Mixing Vocals in Pro Tools

Our last step in mixing vocals in Pro Tools is EQing. Listen to both the piano and the vocal track together. You'll notice two things. One, you can hear a lot of extra low-end information in the vocals. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it's just a solo performer. But since this is a rock-style recording, we don't really want that. You'll also notice that, when next to the piano recording, there's a little bit of intelligibility lost. Let's fix that with equalizing - or EQing.

When EQing, there's two types of EQ. One is subtractive, where you're removing a frequency to help others stand out better, and then there's additive EQ, where you boost frequencies to help the overall mix. Personally, I prefer relying on subtractive EQ for the lower frequencies, since additive EQ on the lower end tends to color the other frequencies in a way that's not too pleasing to the ear.

Insert a simple EQ plug-in on the vocal channel. Let's remove that low-end noise by putting a gentle slope on the low end, around 40 Hz. Then, let's add a little bit of air to the vocals by adding about .5db of 6 Khz to the mix.

Now it's time to fix the intelligibility issue. Most human speech, including singing, is centered around the middle frequencies, and area between, say, 500 Hz and 10 Khz. Let's add a gentle, wide boost to 2 Khz. Now listen -- sounds much better, doesn't it?

Now bring up the piano to where it sounds right, and there you go! Vocals mixed perfectly.

Of course, you could add some reverb (try a short reverb at 90% dry, 10% wet signal), or a tap-tempo delay if you can find one. Your options are limitless!