It is of course worth rememberingВ to keep the guitars out of the way of the vocals by panning them wide and allowing the vocals to sit centrally. One of the solutionsВ is to side-chain the vocals to a compressor (or multi-band compressor) on the guitars, so that the guitars are slightly reduced in volume (or amount of mid frequencies) when the vocals come in. Often you will find that the vocals and the guitars are fighting for space due to the fact that they cover very similarВ frequency ranges. Pop and other genresВ may use a lot moreВ low end, but with rockвЂ¦ usually not so much. This means you can be more severe with your filtering, easily high passing fromВ 150Hz, especially with the higher screamed types of vocals. Most of the time rock vocals donвЂ™t need much low end, the most important part is the tone especially in the mids and high mids. This is especially useful for backing vocals, which when also panned wide, make space for the lead vocal in the centre.

An alternative to this is to duplicate the track and then to delay one of them. If you do not have a recorded double to work with, vocal doublers such as Waves Doubler can create a simulated double. DOUBLE TRACKINGДouble tracking vocals can be a great way to add more power to the vocals, which can be especially useful in the chorus. Clarity during recording is therefore vital.2. The number one priority is to have great clarity so we can still understand the words in the song even when we push those vocals in the mix up against the guitars with compression. This is the favourite mic and pre-amp combination for the Red Hot Chili Peppers for example. A very popular vocal chain is to use a Shure SM7b and Neve 1073 pre-amp. There are always exceptions, but the common trendВ is to have the vocals to be very dense and very powerful, in order to cope with the power of the other tracks in the arrangement.ДЄchieving a great vocal sound begins at the recording stage. Usually the groove is principally being driven by the combination of guitars and drums. Having said that, there is a general trend for rock vocals to be mixed somewhat quieter than pop vocals, due to the increased importance of the other instruments. Rock music commonly has a thick wall of guitars which the vocals must cut through, and yet still be intelligible with very aggressive mixes. Mixing rock vocals is inevitably linked to the tradition of rock music in general.

How to double track vocals