[Neil C]

Hi, I'm trying to creat a massed choir/backing vocals for a collaboration called Syria and interested in any thoughts about how to mix it to avoid a mush of vocals  

Never done this before and wanted to learn if others had done something similar?

It's a ballad with a fair bit going on including bass, drums, piano, orchestra and some rock guitars so plenty of stuff right across the spectrum. And on top of lead vocals I've got about 10 additional vocals with more to come. On there own they sound pretty good but when applied to the backing it loses impact. So starting to think about panning, low cut etc.
Anyway any thoughts and expiriences gratefully received.
 
Neill
Ps here's the demo backing track. https://soundcloud.com/neilconnor-2/syria-demo-master-24-sept-2016

[Boydie]

Here is how I would tackle this...

1 - make sure all vocals are panned central

2 - if you have 10 tracks I would pick your favourite 3 (ideally 3 different voices) and mute the other 7 or more (we will come back to them)

3 - I would low cut / high pass filter every vocal

4 - listen to each vocal and choose what "quality" you want to retain from each vocal

5 - once you have done this increase the high pass filter and add low pass filter to take the frequencies away around where the vocal has the quality you want to retain - avoid the temptation to boost the frequencies you want/like - cut want you don't want (subtractive EQ)

6 - you can use "bell" EQ curves to cut out specific frequencies as well

7 - you are aiming to have a high pass filter on every track + drastic EQ cuts, which will ideally be different cuts on each track

8 - balance the levels of these 3 tracks and only when everything sounds suitably separate using EQ you can move on to panning to help with the separation - I would be tempted to go 1 at 75% left, 1 at 75% right and one at 25% left (avoiding dead centre to leave space for the lead vocal)

9 - send these to a BV1 Bus and add a touch of reverb to this bus (if you can hear it - it is too much) and then route this bus to a BACKING VOX bus

10 - to add depth to your track I would repeat this process with the next 3 tracks, but adding even more drastic EQ cuts and slightly different panning % - IE go a little wider with the left and right and then place the middle on 25% to the right to balance out the BV1 group

11 - balance the levels of these 3 tracks, send to a BV2 bus and then send this bus to the BACKING VOX bus

12 - repeat this for the next 3 tracks to create a BV3 bus, then a BV4 bus etc. - being more drastic with the EQ as you go - and then route these busses to the BACKING VOX bus with the other BV# groups

13 - here is the bit that will add some depth to your track without muddying things up...

Treat your BV# busses as layers - IE mix the BV2 level slightly lower than the BV1 level and add a very small amount of extra reverb (to create the illusion of distance), mix the BV3 level slightly lower than the BV2 vocal and add a touch more reverb so this group (layer) sounds even further away etc.

If you are using a single reverb send you can even consider adding an EQ to the rever bus and cutting the low frequencies out of the reverb, which will also help avoid muddiness

You will then end up with all of your BV# busses feeding your BACKING VOX bus

To help "glue" your crowd together you can apply some subtle compression to your BACKING VOX bus - applying the same compression to the group will help make the group feel "as one" but retain the separation you have achieved with the EQ, panning and "layered levels"

This approach should help you get good separation and achieve a "3 Dimensional" mix:

Panning deals with the "left & right" horizontal axis

Volume levels and reverb deals with the "front to back" depth

EQ deals with the "top to bottom" vertical axis - lower frequencies sound lower (doh!) and airy vocals with the lows and mids cut out will sound "on top" of the mix

Do not be afraid to go heavy with the EQ cuts - the individual tracks may sound really thin and weird on their own but this does not matter - it is how they sound together that counts

This sounds much more complicated than it actually is so I am sure when you try it you will "get it" very quickly but at least you have something to follow

Let me know how it goes or if you have any questions

[Neil C]

Boydie,

That was exactly the sort of advice i was looking for and I understood it all, particularly like the 3D concept, i was just thinking stereo 2D..

My only issue is I haven't ever used buses, I get concept but never bothered with them. Will need to dust off the Cakewalk guide and work it out. To date my tracking and mixes have been fairly simple.

Thanks a lot again, excellent knowledge share.
 
Neil 

[Boydie]

My only issue is I haven't ever used buses, I get concept but never bothered with them. Will need to dust off the Cakewalk guide and work it out. To date my tracking and mixes have been fairly simple.

       

Wow - you are about to discover a WHOLE new world of possibilities that will make transform your production and mixing world!!!

What version of Cakewalk Sonar are you running? As you may know I am a HUGE SONAR fan and the development of the product (currently Platinum) that has happened in the last 10 months or so is phenomenal and (IMHO) leaving other DAWs (even the big boys) playing catch up

It may be worth you checking out what your upgrade options are for lifetime updates - you pay once and get ALL future updates when they come out

Cakewalk have currently committed to monthly updates ( ) which have been a good mix of bug fixes, enhancements and new features (including some really significant ones!)

