Help Your Vocals Cut Through The Mix With This Sidechain Technique

 

Happy New Year! I hope 2022 is treating you well, and I hope you have some awesome creative ideas in the works.

I’m actually in the beginning stages of mixing an album. And I thought it would be cool to share some of that journey with you over the next few weeks.

One of the toughest aspects of mixing has to be getting your vocals to cut through in your mixes.

There’s already so much to manage and do in a mix. And oftentimes there’s so much going on, it can be hard to create that space you need for the vocals.

Like right now, I’m mixing a punk rock album. And that means loud guitars. Distorted guitars can eat up all the space in a mix in an instant!

So I’m actually sidechaining Logic’s Compressor to duck the guitars when the vocalist is singing.

Oh, but only if it were that easy…

The classic sidechain situation is when you have a kick drum and bass. A sustaining bass can often prevent the kick drum from cutting through.

So we sidechain a Compressor to duck the bass every time the kick hits. Thus creating the space the kick needs to be heard.

But vocals can be much more dynamic than a kick drum. Even with plenty of compression and automation, your vocals might still sound too quiet at moments.

This means the loudest vocals will affect the sidechained Compressor the most. While the quieter parts (which need the most help!) won’t tickle the Compressor at all.

So you may need to get more creative with your sidechaining to help your vocals out 🙂

Today let me show you how you can fine-tune your Sidechain signal to create more controlled and stable space for your vocals (check out the video above for more).