In this article, Dom Morley considers the importance of a ‘vocal comp’ and who should be making the call when deciding which performance to use.

This is a relatively new question in the world of music production, but it is a very important one so it’s worth a conversation. Before we start though, we do need to make sure we are clear on two points– what is a ‘vocal comp’ and why is it so important?

Any ‘comp’ in music production is a take that has been compiled from any number of other takes to create a kind of ‘best of’ from the performances. This is fairly easily done in a DAW by grabbing bits of audio and swapping them around until you get the desired ‘master take’. Before DAWs we would use a MIDI sequencer and a sampler to move audio sections around, and / or simply bounce from a number of tracks on the tape to one other, empty track and that track would be the ‘master take’. This has been going on for as long as multi-track recording has been in existence, by the way, so if anyone feels like comping their vocal, guitar solo, drum take (etc) is cheating, well we’ve been ‘cheating’ like this for decades, and it’s highly likely that your favourite record involves this ‘cheating’ too (yes, even if it’s a ‘live’ album).

But why is the vocal comp such a big deal? Well, whether we like it or not, the vocal part of a track is the most important. A standard rule of thumb is that your audience will direct 50% of their attention to the vocal, and 50% to everything else. Not to apply more pressure to singers, but your bit is pretty important in getting the production across. And by extension, the comp is really important too.

Let’s say a singer has recorded eight takes of the lead vocal for the track that we are working on, and we are now going to find the best bits and put them together. We can make our choices based on what’s most in tune, but not every genre needs the vocal to be perfectly in tune – a little humanity goes a long way in emotional impact – so ‘fairly close’ in tuning should be perfectly fine, or at least it can be un-noticeably fixed with tuning software. Same goes for timing – we can generally fix something if it’s in the ballpark of being where we want it. This leaves us with the more emotional part of the performance. Is the singer whispering to give the listener a sense of vulnerability or calm, or are they belting out triumphantly? This is where the choices made in the comping stage hugely affect how the song come across.

I’ll give you a hypothetical example to illustrate the point. Let’s say Whitney Houston recorded a handful of takes for “I Will Always Love You” (I’m sure she did). Perhaps she tried a variety of approaches to get the meaning of the song across, and delivered as much emotion as she could. Then when it came the comping that vocal there was a choice in the final chorus. There were really two fantastic takes to choose from – firstly there’s one where she’s sings it loud and clear. Here you can feel that she’ll always love the person in question, but she’s at peace with that and she’s confidently moving on with her life. The second, flawless, take is far quieter and softer. Here she sounds broken and “I will always love you’ is almost whispered - more a cry of despair than acceptance. The choice was made to go with the more positive ‘she’s moved on’ approach and the song becomes a massive hit.

Obviously, we don’t know if that scenario actually happened, but hopefully you get the point. The decision over which performance to use, and which lines or words will end up in the final song, are not just technical choices - they are absolutely critical production choices.

So who should make the call? Well, I would argue that it should be the producer, without question. It’s the producer’s job to make the decisions about the direction of the production and deliver the best version of the track in accordance with whatever the artist (and label if there’s one involved) is looking to achieve. And the fact that it is even a question is a fairly modern phenomenon too.

As a mix engineer, I’ve recently started receiving tracks where I’ve got a stack of vocal takes and asked to pick ‘the right ones for the mix’. The mix should work around the production, not the other way round, and it does quietly amaze me that the producer and / or artist aren’t interested in the vocal comp at all. I’m assuming this is just borne out of self-taught producers not being aware of what is possible or required from a vocal comp though, so I gently send the track back the other way with a polite email that looks a bit like this article. This is not a diss on self-taught producers by the way, that’s a very hard ladder to climb and they are often doing all the jobs at once. Perhaps this is more of an encouragement to further education and experiment. You don’t know what you don’t know, after all, and hopefully as you’ve got this far in the article you’re someone who is interested in getting great vocals.

The bottom line is, getting the best vocal comp is hard work, it takes a lot of concentration to do well, and it can be challenging making a bunch of different performances sound like one continuous take, but there are few jobs more crucial to the feel and emotional content of any song than the comping of the lead vocal.

More Recording Resources From Dom Morley

Dom is the founder of the Mix Consultancy, a zero risk (money back guarantee) way to get notes on your tracks to help improve the sound. Whether you're an artist who likes to mix all their own work, a composer putting together a pitch on a limited budget, or an engineer who wants a discreet second opinion before sending a mix off to a client - we're here to help.

“I just completed a mix with the help of Dom Morley & The Mix Consultancy. The mix we turned over was qualitatively better than the one I would have gone with on my own.

It's been said that "a mix is never done, it's just abandoned", but the truth is, you *really* do feel a sense of completion and closure having worked with Dom because you know in your heart that you did everything you possibly could to get the best result possible for the client.

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In addition to the one-to-one advice Dom has produced some excellent online courses;

• Everything You Need To Know About Recording Vocals
  Preproduction, DAW set-up, preparing the studio, psychology, equipment. Literally everything you need to know.

• Mixing 101

  This is a short, free, mini-course on the four things that you really need to know in order to get great mixes, and the four things that you really don't!

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko