There’s a lot to think about when you’re recording and mixing vocals, from the preparedness of the singer to the perils of over-processing. Here are some of the slipperiest potential banana skins to keep your eyes peeled for.

Not Making The Talent Comfortable

Whatever musical genre you’re working in, the vocal in any track will almost always be the most important element. Therefore, everything you can do to bring out the best in it needs to be done, and that starts at the recording stage with the singer themself. It goes without saying that they should arrive on the day having had a good night’s sleep, without a hangover (unless that’s a workable part of their particular rock ’n’ roll narrative), and being generally up for it; and once the session is in swing, they’ll need to be kept hydrated and encouraged throughout. You might have to get a lot of takes down, too, so try to keep things moving and focused (ie, leave fixing that peaky hi-hat you just noticed until tomorrow), and let the singer know that there’s no time pressure, they can have as many goes at the performance as they need, and that you’ll be recording everything, so there’s no danger of a great take being missed. You are recording everything, including practice runs, right..?

Not Controlling Room Acoustics

When it comes to minimising room reflections and resonances in your vocal recordings, clearly a full-on vocal booth is the ideal solution – but if your home studio isn’t so equipped, there are workarounds. Stand-mounted reflection filters such as SE Electronics’ RF Pro and the Marantz Pro Sound Shield can be helpful in controlling reflections from the walls, but if you have the space, a more effective option is to simply hang a duvet up in a corner of the room using mic stands, ladders or whatever, set the mic up in that corner and face your vocalist into it. If that doesn’t do the trick, hang another duvet up behind them, but be aware that if they’re completely encased in 10-tog duckdown, they’re going to get very hot, very quickly, which won’t help their stress levels one bit – so leave a sizeable opening somewhere.

Using The Wrong Mic

Okay, there’s no such thing as the ‘wrong’ microphone for most vocal recording situations, but the mic you pick for any given project can have a profound effect on the character and quality of the recording you end up with, so consider the style of both the song and the vocal delivery when making your choice. For most contemporary genres, a large diaphragm condenser will get the job done nicely, but for shoutier rock or hip-hop tracks, a dynamic mic might be preferable, yielding an edgier, ballsier tone. And either way, you want your mic to pick up as little of the indirect room as possible, so go for one with a cardioid or hyper-cardioid polar pattern.

Not Providing The Vocalist With A Good Monitor Mix

Key to getting the most out of your singer is sending them an inspiring monitor mix, with their voice bedded appropriately into the track, and that’s something that only they can truly make the call on in terms of specifics. So, set up what you consider to be a well balanced auxiliary mix in the vocalist’s headphones before they even arrive, and tell them you can make whatever level changes need to be made at any point. For the vocal channel itself, a reverb is a must, as the singer almost certainly won’t want to hear themself completely dry – again, give them whatever they ask for with regard to size, tail length, dry/wet mix, etc. No matter how weird or nonsensical their cue mix requirements might appear, all that matters is that they’re happy with what they’re hearing, so suck it up and dial it in!

Not Using Your DAW’s Comping System

If you’re still recording your vocal takes one by one for laborious manual compiling across multiple tracks later, then you’re missing one of the greatest tricks in the modern music production workflow. Every major DAW these days features a swipe-based comping system, whereby multiple takes are recorded into a nested stack of sub-tracks in cycle mode, then comped by dragging contiguous selections across them for final playback. It’s quick and easy, and you really need to be using it if you aren’t already.

Applying Too Much (Or Too Little) Processing

Assuming you’re aiming for a natural-sounding vocal, rather than a deliberately ‘electronic’ presentation, one of the main things to be aware of at the mixing stage is the impact that any effects might be having on the perceived humanity of the sound. While the ultimate goal with any vocal is to get it sounding up-front and central, the line between perfect placement and organic inauthenticity can be a fine one, so take care to not push your compression, EQ, de-essing, Auto-Tune/Melodyne/ReVoice and all the rest of it too far – or, indeed, not far enough. Happily, there are plenty of powerful specialist plugins that can make finding that sweet spot easier than their conventional counterparts might, including the Unmask module in iZotope’s Neutron 4 and their full Nectar vocal suite, Oeksound’s Soothe2, SSL’s Native Vocalstrip 2 and Waves’ Vocal Rider – all well worth checking out.

Fretting Over The Details

Finally – and, really, this one applies to any musical part, not just vocals – don’t make the mistake of getting so caught up in the technical minutiae of your vocal production that you stop seeing the wood for the trees. If the vibe, energy and pitching accuracy of your singer’s performance are all good (which, obviously, they do need to be), then you’re 90% of the way there, so when you come to mix your lovingly recorded and comped vocal, work fast, trust your ears, and take regular breaks to give yourself the chance to zoom back out and re-appreciate the bigger picture. Objective problems like excessive sibilance, heavy plosives, etc, need to be addressed, of course, but beyond that, if it sounds good, it is good, no matter what your plugin GUIs might be leading you to believe.

Share your most feared vocal production pitfalls in the comments.