Background vocals are fun, but they can be frustrating at times: so many tracks, so little time.
Before actually mixing them, part of the professional sound you've heard in countless records is achieved by having a solid method in preparing them.
Your workflow and approach will be key to being able to shape them the best way for your tracks.
In this video, Fab unveils his method to keep things under control when your song is empowered by some beautiful (and no longer dangerous) background vocals.
00:00:08 Good morning children, today
we're going to prepare
our vocal tracks for mixing.
00:00:12 I know what you're thinking.
00:00:14 What is it that we could possibly
do to the vocal tracks
that hasn't been done
by the time it's ready for mixing?
Good question.
I wanna show you.
00:00:22 I think this is very
important because vocals
are the most important part of
the modern record making process.
00:00:28 Except maybe for some
of those instrumental records.
00:00:30 Let's go.
00:00:32 So here's a fantastic session from the
no less fantastic Banda Magda record
that I just finished mixing
and co-producing.
00:00:41 There's a lot of vocals.
00:00:43 You know you have a lot of vocals
when not all vocal tracks
fit in Pro Tools with the
small fader mode on.
00:00:49 And we have somewhere like
50, 58 tracks of vocals at this point.
00:00:54 But they're necessary,
this is Magda's vision
so we shall respect that.
00:00:58 By the way, I erased all other
tracks out of the session
except for the bass so we
have a pitch reference.
00:01:03 This was 160 tracks total
and that would not be
practical for this video.
00:01:08 So here's what it sounds like,
it's called El Pescador.
00:01:11 These are the raw vocals I got.
00:01:52 Obviously there's a lot of
stuff going on.
00:01:54 The idea here is to
prep the terrain
so that you don't end up
dealing with 50 tracks.
00:01:59 You gotta break it down
and you gotta put little pockets
and little drawers so
you can think of it straight.
00:02:05 Let's look for the lead,
usually it's the left most track
in my sessions when I produce.
00:02:11 Alright, I wanna
color scheme this.
00:02:13 The bass right here we use for reference
so I'm not gonna color scheme it.
00:02:17 For this video I'm just gonna
keep it black.
00:02:20 Lead vocals red.
Remember?
Is there another lead vocal?
Let me zoom it a little bit.
00:02:25 No, it seems that's the only vocal
that sings all the way through.
00:02:29 What's this?
So, there's a group
leftover from production.
00:02:48 If they were no group I would
listen to every single track,
figure out what it is
and see if it fits in the group
and make a group for it.
00:02:56 Now I can deal with
this four together.
00:02:59 With 50 tracks of background
vocals, look at all these groups,
let's see. What is the
group that works here?
This one is called 'Magda 1st 4',
that must be it.
00:03:08 There you go.
00:03:18 What's this?
What's this?
That's a different part?
I know I can give a color to these
four because they belong together.
00:03:33 This.
00:03:35 Unison.
00:03:37 Unison.
00:03:38 OK, that's a low part.
00:03:40 Let's see I have a group.
'SECOND 4'.
00:03:44 I'm so organized.
00:03:45 Let's make this a different color
so that I have...
00:03:48 distinction here.
What's this?
Nothing, let's go back here.
There's a big void here.
00:03:54 What happened in here?
We have four kind of a drone,
steady pedal thing going.
00:04:12 That's the bottom of the
pedal, the second note
and the eight of them
together sound like this.
00:04:18 OK.
00:04:21 I will probably make these...
00:04:23 happy, let's see if I already have
a group for these.
00:04:25 'High Magda Back'.
00:04:27 Hi Magda Back.
00:04:33 All of them all together.
I don't like that.
00:04:35 I'm gonna get rid of this.
00:04:37 What was I thinking?
I'm gonna make a group for this.
00:04:40 I'm gonna call it
'Magda Pedal HI'.
00:04:44 And then, they are
together now. And these four...
00:04:52 I'm gonna call that
'Magda Pedal Low'.
00:04:59 What else we get?
It's a bunch of 'Gringos'.
00:05:10 This one doesn't play.
