Volume Envelopes on Vocals. Up or Down?

Recorded some vocals last night, tonight I'm going to mix them, can't wait!
 
Some of the vocals are louder than the others, when adding volume envelopes, do you push the quieter vocals up? or the louder vocals down?
 
Thanks in advance.
Paul

I like to do a mix without envelopes first. Then I have a median value for each track to work off of.

PTV


Recorded some vocals last night, tonight I'm going to mix them, can't wait!
 
Some of the vocals are louder than the others, when adding volume envelopes, do you push the quieter vocals up? or the louder vocals down?
 
Thanks in advance.
Paul

If you record at 24bit you can go either way.  If you recorded at 16bit it would be best to only cut (move envelope down). You really don't want to boost 16bit quiet parts.  As a rule I try to get my rough level set in the console maybe a little too loud in spots, then do in and only reduce parts that are too loud. If you have quiet spots add a compressor plugin after you get the peak killer envelope done and let it bring up the quiet parts. If they are really bad and the compressor is not getting it then go in and do a fix with the clip gain envelope.
 
By the way use the clip gain envelope for all you little fixes and save the track volume envelope for setting the overall level and doing fade in and out at the ends. When done the clip gain should be a mess of nodes and the track volume should have only a few making it easy to adjust later.  The clip gain envelope is pre effects bin so that's why you want to use it for dynamics fixes.

Philip


Wow!  I never knew their was a clip gain envelope!#!

Thanks for sharing.

Regarding envelopes: I've had bad luck with limiters + compressors to 'do it all'.  And I never use upward expansion (which is the opposite of gating) ... just strong compression with reasonable MU gain.  (Of course I HPF and LPF on the track EQ)

Currently I've weaned off Voxengo (accept for de-essing and gating) and apply compression only.

Why mess with a muddy limiter when I still have to reduce the volume peaks manually?

If you get good at the clip gain adjustments you might not need a compressor but the idea is that you use the clip gain to get it as smooth as you can so you can use less aggressive settings on the compressor. Most compressor plugins are transparent if you don't have to hit the track so hard.  If you have already fixed the big lumps all the compressor has to do is the final smoothing.

And  yeah, the clips have their own envelopes and in recent versions even their own effects bin !!  And the best part is they get processed before the track effects bin. So for example if you cut down a noise, breath, or word the reverb from the previous word doesn't drop out too. If you used the track volume  envelope everything gets reduced and you can hear the effects drop out... not cool.  However, for fades you might want that so do the fade in and out with the track volume.