Guide to Mixing down Vocals

[energized]

alrite people, can any1 help me by posting a guide on how to mix down vocals in cool edit pro would be much appreciated, im going mad trying mix these down.

[Joel C]

-Step One: Highlight a blank part of ya verse (ie: the first few seconds when you weren't sayin nothin), go up to Noise Reduction and press GET PROFILE FROM SELECTION, then set the NOISE REDUCTION LEVEL to 100...Then press CLOSE (NOT CANCEL). -Step Two: After that, highlight your whole verse and go to Noise Reduction again, and click OK (DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING THOUGH). Once youre done with that ( You gotta do the whole noise reduction thing, step by step on every set of vocals you record, cuz you can't preset it. ECHO: To get there follow these Arrows.... EFFECTS> DELAY EFFECTS> ECHO... Ok, now in echo there should be 3 Catagories of ECHO configuration... 1)Decay, 2)Delay, 3)Initial Echo Volume... -Step One: On Decay to the right of the TWO SLIDING bars should be two WHITE BOXES with some random numbers in them, could be 5, could be 32442, doesnt matter.... ur going to enter into BOTH boxes, 8, which will be for the %... -Step Two: On Delay its the same thing, but in the TWO WHITE BOXES put, 400 for the ms.... -Step Three: On Initial Echo Volume to the right in the boxes put, 9, which will be for the %.... -Step Four: Go to the top right where it says "ADD" and, title this as whatever name u want, so it can be set FOREVER as a preset.... And thats ALL there is for the echo..... HARD LIMITING: To get there go, EFFECTS> AMPLITUDE> HARD LIMITING... In here you'll only have two set 4 boxes... easy.. -Step One: On the right of Limit Max Amplitude To Should be a white box, inside of it, put in... -6.5 for the dB... -Step Two: On the right of Boost Imput By Should be a white box, inside of it, put in... 1.8 for the dB... -Step Three: On the right of Look Ahead Time Should be a white box, inside of it, put in... 7 for the ms... -Step Four: On the right of Release Time Should be a white box, inside of it, put in... 100 for the ms... YOU CAN NOT PRESET THIS ONE, However, no matter wether u turn ur comp off or not it will ALWAYS be there, unless u f*ck with it then it will change to what u just put in..... but for now, it will stay as this as long as u dont touch it again.... Dynamics Processing: To get there, go... EFFECTS> AMPLITUDE> DYNAMICS PROCESSING... BTW - this ONE is the hardest to configure of all of them, but if you're patient it will make it worth it, for good quality on ur audio...... Step One: Notice at the top there is 5 tabs.... Graphic, Traditional, Attack/Release, and finally BAND LIMITING... -Step One: Click on the tab that says TRADITIONAL... -Step Two: Now you will see, some numbers along the side in order from top to bottom, this catagory is the "Sections" and the order of them goes.... 2,3,4,5,6.... CLICK THE WHITE CIRCLE ON THE RIGHT OF THE 2.... Now you should see 2 FOLD DOWN TABS, in the top one set it on Compress, on the bottom one set it on Expand... -Step Three: Next to those tabs you clicked, to the right, you should see the catagorie "Ratios" In the first and ONLY TWO WHITE BOXES in the "Ratios" Catagory that should be white will go these numbers.... Just to the right of "compress" in the white box, put... 1.5.... below it on the right of "expand" put.... 1.1... Now there SHOULD only be ONE WHITE BOX LEFT, and it should be to the right next to the presets with a "dB" on the right of it, and inside this white box you'll put... -40.7... Youre now done with the "traditional" box..... -Step Four: Click on the tab that reads, "Attack/Release"... There once again is different catagorys, however, only 2 of them.... "Gain Processor", and "Level Detector"... Under "Gain Processor", there should be 3 sub catagories (Output Gain, Attack Time, and Release Time)... Next to Output Gain in the box put, 6... Next to Attack Time in the box put, 1... and finally in Release Time put, 500.... -Step Five: Now under the catagory, "Level Detector" there is 3 sub catagories again (Input Gain, Attack Time, and Release Time)... Next too Input Gain inside the box put. 0... Next too Atack Time, put, .5... Next too Release Time put, 300.... -Step Six: Just below "Release Time" in the "Level Detector" Section, you should see 2 CIRCLES YOU CAN CHECK... make sure RMS is checked, NOT PEAK.... -Step Seven: Below that you'll see "Lookahead Time" and you're going to put a 3 there..... MAKE SURE YOU DONT CHECK, "NOISE GATING" AND "CREATE ENVELOPE ONLY" they're waste little options.... Now on to the BAND LIMITING.... -Step One: Click on the tab that reads, "Band Limiting"... -Step Two: You'll see ONLY 2 WHITE BOXES, they're just to the right of the 2 cutoffs.... 1) Low Cutoff, 2) High Cutoff.... For Low Cutoff put, 0.... For High Cutoff put, 24000...... Now your DONE!... You've just completed the DYNAMICS PROCESSING Phase.... now add this as a preset fam... Time for the GRAPHIC EQUALIZER and youre done... GRAPHIC EQUALIZER: To get there go, EFFECTS> FILTERS> GRAPHIC EQUALIZER... this step is kinda simple stil... -Step One: We can kinda cheat here, First off make sure ur set on the tab at the top that reads, "10 BANDS (1 OCTAVE), Ok... now you should have a list of presets... SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN, and you'll see one that reads, "Vocal Pressence (BOOST)" click that, but DONT hit OK... -Step Two: You only have too change 1 thing in here, so this is easy.... You should see a BLUE DIAGRAM indicating what your levels will peak at during 'actual response'... You'll see a bunch of virtical SLIDING BARS, that have numbers above each of them.... find the one with the 2 above it... Now... JUST LEFT CLICK on the sliding piece in the middle of that bar, so your computer recognizes you want to adjust just that level..... Once you've done that.... Look just below the sliding bar ur on, and find the white box on the right of the catagory "GAIN"... Inside this box put, 1.99... to the left of it you should see another catagory that reads, "BAND", inside its box it should say 2000 Hz, if it doesnt, find it...... DO NOT TOUCH ANY OTHER SLIDING BARS, ONLY THE ONE I NAMED.... FINISHED!.... Now preset it.... and you've got urself a pretty well mixed down set of vocals.... The order I do these methods in goes as typed: Noise Reduction, Hard Limiting, Dynamic Processor, Echo, Graphic EQ, Hiss Reduction... Ad Libbing Tips: When you ad lib, record your ad libs twice. With one ad lib, put it 50% onto the left speaker, and with the other, put it 50% onto the right speaker.

[Sheg]

Wicket!

[energized]

safe

[Afroman]

If the vocals were recorded well (decent microphone & acoustic ) all those will b irrelevantAll you will need is a compressor & and boost on the Lo freq a pinch of the mid and a boost on the Hi Eq. when vocals are poorly recorded u will have lots a problems