00:05:14 This is silence.
00:05:15 I think I'm gonna create
a group of these
and call it 'Gringos 1'.
00:05:23 And then give it a
Gringos' color.
00:05:27 And this, just plays here.
00:05:36 That's 'Gringos' too.
00:05:45 When you have 50, 30
or even 20 tracks of vocals,
within the context of a
80 or 100 tracks mix,
it's really nice to be able to
isolate one part by just going 'click'
as opposed to having to figure out
what's going on.
00:05:57 The bird's eye view is key,
specially if you wanna mix
more than one song a week,
or one song a year.
00:06:02 What's this?
That's more of a lead vibe.
00:06:10 How about this one?
Nothing.
00:06:14 Ah, harmony.
00:06:17 What's this?
Alright.
00:06:20 This is kind of the tone,
I'm gonna call it 'Gringos 3'.
00:06:24 And then...
Or 'tres'.
00:06:26 And then...
00:06:27 This, I sense, is more of a
lead kind of vibe.
00:06:31 Nice!
See, these guys sound more genuine,
the others guys sound like 'Gringos'.
00:06:44 So I'm gonna call this...
00:06:47 Kind of a...
Lead back.
00:06:50 As a mnemonic.
00:06:52 What else we get?
There's more lead backs here.
00:07:01 Nice choir again.
00:07:02 I'm gonna call it 'Lead back 2'.
00:07:06 That's probably what I'm
gonna use for texture.
00:07:08 What's this?
So this is kind of the same vibe
as that top one there.
00:07:20 So we should move it closer
to that top one
so that when we look for a sound,
this kind of marries together.
00:07:27 And I'll call it 'Ospinas'.
00:07:30 And give it a color.
00:07:34 Anybody sleepy yet?
Stay with me.
Stay with me!
What is this?
Oh, Ospinas is back.
00:07:43 This is all...
00:07:49 Cool.
How's this?
That's a nice harmony.
We're gonna call it 'Harmony'.
00:07:58 Back Harm.
00:08:00 Alright.
00:08:02 Now we're able to solo...
00:08:06 various groups of background vocals
and figure out who does what
without having to work too hard.
00:08:22 What's this?
As you can see now,
this is a lot clearer.
00:08:28 What would be the next step?
My next step would be to
listen to the lead vocal
and figure out if it's
consistent from A to Z.
00:08:48 You can see here it grows.
00:08:58 And here...
00:09:05 Here's a different kind
of vibe and tone.
00:09:08 In some songs, you have
the verse that feels one way
and the chorus that feels
another or sound another.
00:09:13 Sometimes much louder.
00:09:14 It's really difficult to manage
those two things.
00:09:17 So what you're allowed to do if
nobody is watching,
even if somebody is watching,
is duplicate the track...
00:09:23 Don't duplicate the playlist,
don't duplicate the alternate playlist.
00:09:26 Duplicate the track.
00:09:27 And then cut the part that
sounds different
or will sound different and put it
in the other track.
00:09:33 So now, when you have your plug-ins,
you can have all the same plug-ins
but you can have slightly
different settings
between track A and track B.
00:09:40 Separating the same vocal in different
tracks is a great way to either A:
Have a different sound for a different
part of the song
without having to automate.
00:09:50 B...
00:09:51 Have two different sounding
sources matched
but behave the same within
the context of the track.
00:09:58 When I do this, what I tend to do
is create a bus that I call...
00:10:05 Lead bus.
00:10:08 And I usually try to
avoid the spelling mistakes.
00:10:12 And there it is.
00:10:15 And that Lead bus goes to
my main output.
00:10:18 Why do I do that?
Because, hold on, let me make sure
that you can hear it too.
00:10:23 The reason why I do that
is so that,
even tough this is the
verse and this is the chorus,
I have one fader for the entire vocal.
00:10:31 So if I wanna trim up
or trim down
the vocal for the entire song
I can move this fader, I don't have
to move either of these two faders together
or try and group them and
complicate things.
00:10:41 Also, it gives the opportunity to do
processing on both at the same time.
