Mixing Tip of the Day: Effect Chains - Vox Compression
Effect chain presets are a huge time saver in DAW mixing. In the analog world we have “channel strip” hardware units, which are comprised of various effects in a signal chain. Typically you might see an EQ, Compressor and Limiter for example. We can recreate this (and much more!) in our digital mixing world.
I find myself using the same effects over and over on certain instruments, so I create a track template which contains the effects I would typically use. In this instance, I will show my basic vocal track effect chain. The settings will change from song to song, but I find this a good starting place on most material.
First is EQ – I like to high pass the low end out of my vocals to clean them up and get the low end of the way of the real low end instruments. The reason I place this before the compressor is: A compressor in it's basic form will limit the dynamic range of your material. This means it will compress the loud parts and bring up the quiet parts. That low end rumble, which was quiet in your vocal recording, might now be accentuated when it is heavily compressed. I prefer to avoid that problem and take out the low end prior to it being a problem.
Compressor 1 – Compressor 1 is there to just catch the peaks and bring them back in line a bit.
Compressor 2 – Is there to compress the whole track to taste, smoothing out the performance even more. The idea of having two compressors in a series is, if 1 compressor is compressing 6 DB, it might sound horrible and overworked, but if 2 compressors are compressing 3 DB each, it will sound much more natural.
As we all know, there are no hard and fast rules of mixing. In this industry, you will read “expert opinions” which contradict each other, almost on a daily basis. The best advice I can give is, always be open to new ideas and experiment yourself. Have reasons why you use, or DON'T use an effect, instead of simply mimicking someone else.
Experiment and try out your own unique or crazy effect chains!
Mike Lizotte