Anyway, back on topic...

In the CONSOLE VIEW of SONAR you have your tracks in the left pane and your BUSSES in the right pane

It is likely that you will have some kind of MASTER BUS before your main outputs (if you haven't you just create a new bus and call it "MASTER BUS")

You then simply create as many busses as you want and just ensure that the OUTPUT of the bus or track feeds the appropriate bus

Eg - a lead vocal track may be recorded on a track 1

A doubled lead vocal is recorded on track 2

3 backing vocals may be recorded on tracks 3,4 & 5

I would set up the following busses:

LEAD VOX

BACKING VOX

VOX MASTER

I would then set the output of track 1 to feed the LEAD VOX bus (if you set the bus up first and name it you will see this name in the track output options (which is different from a SEND - we will get to that in a bit)

I would then set the output of the LEAD VOX bus to feed the VOX MASTER bus

I would set the output of track 2 to also feed the LEAD VOX bus (as I am treating the doubled vocal as part of the lead vocal) - and this bus is already set to feed the VOX MASTER

I would then set tracks 3, 4 and 5 to feed the BACKING VOX bus - in SONAR "quick groups" are your friend here as you can select tracks 3, 4 & 5, press CTRL and keep it pressed and then any changes you make to one track will be replicated across all the selected tracks - so you can change the output of all of the tracks to route them to the BACKING VOX bus in one go (which will be handy for your 10+ crowd vocals  )

I would then route this bus to the VOX MASTER bus

Finally, make sure your VOX MASTER bus outputs to your MASTER bus

This can take a little time to set up (especially when you do the same for drums, guitars, bass, keys etc.) but when you have done it once you can save the file as a template and all of this routing will be done for you

The biggest advantages of this approach are:

You can blend your vocals (eg the 3 backing vocals) with each other (levels, EQ, automation etc.) and then route them to the BACKING VOCAL bus. When it comes to mixing you can balance the level of the BACKING VOCALS with the rest of the tracks by just adjusting the BACKING VOCALS bus fader

This is very useful if you have 10+ backing vocals or a multi-miked drum kit / VST with different kit pieces on different tracks

You can also process the bus - eg slight compression on the BACKING VOCAL bus will help glue them together and also mean you only need to add 1 compressor to the bus rather than 3 compressors on each track, which will reduce the strain on your PC

If someone wants a version of your mix without vocals you can simply mute your VOX MASTER bus and voila - instant karaoke version with one click

You can make the mixing of complex projects very simple by clever routing and busses - eg if you have lots of guitars you can set up the following busses: ACOUSTIC GIT, CLEAN ELECTRIC GIT, DIRTY GIT, LEAD GIT - which can all be routed to a GUITAR MASTER bus, which is in turn routed/output to the MASTER BUS

Blend and mix the individual tracks into the appropriate bus and if you want a "Guitar heavy" version of a mix you can simply increase the level of the GUITAR MASTER bus, which will increase the level of ALL of the guitars - alternatively (or in conjunction with this) you may just want more of the dirty guitars - so you simply increase the level of the DIRTY GIT bus - rather than trying to remix the 5 or so tracks feeding this and risk upsetting the balance of these tracks


Notice I have been careful to use the terms "output" and "route" rather than the term SEND

When dealing with busses "output" and "route" typically refers to outputting the whole track or bus to another track or bus

A SEND typically outputs a part of the signal of a track or bus to another track or bus

REVERB is a great example

Now set up a bus called REVERB and add a reverb effect to this bus, ensuring the reverb plugin is set to 100% wet signal and no dry signal. Set the output of this bus to the MASTER BUS

You now have the option to insert a SEND into any of your tracks or busses, which will send an amount of the track or bus to the REVERB bus (the amount is controlled by the "SEND AMOUNT" control)

This means you can send some signal from lots of different tracks and busses to a single reverb bus, rather than having 10+ individual reverb plugins added - reducing computer strain

This way you can add an EQ to the REVERB BUS and remove some of the low end to ensure your reverb doesn't get muddy

If you want different REVERB types you can set up different REVERB BUSSES and simply use sends to send any track or bus to this reverb type. Each track & bus can have multiple sends

I typically have lots of effects busses set up as part of my template - eg: LEAD VOCAL REVERB, PLATE REVERB, BIG REVERB, AMBIENCE REVERB, SHORT DELAY, LONG DELAY

These all load up with my template (including the plugins on each bus) so I simply use the sends to feed some signal to these tracks

I hope this all makes sense - I will try to post a picture of my BUS structure to give you some ideas

It can be really fun setting up the bus routing, which will enable you to control large projects with just a few bus sliders

And the beauty of saving all of the routing as a template saves a lot of time and gets you up and running immediately

[pompeyjazz]

Wow Boydie, there are some brilliant tips here. You are absolutely right, this will open up a whole new world. Will be giving some of this a go at the weekend.

John