00:10:46 So if there's something that I know
I want on both tracks,
for example, a little tape machine
at the end, like the Studer,
like this,
I know that I can choose the Studer.
00:10:57 So many plug-ins, so little time.
There you go.
00:11:01 Now the Studer is applied
to both my tracks.
00:11:04 The verse and the chorus.
00:11:06 In this particular song,
the quiet and the louder part.
00:11:09 Got it? It's practical.
00:11:12 Don't forget to solo safe
this two tracks
so that when you wanna solo the vocal
no matter where in the song
it solos on the sub.
00:11:22 Another thing that it's good to set up
right now is anything
that you know you're gonna use on
vocals for effects.
00:11:29 For example, I usually have a delay.
00:11:32 And a reverb or two.
00:11:34 You could import this if you're
a template kind of guy.
00:11:36 I tend to do it from scratch every time
because it forces me to try something new
as opposed to just import the same thing
every music for the last two years
which is boring as hell.
00:11:44 So let's call it 'quarter delay'.
00:11:50 And don't forget to solo safe
whatever tracks you send.
00:11:53 If you've been watching our videos
you know that FX are yellow.
00:11:58 So now I have a delay for both
these things.
00:12:00 I can do this with the reverb too.
00:12:02 I usually have a Plate reverb,
a Hall reverb, a short office
style reverb,
a quarter delay and an eight note
delay on my lead vocal,
dedicated to my lead vocal.
00:12:12 That doesn't mean I'm gonna
use all of it.
00:12:14 Unless of course I'm mixing an Enya record
but I'm not so I'm probably not.
00:12:18 But they are there, which means when
I'm in the flow of mixing
everything is preset and I don't have
to think about routing and stuff like that.
00:12:25 So let me quickly do that for you
so you can see it, fast forward.
00:13:05 Et voilà!
That was a phenomenal
amount of fun,
let's do that again sometimes.
00:13:10 Maybe you're right if you're
using templates.
00:13:13 I tend to use the color scheme
to spatialize myself within my session.
00:13:18 I know that my red is gonna
be my lead vocal
and I know that whatever is
gray is a bus or a sub.
00:13:23 I put the bus next to the 2 red tracks
and now I know
that these 2 tracks are going to that sub.
00:13:28 I also use my FX in yellow as a
boundary between groups and instruments.
00:13:32 If you look in the time-line you
can see how it sticks out.
00:13:35 Now you know you have the vocal in red,
you have a second track of vocal,
which means you're gonna
have 2 different sounds.
00:13:41 The Sub and then 5 tracks of effects.
00:13:44 Now that I have the 5 tracks
of effects here
I know that the next track is not
the lead vocal, it's something else.
00:13:49 Plus, it's orange so I know
it's a background vocal.
00:13:51 In this particular case,
what I'm gonna do to make
this manageable
because it's an insane
amount of tracks,
I'm gonna subgroup a bunch of stuff.
00:13:58 How do I choose to subgroup?
That's a musical decision.
00:14:01 This goes with this.
00:14:12 That's a lot of energy, maybe
I'll group that with something else.
00:14:19 Even tough I made a group out of this,
and a group out of this,
I'm gonna submix all these...
00:14:28 Into it's own bus.
00:14:30 And I'm gonna call it
Magda Backs...
00:14:35 1.
00:14:37 And then send that so you can hear it.
00:14:42 In this particular case,
because I wanna be able to keep
control of listening to this versus this,
and do a balance between the two,
I'm not gonna solo safe the source tracks,
I'm gonna solo safe
the Sub.
00:14:54 Now I can solo this...
00:14:57 Still hear it...
00:14:58 And solo this...
00:15:00 Solo the two of them...
00:15:04 Makes sense?
If I had solo safed
the source tracks, I couldn't make
the difference between my two groups.
00:15:11 It would be a problem.
00:15:12 This is much easier.
00:15:14 These guys...
00:15:25 Same thing, so I'm gonna do that.
00:15:27 I'm gonna call them something
original like...
00:15:29 Magda Backs 2.
