I recently made several Pro-Obama music videos which combined recordings from Sonar Cakewalk Producer XI along with 3d animations and a combination of stock background videos and still images. On many of my songs, I found myself having to sacrifice what I felt was the best musicality of the initial mix to get a clearer final result where the lyrics could be heard more easily. I have a decent ear but I'm not a singer as will become readily apparent :) (though on one of the songs, Is It to Late, a friend from a local bluegrass band did the lead vocals). Since my voice isn't that great, I ended up doing multiple tracks and layering them together with some reverb to create a thicker sound which I found more appealing. But a couple of people who listened / watched and gave me their feedback said this ended up making things too muddy for the lyrics to be readily understood. So I was hoping some folks in the Cakewalk community could take a listen and give me some general or specific recommendations as to how I might improve the clarity without losing the musical benefit of multiple tracks and some reverb. A final note - these are political videos made from a unabashedly progressive/liberal point of view, so if that goes against your way of thinking, you may want to just skip over this post. (I'm happy to hear feedback on the social and political content of the songs as well, but it would probably be best to post that in the comments section on YouTube while restricting comments here to the technical advice about the audio side of things) Thanks in advance for any help. Here are links to the 4 songs as I currently have them posted. The first, Jim Crow, is on the new voting laws http://youtu.be/LnnL_Lk1-zc The second, Is it Too Late? addresses global warming: http://youtu.be/AeJz7NkHAoU The third, Where Have all the Angels Gone? - http://youtu.be/uQSLhrvIslY addresses what I see as the decidedly un-angelic behavior of the hard right. And the fourth, Mittnochio, http://youtu.be/EPXbbwknGpc which deals with what I saw as a lack of integrity from Romney's campaign in specific, and the right wind - note, “I’ve Got No Strings” is in the Public Domain (in contrast to the vast majority of old Disney songs), so my re-write doesn't trample anyone's copyright)

Layering should not make the vox muddy, unless they are done incorrectly. There are two places that layering can cause you to stumble. 1. The tracks are too different and they clash with each other (listener cannot focus on one or the other. 2. They are too similar, and end up cancelling each other out. Take the best track, place it dead center. Take two other tracks, slam them wide, and keep them much lower db to ensure they compliment rather than compete with the main vox track. Adjust to taste. Remember compression and limits are your friend. Keep the noise floor low.

 Thanks foxwolfen. One of my problems was probably that I didn't choose a specific track as my main one and turn the others lower in dB - so I'm sure I've run into the problem of tracks 'competing' with one another for dominance in essence. And I didn't play with panning at all. I'll give that a try, turning 'support' tracks lower and panning them wide. In terms of compression, can I just use Boost to compress and adjust vol on the Master - or is compression best done on a per track basis first, and then Boosting at end if desired? Finally, do you have any advice on using reverb, which I thought made things sound better musically, but seemed to give some people a hard time understanding the lyrics? Thanks.

Compression is always done per track in a mix first. Compression is not just a boost.. it is also a "quiet". It should make loud passages softer, and soft passages louder. Later, when the mix is polished enough that it will stand well on its own, then and only then is it ready for mastering... which is preparing it for the broadcast or distribution medium... not for final mixing. At most, the master should compensate for media limits, and if possible add a little sparkle to the polish. Mastering should be subtle. - Cheers, Shad.

some great advice from Shad here Mosk. Get the mix right first and the mastering should be a breeze. Also, leave yourself some room in the mix for mastering.

Mosk, I failed to note the last line about reverb. It certainly can muddy the vocals. Reverb is a great tool for adding life, depth, and ambiance to a mix, but is also often overused to compensate for less than perfect vocals due to reverb's natural tendency to add harmonics above or below which often fall in the correct pitch zone. This is NOT a great way to fix vocal problems. The right way to fix them is practice (a pro may practice a song dozens of times before recording). The easy way is of course Melodyne or Autotune when used correctly and not for effect. Often though, the best way is to just live with it, as it may not be as bad as it seems, and imperfect vocals are more human.

Foxwolfen - Appreciate all the advice. I'm no longer operating under any time constraints, so I can now go back in a calm manner and try to apply the techniques you mentioned. Thanks again.

Double-tracking vocals can indeed make lyrics less intelligible, especially if the layers aren't time-aligned well. Consonants in particular are key to intelligibility and need to be lined up to prevent smearing.

A few tips come to mind: 

1. Mix the layered takes 6db down from the primary lead vocal. It'll still fatten up the lead but won't muddy it as much. 

2. Thin the layered takes with EQ, rolling off some of the low frequencies and dipping the sibilance region between 5KHz and 8KHz.

3. Use automation or compression to dip the hard consonants in the layers, letting the primary track carry them - you only need one voice handling the "K"s and "T"s, and there's little benefit to double-tracking them.

4. Use AudioSnap to nudge transients into place. Don't alter the primary track, just enable transients on it so you have a guide for the layers.

5. Reverb is the most common intelligibility-killer. Three techniques will help here: a) EQ to roll off the low and high end of the reverb tail, b) apply predelay of 10ms or more, and c) set the reverb time short enough that it's finished before the next phrase comes along.