Basic Clean Vocals

Find an isolated place.

You want to be able to get the cleanest sound. Find the quietest and most isolated place in your house. You can do it the DIY (Do It Yourself) way which is putting thick layers of blankets up in your closet like you’ve probably seen on youtube. Or just buy some sound insulation material. The reason why you want to do this is because you want your recording to be as dry as possible in order to be able to get that perfect final mix. Get you some good and comfy headphones for a nice recording and don’t forget your microphone.

Prepare your voice.

Get some tea with honey to make sure your vocals stay as smooth as foam because it can take a lot of vocal chord work to get that right pitch. Always keep water to stay hydrated so your throat doesn’t go dry too fast. You’d be surprised if you aren’t use to recording songs yet. Do some vocal warming up exercises before doing the real deal. The exercises are stupid and will make you feel weird but it’s for your own benefit so you can have a killer track. You remember the scene in “HIgh School Musical” right? “Brr brr ma” yea.. Well it works pretty well so give it a try.

Equalizing your voice.

Now lets this started.. The eq is one of the most powerful who can either make or break your song. It’s main purpose is to remove all unwanted frequencies by using the ice-pick trick. By forming that exact shape, you’ll begin to sweep the bandwidth side by side until you hear this swirly ringing sound, it’s quite annoying you can’t miss it..(believe me you’ll recognize it when you hear it). The next step is pretty straightforward, all you need to do it lower its gain and you’re set. It takes practice but once you get the hang of it you’ll get it rolling. Don’t worry if you don’t have proper gear yet, observation is key.

The Compression Tool.

The name says it all.. This tool is to make sure your vocals or instrumental sounds don’t peak but stay at a constant volume level. The key of the compressor tool is to make sure your vocal can sit in the song meaning, it can blend itself to make it a part of the song. Just play around with the threshold and ratio settings and see what you can come up with. You’ll hear when you do too much of it. There are different sorts of compressors, (multipressor, compressor, limiter) all have different function with the same goal so suite yourself and see which tool is your favorite to use and apply for your future projects. It’s not against the rules to use presets, it’s just a little shortcut that you can mess with and see if it satisfies you. Here’s a valuable tip. If you keep your ratio at the infinity sign, play with the threshold knob and you should hear a huge enough difference.

Reverb the Best Tool Ever.

Here comes one of my favorite plugins. The reverb allows you to add dimension to your vocal to make it sound wide and soft because of it’s « wet » effect. You can make yourself sound as is you were in a stadium or black hole. Not that you would want to do that but we never know, wherever your creativity brings you. If you play well enough with it, you will see what I’m talking about. You know when they sound far away in movies ? Yes, that sound is the reverb it can make you sound so distant. Try it out !