Mixing so you can understand the lyrics

[DrummerMan]

This has come up in many different forms throughout my mixing/recording life.

How, if at all, do any of you treat the mixing or tracking of vocals differently when it's really important to understand all the lyrics, as opposed to the vocal track sitting kind of comfortably in the mix, so you can still hear it well, but not so it's the only thing you can focus on? I find that most of the music I love has vocals that sit comfortably (I know, subjective term) in the mix, but then again, I don't generally choose to listen to much contemporary pop, or cast recordings of musical theater, so...

I feel like sometimes I have to sacrifice the dynamics or shape of the rest of the instruments to accommodate this at times. I know we're always making sonic holes to give space for other things, but I find that when lyrics become an even bigger priority than they already are, this process, and the compromises that go along with it, get that much harder to deal with. Maybe another way of saying this is, what do you do when the LYRICS become a priority over the VOCALS, if that makes any sense? Is this an issue for anybody else? I'm sure there's plenty of people who lean towards making the vocals front and center at all times, and probably more of you who would rightly say, "it depends", but I'm curious about situations this might come up in:

- The singer/bandleader considers their lyrics very precious and feels like that's the most important part of the song, therefor every single syllable must be heard.

- Contemporary Pop. I don't really know too much about what goes on in this world, recording-wise, but I would imagine that lyrical clarity is given a high priority.

I've dealt with this while recording or producing for other artists before, but I'm actually thinking about it now because I just made a demo of a song that will be the basis for a satirical music video. I had made what I thought was a good, balanced mix, but the director said he "couldn't hear the vocals at all". Now, while I know that was an exaggeration, in the style of directors, and that you could hear the vocals fine, I also understood that the lyrics of the song ARE the joke, or at least the majority of it, and if you don't understand all the funny references being made, most of what you'll see on the screen will be meaningless. My first step was to make some sonic space in the mix, which I was able to do, but to satisfy everyone, I ended up having to crank the vocals through a decent comp plugin, EQ'ing them so they cut more, and raising (with automation) the gain until there could be no doubt what was being sung. It worked, but, again, I feel like the impact of the song as a whole is a bit lost as a result. I know I can try different mics, etc. and see if one works better than another. Like, I might have tried a 421 instead of the LDC I was using, but the LDC had sounded really nice, for what I would've considered to be a regular type of mix.

Luckily, this is only a demo, so that the director can plan out the timing of the shoots. The demo was all me, with my singing, and hopefully when this actually gets redone, there'll be a better singer on the mic, but in the interest of making this thing as good as it can possibly be when the time comes, what specific recording techniques do you use that are different when this approach is needed, so that the lyrics can stand out without the vocal track taking over everything?

Sorry for the long scattered question and thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[Gentleman Jim]

I recently had this problem, and it got kind of annoying until I realized that I simply had to do something different than what I'm used to. Ultimately I have to say I was really happy with the result; I will be employing the solution more in the future.

The problem was that I was mixing a 29 track live recording of an 8 piece band with something like 6 vocals altogether. Bleed everywhere. Unreliable vocals were the rule, not the exception. The goal was to make every track audible while still having the lead vocals sit close to the top of the mix. The first mixes I did sounded pretty crap once I got them into my car and drove with them a while; too much reverb muddying things up, the vocals were hitting the compressor and limiter across the outputs and doing ugly things to the rest of the mix - it was not good.

After a couple of rounds of tweaks and the band still coming back with suggestions, (drummer: more drums, more vocals, more high end everywhere!), I decided to take all the groups except vocals, including the vocal reverbs and delays, and bus them to a group that had all the output processing except the last limiter. That group then was sent to the main outputs with the limiter. I took the vocal group and sent that directly to the main outputs with the limiter. What this did was to allow the high end of the instruments through where previously the multiband comp was reducing high end because of a sibilant vocal. I was able to actually turn the vocals down, but since they weren't affected by the eq'ing or multiband compression that was on the rest of the mix, they sounded much more natural.

I'm sure this technique has been used for decades by everybody else, and you all know it as The Kansas City Parallel Bussing Protocol or something, but I had to discover it myself. Thanks for nothing, jerks!

[masonpitzel]

- The singer/bandleader considers their lyrics very precious and feels like that's the most important part of the song, therefor every single syllable must be heard.

Sounds like this (hypothetical) singer/bandleader has an attitude problem. Don't cater to people with attitude problems, especially if you'll be fucking up the mix in the process.

Songs with slightly unintelligible lyrics > songs where the vocals are mixed too high. Sure, the former might not grab my ears' attention as fast as other songs, but the latter just make me turn my stereo off in disgust/discomfort.

If this singer guy really thinks his lyrics are so fantastic and important, he'll undoubtedly have the lyrics printed up in the liner notes for album purchasers to read, no? Problem is solved.

(Though I do understand that sometimes it really is better to just take a few minutes and re-EQ and compress things so they cut through better. I'm just sayin'.)

[Gentleman Jim]

Hey masonpitzel, I'm looking to paint the entire side of my house in one stroke. Where can I get as broad a brush as you seem to like to use?

