It seems obvious: create a concrete concept for what makes your treatment good and then work towards it. I think I stretched that metaphor enough but I think you get the point. It’s still a task to hit a bullseye, but it’s much easier when we know where the bullseye is - and even if we miss the mark we still get some points. But if we don’t define our good, we’re just trying to hit our target with a blindfold on. As long as we put a definition to what we’re aiming for - we can get there. As I just pointed out, good can mean a lot of things. And this is where I get to the main principle behind everything I teach:
A super crisp, forward rap vocal is inherently just as enjoyable as a distorted, fuzzy rock vocal. Sometimes we want something really dirty or vibe-y to convey a feel outside of what’s inherent to the performance. Sometimes we want something really pristine that shows off the vocal performance and lyrics. There’s a whole lot of stuff that can be enjoyable. For me, I always start from the idea that we want to make the song enjoyable (or effective) for the listener.
In order to understand how to treat vocals, we have to really understand what we are trying to do. But for the most part, we can get a solid foundation with just a cursory understanding. I have in-depth courses on EQ, compression, and reverb for those interested in stepping into some upper-level understanding. It’s possible to go pretty deep down the rabbit hole with each of these processors. It’s actually a pretty short list of tools. We use equalization to adjust the tone, compression to control dynamics, reverb or delay to create ambience, and occasionally some kind of special processing like distortion, excitement, or modulation to add some secret-sauce. What I can say is the actual processing we use to treat vocals is relatively simple. I’m going to start on a little prologue to the article, but I highly advise you read it because it will help you navigate the information I’m going to present afterward. There is simply no formula for approaching vocals because every voice, every song and every recording setup is different. Explaining how to mix vocals is a bit overwhelming because there are simply so many possibilities. Mixing vocals is an overwhelming task, particularly for those that are newer to mixing in general.
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