After my recording session at UPR, my next task was to edit, comp and tune all of the backing vocals that I had recorded.

A lot of the techniques applied here were similar to the ones I used in the lead vocal editing post. I began by removing any unwanted bits of audio and used fades to remove any pops. The next step was to run all of the backing vocals through melodyne in an attempt to tighten them all up. Melodyne proved very beneficial here as it helped them sit better alongside the lead vocal, especially the harmonies, and it allowed me to be more aggressive with the tuning as they were going to sit lower down in the mix compared to the lead vocal.

I then recorded the track back on to itself via a send as oppose to recording it onto a new track. Although this is more destructive, I can still keep melodyne inactive on the inserts section which allows me to return the file to its original state if I do ever need to revisit them. Keeping melodyne inactive also prevents it from using up unnecessary power on my computer.

Now that I have numerous takes of all the lead vocal tracks, I can now begin selecting the best parts and get rid of all of the unwanted parts.

I began by going through each vocal line of each track and chose the best take which then went onto a separate playlist. Doing this provided a much more consistent vocal track and was already more pleasing to the ear. This is a technique i’ve witnessed first hand from Neil Haynes at The Parlour Recording Studio when my own band band worked with him and is something i’ve applied to my own work ever since. Chris Lord-Alge also emphasises this point and suggests that its crucial for keeping your session organised and manageable. I then ran the comped vocal track through melodyne to fix some tuning issues which were missed in the comping stage. Running the vocals through melodyne at this stage helped them sound more natural when being tuned as the notes were already closer to the desired pitch. I’ve previously found that the more out of tune the vocals are, the more artificial they sound when correcting them.

Once I was happy with the melodye that I had applied, I then recorded the audio out to a new track so that I could hide the original track track and make it inactive. I did this because i didn’t want melodyne to constantly be using unnecessary power from my computer and to ensure my session was more organised. Doing it this way also means that i’ve also got the original files if I did ever need to revisit them for some reason.

Doing all of the editing, comping and tuning at this stage will save a lot of time and effort as appose to doing so just before the mix stage and is something that Mike Senior highly recommends doing as part of the mix preparation.

Mike Senior – Mixing Secrets

To ensure my workflow stays as effective as possible, I spent a few hours before vocal tracking editing all of the guitar takes I had recorded. This is a similar process i did for the bass editing.

First of all I made sure all of the different takes had been comped and cross faded into one another to avoid any weird pops and to ensure all of the edits were smooth.

Although I made sure that both mics were the same distance away from the amp during the recording process, I still checked the phase alignment, especially against the DI signal, of the two mics and ensured they were both fully in phase with one another. This led to a more effective vocal session and again, will save work before the mix stage.

Now that i’ve recorded all of the bass parts, I wanted to make sure that they were edited and comped before moving onto the guitar tracking process. I’m also doing this to maintain an effective workflow and to save a lot of effort when it comes to the mix stage.

I began by sorting through all of the takes we had recorded and then cross fading them into one another to avoid any unnecessary pops. I then removed all of the unwanted parts (parts where dave wasn’t playing and you could just hear the hum of the amp etc) and consolidated them all into one piece of audio per track. I then went through all of the bass tracks and altered the phase alignment as I was noticing a bit of cancelation with the bass amp track compared to the DI track. Once I had done this, by removing all of the cancelation it meant that I could clearly hear the sound of each track more accurately. These are similar steps that Chris Lord-Alge recommends on his latest Waves webinar.

With the bass edited, comped, consolidated and phase aligned, it now means that we are ready to begin the first session of guitar tracking.

Mixing Masterclass With Chris Lord-Alge https://www.waves.com/mixing-masterclass-chris-lord-alge