Alan….what a FANTASTIC and incredibly presented tip!!! So let me add my voice to the growing chorus of those encouraging you to keep it going longer than 30 days. We need you Obi Wan Kenobi!!! lol Keep up the good work!
Hey Graham, not trying to be a pain, but I’ve always gotten much better sounding results just double tracking everything or even quadruple tracking. Then just using elastic tricks, pocketing, or (the best) Vocalign to line it all up. I’ve also noticed that most of the worlds biggest producers seem to always say “just double more and pan it all out” (granted that is more so in the pop world, but I would consider your song here in that genre). Would you personally recommend the way you showed over just more tracking?
Always get real doubles if you can. This tip is a mixing tip, when your hands are tied and you dont’ have quadruples.
Thanks Graham, great tips.
[...] Here is a great example, covering a particular technique for livening up lead vocals: You typically want to mix the lead vocal straight down the center of the stereo field. Simple enough. Today’s technique, however, can help you get your vocal to come not just from the center of the mix but from the left and right as well! It makes your vocals sound like they are jumping out of the speakers, and that is really cool! Sit tight for 5 minutes and see if this tip can help you in your mixes… [...]
What you’ve done here is create a Haas effect. It’s a pretty cool psychoacoustic effect. You could do this without nudging by setting up a delay with 0% feedback in the 17-34 ms range (any less or more and your ear no longer will “hear” it coming from the same source), and then panning your tracks apart. I like to play with the width of this effect by widening or narrowing the panning. You can also eq each track slightly differently (or simply run an eq after the delay) to create some nuanced separation of the parts. Great way to double up guitars as well with the added bonus of never having the timing of a double being off.