From the course: Audio Mixing Master Class

Argo vocals - Pro Tools Tutorial

From the course: Audio Mixing Master Class

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Argo vocals

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- [Instructor] Many vocals need some extra aggression to match the track and this trick dials it up in style. Let's see how to take that aggression to the next level and make it perfect for the track. First thing we'll do is have a listen to our track and particularly listen to the vocal. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the railway ♪ ♪ You know I love you but I might attack ♪ ♪ I ain't back in black ♪ - [Instructor] Doesn't sound too bad but what we really want is to make it more aggressive so we can match the track better. So the first thing we're going to do is duplicate our vocal track. There we go, let's Solo it up and what we'll do is we'll add a limiter. So let's bring our normal Pro Tools Limiter in. Fast attack, medium release, and let's bring it up 8 or 10:1, somewhere in there and what we'll do is we'll make our knee nice and easy here. Have a listen. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the railway ♪ ♪ You know I love you but I might attack ♪ - [Instructor] Okay, so that's pretty solid, pretty steady, that's what we want. Now, we're gonna add the aggression by adding a little bit of distortion. So come down to Harmonic here and any kind of distortion plug-in will do. In this case, let's do Eleven which is the distortion plug-in from Digidesign. And let's have the vintage amp here. Let's have a listen. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the railway ♪ ♪ You know I love you-- ♪ - [Instructor] We don't want too much. We just want enough to make it aggressive, to give it some extra presence. And now what we'll do is we'll add an EQ on top of that and we'll boost up our mid-range a little bit. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the rail-- ♪ - [Instructor] That's very aggressive. So let's listen in relation to the vocal and we'll gradually add it in. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the railway ♪ - [Instructor] That sounds pretty good. Have a listen. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the railway ♪ - [Instructor] Okay, let's listen to the track now. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the railway ♪ - [Instructor] Now let's listen without the added new duplicated aggressive track. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the railway ♪ ♪ You know I love you but I might attack ♪ ♪ I ain't back in black ♪ - [Instructor] Now you can hear what happens. Just that little bit of extra aggression. Just kind of puts it over the top. And if we want to, we can really push this as well. So let's just push it a little more than I normally would, anyway. Just to hear what it'd be like. ♪ You hear me calling but you're carried away ♪ ♪ With all that buzzing on the railway ♪ ♪ You know I love you but I might attack ♪ ♪ I ain't back in black ♪ - [Instructor] So you can hear sometimes you want just a little extra push. A little extra power in the mix. And there are certain songs, hard rock songs, metal songs, anything that has an edge to it, sometimes needs that extra aggression and you don't want it to be overbearing, you just want to be enough that the aggression of the vocal kind of matches the track. So you can use this trick in order to get that extra aggression that sometimes you can't get any other way. To give the vocal in a hard rock or metal song a bit more of an edge, duplicate the lead vocal channel, then insert a compressor in signal path. Set the compressor for 6 to 10 dB or more of compression. Insert a distortion or harmonic plug-in after the compressor in the signal path and set it for mild distortion. Be careful since too much distortion will make the vocal sound harsh. Insert an EQ after the distortion plug-in in the signal path and boost the mids anywhere from two k to four kilohertz. Finally, mix in subtly with the original vocal channel to fit the song.

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