Mixing Vocals on top of a Stereo Track

I have not personally had to mix these before but I know what you are saying.  I just read a tip on Sweetwater I was looking foward to playing with.  It was tp stereo widen the backing tracks leaving more room in the center for your vocals. 

This technique can cause various problems but heck if nothing else is working it might be worth messing with.

This is one thing that can be difficult to get right but there are a few things you can do to make it easier.

One is after recording the vocals make sure they are suitably compressed so they are nice and even and you are not getting any odd words or phrases sticking out. The actual vocal take should be fairly even to begin with but a suitable compressor on the vocal track will even out levels nicely.

The other is to monitor your final mix through a small speaker(s) and at quite a low volume. You will soon hear when the balance between the music and the vocals is right. Start with the music and slowly bring the vocals in. There will be a point when the music and the vocals will be well balanced. Make sure the vocals are clear but so is the music as well.

When you listen loud again you will find it still all sounds OK. Even if you don't have a small speaker you can still use your existing monitors just keep the monitoring level way down. (60 to 70 db SPL max) But a small speaker will emphasise the effect.

When you monitor loud your ears become sensitive to all the lower and higher frequencies, the music becomes much more powerful and you tend to crank up the vocals to keep up with it but at lower volumes you find the balance is all wrong. When you get the balance right at a very low volume you will find it still holds up well loud as well. So now you have satisfied two states rather than just one.

I have just finished reading a great book. 'The Mixing Engineers Handbook' by Bobby Owsinski. At the end of the book are a whole lot of great interviews with some really great mix engineers. ALL of them said they do the low level thing in terms of mixing and getting vocal balances correct. (some said they monitor loud but only for a while and in the end they came back down low) It is not about technical trickery that others may suggest here. Unless you do the low level thing you will never get it right. Simple as that. Mixing at very low volumes will improve your mixes more than most techniques imaginable.

I have experience adding vocals over existing beats and although herb may suggest the two things have been created from two different places, it is not as difficult as he thinks. It is quite easy actually. And it often happens that way with this genre of music as well. It is just a matter of recording and processing a vocal well and getting the balance correct.

Be very careful adding reverbs to either the stereo track (beat) or the lead vocal. Adding reverb, no matter how small or tight will only mess with the music track and in this genre generally no reverbs are used at all on vocals except for perhaps some female backing vocals on occasions. It is a genre that is pretty dry these days. I suggest that people have a good listen to it and they will find that out.

It is just a simple matter of getting the balance between the two right and the low level monitoring suggestions I have made will go a long way towards that. Small mono speakers are even better if you can arrange it but just the simple act of turning your main monitors way down low will achieve it as well. This technique also applies to any genre of music it terms of getting vocal/music balances right. It is an area that many get wrong and it is the main reason why an otherwise great mix can sound very amateur.

You still need to monitor up loud of course to check other things such as low end and any reverbs that may be present as these areas are not so obvious at low volume.

Yeah, very little verb (if any) ... delay may be used instead (judiciously)

1) You may be notching out EQ from the 'instrument' track (via envelope(s)) when the vox enters in.  I'd notch around 2kHz (to allow vocal clarity) and/or 3-4kHz (to allow vocals to pierce through)

2) Use little to no reverb, just delays panned into the 'instrument' panorama

3) Use volume envelopes on instruments as vocs enter in

4) Use a stereo widener on the instruments at 1-5 kHz and up (to taste)

5) Do not use any compression on the mastered instruments, which are already perfected

(Hope this helps)

Thanks again all!  Now I have a few more techniques to try!