00:15:33 The Return.
00:15:34 And I'm gonna solo safe that.
00:15:37 It's better if I send it to
the output so you can hear it.
00:15:48 Now I can balance between the
two of them and I can balance this one
against this one,
very easily,
by doing this.
00:16:06 It sounds nice.
00:16:08 She should do this for a living.
00:16:19 This.
00:16:26 They clearly belong together.
00:16:29 How about this one?
That's more a harmony.
00:16:40 I'm gonna make one sub
of the first two.
00:16:45 And one sub of the next one.
00:16:49 Let's call it 'Gringos Bus'.
00:16:57 And then, one of these.
00:17:04 Gringos Sub 2.
00:17:08 OK.
00:17:13 These are my lead guys,
which I'm gonna keep together.
00:17:16 Remember them?
I'll play that for you.
00:17:28 That's clearly a different vibe.
00:17:30 These are gonna stay together.
00:17:34 Lead Back.
00:17:38 And here, the last ones.
00:17:43 These guys.
00:17:48 Lead Back 2.
00:17:55 Now we have clearly
organized our session.
00:17:59 At this point it's a good
idea to set up the effects
for the background vocals.
00:18:03 The thing that's is that
you could select
all the subs you created...
00:18:11 And apply those effects
to only those subs.
00:18:15 And that way you don't have to
deal with 50 tracks anymore.
00:18:18 So, create one. I usually
have some sort of pitch effects.
00:18:23 Back Pitch. There.
00:18:27 I deselect that, otherwise
it's gonna apply the effect to itself.
00:18:30 And then, probably, Back Plate.
00:18:37 And then, probably...
00:18:40 Back delay.
00:18:42 Usually and eight note.
00:18:45 But, it depends on the music.
00:18:48 And I made a mistake
I said not to make.
00:18:52 And then, sometimes, some back
sound effects.
00:19:03 These are my background effects.
00:19:08 They all go to the main output
which on my rig is D 15 and 16
for complicated reasons
that we will not cover here.
00:19:16 There you go.
00:19:19 And don't forget to solo safe your effects.
00:19:21 Et voilà.
00:19:22 We went from a bunch
of tracks to a system.
00:19:25 Check this out, here's an
interesting benefit.
00:19:29 What you could do at this point
is hide most of these tracks,
like this.
00:19:38 Just keep the ones that give you presence
because it's nice to have a visual
presence of what's going on.
00:19:44 Sometimes it's difficult to do,
in this case we'll manage, like this.
00:19:51 All these can go.
00:19:54 Actually, this is a good one.
00:19:57 It doesn't really matter
which one you leave visible.
00:20:00 We're gonna hide everything
that we don't really need to see.
00:20:04 And that's gonna give us some
amazing screen real estate change.
00:20:08 Check it out.
00:20:10 I'm selecting
every track
that I feel I don't need to look at.
00:20:16 Now that everything is
selected I can hide
all those extraneous tracks,
they will still play.
00:20:22 And I still have control over
the control of the entire groups.
Right here.
00:20:27 So I can level the entire groups
and I can use these tracks as a visual
to where they play
so I wanna know what's
going on here.
00:20:41 That way I have a visual
and I have audio control
over the whole group.
00:20:45 But I don't have to look
at those 50 tracks,
it's gonna compact
my session a lot
allowing me to move
a lot faster.
00:20:52 If you need to do
particular processing
to discrete tracks
within the group
you just have to show them again,
it's not a big deal.
00:20:59 Here they are, you do your processing
and then you hide them again.
00:21:02 The idea is to have as few tracks
on the screen as possible
so you can concentrate on
the music, not on the visuals.
00:21:09 Other important considerations when
preparing your vocal tracks for mixing.
00:21:14 Where you put you plug-ins?
It's very important.
00:21:18 I always put my EQ on
insert 2 or 3.
00:21:20 I tend to start with the EQ,
that's my personal taste.
00:21:23 Your taste will vary.
However,
I strongly recommend you
leave the first insert opened.
00:21:28 Why?
