Hi everybody,
When we listen to music, what makes the biggest difference? We know, it's the voice.
Every part of the mix is important, but behind a strange guitar sound, for example, there could be a stilistic sound choice. Behind a bizzarre bass sound there could be an experiment.
But when you come to voice, the listener will only think one of these two: good voice vs bad voice.
In the end, voice is the most important instrument, and it's also the most imperfect and difficult to manage.
So, studying voice eq, I learnt that there are some important spots to keep in mind:
- Low range: until 100 hz - This is the reign of drums and bass. Voice can be hi passed in this range, that's not it's spot.
- 100 hz / 350 hz: boominess zone. A little cut here can help, especially if you recorded in small places. Don't go too far here, or you could lose all your bass in voice.
- 400/500 hz: in this area stays the boxiness, raising down a little this range can help
- 2500 hz /4000 hz: harshness zone. A little cut in this zone, for reducing it
- 5 khz: presence zone. Boost this area for more energy
- 7 khz: sibilance zone. A little cut can help
- 8 khz / 20 khz: airy presence. A hi shelve in this area makes the sound more opened and let the voice emerge from the mix.
- background vocals trick: we could think that backing vocals need hi frequencies for chorus purposes. That's not true, the hi range star is your main voice, so nothing else can steal its place. So, low pass filter on backing vocals at 12 khz can stop confusion in hi end.
Of course, this is just a little routing map, but every voice has its own personality.
Much depends on the song genre too, anyway one is the purpose: a song is like a shop and a good voice is like a good shop window!
As usual, have fun and don't forget: there's always a lot of new music to do!!! 😁😁😁
Cheers
If you wanna stay connected with my music,
Here are my links:
website: https://iakuapunka.jimdofree.com
YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnLuBUfVqvm3wpBFRDQuE-r_a3HcBKWSy
SoundCloud:
https://m.soundcloud.com/iakuapunkarecords