Because the harmonies are in different frequencies ranges, taking an EQ to the entire bus might actually damage the quality of the sound. For the most part I would take an EQ and apply it to the entire Group but there are times when you have to go in and treat each track individually. I would generally attack this region with some type of EQ or dynamic EQ depending on the severity of the problem. Taking care of that zone can help give clarity to other parts in the mix and can also give more focus to the star of the show, i. For whatever reason it just seems to be one those things that I consistently notice from record to record.
![cubase 5 tutorial mixing cubase 5 tutorial mixing](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IKTqH39XKOg/maxresdefault.jpg)
When you pan harmonies out left and right, often times you get a build up in the lower mids. I want them to kind of get lost in the background and have your ear gravitate towards the lead compressing generously tends to help me reach that goal.Ĭompressing heavily also helps to squeeze all the background tracks together, fusing them into one big fat vocal chord. Compression - This is by far the biggest thing I do on my vocal groups. This is more of a taste and mood kind of thing. Most of the time I will have some form of compression and EQ on my grouped tracks but there are times where a little more processing will be added. Whenever you add processing to the combined background vocals it has a glue like effect, fusing them together. Piggy backing off of contrast and blend, sending the background vocals to a Group Bus can help tremendously. Just pan them hard left and hard right and focus more on the blend to sound like a chord and also the contrast between the lead vocals. Try and think of background stacks or harmonies as one.
![cubase 5 tutorial mixing cubase 5 tutorial mixing](https://vstorrent.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/pureMix-Mixing-Periscope-in-Cubase-Tutorial-ENG.png)
The one thing that I think is easy to do as a new engineer is to try and find the perfect spot for every part of a stack or harmony. So here are 5 things to think about when mixing background vocals and who knows, maybe they can help improve and simplify your approach.
![cubase 5 tutorial mixing cubase 5 tutorial mixing](https://d154hy2b5aa41t.cloudfront.net/course_covers/be1a15e9-a2bf-4900-b4c9-9454ca4d35b6/512x512/1024x1024.jpg)
Now when I refer to background vocals in this article I am talking about vocals stacks like harmonies or over dubs anything that accompanies the performance and not a riff or ad lib. The truth is though, the quicker I got to a minimalist approach the better my background vocals sounded. I think there is not enough tutorials focusing on it. Below is a question I received from a member.