Our OCD sense of order says
start at the top.
00:21:33 Correct.
00:21:34 But turn that off for a
second and think.
00:21:36 If you have an EQ up
here on the first insert,
If you wanna tune it,
since you have to put tuning first,
my recommendation,
then you're gonna have to move
all this plug-ins you would have here down
at least one slot or two to make
room for the tuning plug-in.
00:21:50 Let's keep that, maybe two.
00:21:53 You are finally planning ahead
just like you mother wanted you to.
00:21:56 There you go.
00:21:58 Then you could put your
compressor right here.
00:22:00 I'll put the Oxford today.
00:22:02 There you go.
00:22:04 And then you can copy
to your other track
so at least your basic
settings are the same.
00:22:11 The same goes for background vocals.
00:22:14 And for effects and everything.
00:22:17 Make sure you leave yourself
the room to pre-process if you need to.
00:22:19 Consequently, what I just did
here is awful.
00:22:22 I have all my reverbs
on the first insert.
00:22:24 What happens if I wanna hi-pass
the send to the reverb?
I can't right now,
I would have to move it.
00:22:31 A couple more tricks that
are important.
00:22:33 Number 1.
00:22:34 If you're gonna do parallel
compression on vocals,
what should you make?
Because you have two tracks
going into a bus,
all you have to do is
duplicate that bus, right?
If you duplicate that bus,
now you have twice the same bus
being fed from the same stuff
all you have to do is put
your insane compressor right here.
00:22:52 Let's pick one that's really insane
like this dude.
00:22:55 There you go.
00:22:56 Now you have parallel
compression on both leads
through one fader, as opposed to
have a send,
or duplicate the track and more complication,
you don't want more complication.
00:23:07 You want control and simplicity.
00:23:10 This is a good way to set
the parallel compression on vocals
on such a big session.
00:23:14 You just duplicate the sub.
00:23:16 So there you have it.
00:23:18 This process may be a tiny
bit pedestrian.
00:23:20 It's less fun than setting
a compressor up,
maybe.
00:23:24 It's the music equivalent
of doing your taxes.
00:23:27 And just like your taxes,
if you don't do your taxes,
somebody will come and find you.
00:23:32 Et voilà!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Fab Dupont is a award-winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has received many accolades around the world, including wins at the Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards, US independent music awards. He also has received Latin Grammy nominations and has worked on many Latin Grammy and Grammy-nominated albums.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
Shazam! Lovely video :) wondering about those stereo track bvs (gringos) and if there's a video about that recording set up?
Merci!
Ben
composermikeglaser
2016 May 29
Great organization video! Love it when you get a session with more than 100 tracks. Instead of kicking and screaming, keep cool and organize:) Thanks for the tips!
Gary Ambrosino
2015 Dec 04
Ben, after looking at the menus I still can't find this command. HD only ? I'm using non-HD version of PT. tnx.
Gary Ambrosino
2015 Dec 01
Ben, thank you !!
benlindell
2015 Nov 28
@Gary - At the bottom of the "assign track output" menu there's an option to create a "new track" that makes the aux, maps the input/output and names it all in one step, no secret commands necessary.
Gary Ambrosino
2015 Nov 26
Fab, one small spot you take a set of tracks, create an aux, map the tracks to the bus, looks like all in one step. Could you please tell about the command sequence that does this (versus create the aux, choose a bus, name it, map the tracks to the bus, etc.)?
tnx.
alfranchi
2015 Nov 17
Please in Spanish or Portuguese! =)
alfranchi
2015 Oct 13
Please in Spanish or Portuguese! =)
moridja
2015 Oct 02
Please en français aussi! :)
Spudmuffin
2015 Sep 30
This was really great. Lots of very sensible, useful tips and strategies. I would love to actually see how the vocal bus was doubled for parallel compression, including input and output designations. That part actually raised more questions than it answered. :)
Since I use Logic 9, I can't simply duplicate an Aux - but I could, for example, use AUX 8 and AUX 9, and "mult" Bus 5 to feed both.
Thanks again — much appreciated!
