To say vocals are important in music would be an understatement. We want our vocal tracks to do justice to the vocalist’s talent and skill, but sometimes the recording ends up sounding muddy. There are a few tricks to clean it up at mixing time, but also at recording time. A lot of the problem comes from excessive low frequencies. Start by filtering out the frequencies below 100 Hz. Since the human voice tends not to be in that range, those frequencies won’t be helping your track.
There are more tricks to clearing up your vocal track here: http://www.audio-issues.com/home-recording-studio/question-the-answer-how-to-eliminate-muddiness-and-boomy-low-end-from-vocals
Audio Production Techniques
Christmas has come and gone, and many of you may be the proud new owners of some new equipment. Remember that gear is rarely the entire solution to a problem. You’ll need to familiarize yourself with the new equipment, but also take the opportunity to sharpen your own skills. Take a few minutes to reduce noise and find the best place to record. Like they say, there are some things that just can’t be polished.
Read some more tips here: http://www.audio-issues.com/home-recording-studio/santa-audio-production-tips/
Making A Remix Your Own
You love a song enough that you wouldn’t mind hearing it a few hundred times while making a remix. Start by getting a clear idea of what your goals are for the remix. As much as you like the original, don’t lose sight that this is your remix, not just the original with a few extra drums mixed in. If you can find a good quality instrumental version of the song, you can use it to isolate the vocals through phase cancellation. What you do from there is up to you – let your creativity shine!
You can read more remixing tips here: http://dubstepproductiontips.blogspot.ru/2012/12/remixing-six-tips-you-wont-want-to-miss.html
"That Vintage Sound" And Other Recording Pitfalls
When we hear old recordings, there’s a good bit of extra noise that gives the track a vintage feel. There are plenty of ways to add more effects and color after recording, but it’s a lot more difficult to remove them after the fact. In that sense, recording is similar to cooking in that you can always add more later, but you can’t (easily) take it out. Do yourself a favor and keep your original tracks clean and flat. You’ll have a lot more artistic leeway when it comes to mixing time.
You can read more on the subject here: http://audioundone.com/clean-and-flat
Mixing and Monitoring – are your headphones up for the job?
Let’s face it, it’s easy to spend quite a bit of money on your home recording studio. A decent monitoring setup with a nearfield system can set you back over $2000, and that’s not even going to be the first, or last, expense. If that’s out of reach for the time being, consider using a pair of quality headphones to do your mixing. A significant portion of consumers listen to music or other audio via headphones. Since there is such a different stereo profile for speakers and headphones (about 60° versus 180°), it would be a disservice to your product not to at least listen through with both.
You can read more on the topic here: http://audioundone.com/headphones-and-mixing