Frank Sinatra, ever heard of him?

[JGriffin]

I'm sure this technique has been used for decades by everybody else, and you all know it as The Kansas City Parallel Bussing Protocol or something...

Well, we're certainly gonna call it that now!




My $0.02: lyrical clarity starts with the vocalist's performance. Beyond that I cede the floor to my more experienced colleagues.

[Professor]

I run into this issue all of the time except that for me it always seems to be the other way around - I want the vocals higher in the mix for intelligibility and the band wants them quieter.
It took me a while to come around to an understanding of what was happening but eventually I realized that I was making "radio mixes" rather than "album mixes". Of course, I stand by that decision because most of the material was intended as demos where I think the lyrics are important.
Ultimately the listener is going to walk away singing the words of the song, and isn't too likely to humming along to the straight eighth-note power chords from the guitars. Think of all the great songs you love, and you probably remember the lyrics, and it didn't take a reference to the liner notes before you understood them. Maybe you missed a few here and there, or misheard a couple lines, but for the most part it's the lyrics that stick with you and then you go buy the album. Yes, there are some songs and even some entire genres where you are meant to have a visceral response to the musical texture and the vocals are just another instrument; but in the realm of rock, pop, country, etc. very few songs become truly popular and lasting hits if the lyrics are unintelligible.

So that's where I come philosophically - but it doesn't explain why the bands hear it differently. So let's consider how a typical young band hears themselves in rehearsals & performances. The singer knows all of the lyrics, so he can sing at just about any volume level and with any amount of distortion, reverb, etc, and he will know what he is hearing. The rest of the band probably doesn't hear most of the words from the songs during rehearsals (or even many bar gigs) but can make out enough of them to know when to change patterns for verses, choruses, etc. There have been several times when I have been working on vocal overdubs and had a band member sitting on the couch look amazed and say, "wow I never knew the lyrics to this song were so good."
What's going on then, and why would the vocals get pushed down in the mix?
Well a lot of singers don't like the sound of their own voice until they have heard it a lot more and learn to like what the rest of hear vs. what they hear through the lump of meat & rock between their throat and ears. So they want the levels lower... but they can still understand everything because they already know all of the words, they hear them even when they aren't there at all.
The other players want to hear their parts coming through because it always seems like the most important thing to them, and they aren't used to hearing the vocals. Indeed, it usually surprises them to hear the vocals out in front, and so they want them turned down.


Of course, you are dealing with someone who is not a part of the band, and not biased towards what others find important in the music. You could be playing the most amazing acoustic guitar part ever, the kind that would make the spirit of Andr?s Segovia weep, but you aren't what matters. The guy you're working with is a storyteller first and foremost. This particular story happens to be set to music, but that doesn't make the music the story. The music is there to serve and enhance the story. I would say that since it is satire, the lyrical content is perhaps even more critical than it would be otherwise. If it were a love story, or a tragic story, we could accept the emotional content without knowing every detail of the lyrics. But in satire, the words are the message and their meaning is probably going to be twisted, and manipulated, and every subtle nuance of language has to be clear. This may be nowhere near the style of satire you're working on, but as an example, nobody listens to Weird Al because of the amazing musicianship or the intricate weavings of melody & harmony - they are listening for the jokes and word play.
It probably doesn't help that you are also singing the parts, because you now know all of the lyrics and can easily fall into the trap of setting the levels lower because you can understand them at any level. Try playing your first mix for an honest friend, and ask if he can understand all of the lyrics on the first listen. Maybe it would help to have an additional observer.

-Jeremy

[RefD]

lyrical clarity starts with the vocalist's performance.

no kidding, that's like 99% of it right there!

almost nothing can save a vocal take from a mush-mouth.


apart from that, make sure there's space in the frequency spectrum of the other tracks for the vocals to poke thru...easier said than done.

i often cheat by highpass filtering almost everything and then doing very naughty things to the upper mids of the vocals with mic selection and/or EQ.

[DrummerMan]

Yeah, so I'm mostly talking about what to do when absolute lyric clarity is the priority, and not so much about whether or not the concept is valid. Let's just assume that hearing and understanding every single word in a given song is the "right" thing to do, whether because everyone agrees on that, or just the person paying you to do the job. Obviously, no one wants to sacrifice the music for this, so that's why I'm interested in particular techniques one might use in this situation. Thanks for the input on that so far.


Though, to go back off topic...

Think of all the great songs you love, and you probably remember the lyrics

I actually don't usually remember the lyrics on most stuff until waaaaay down the road, even on something I love. Maybe a few words here and there, but my brain tends to lock onto melodies and textures more and that's what sticks in my head. I think there's definitely different camps on this, none more valid than the next, but I think how and what we choose to process from songs heavily influences our general aesthetic tendencies and even perhaps highlights our strengths and deficiencies as engineers. I know I feel much more confident mixing and recording instrumental music, but I know engineers who are actually scared of the idea of mixing something without a vocal track to tether everything else around.



And dwlb and RefD, I'm sure that my vocal stylings aren't helping the situation. Hopefully whoever ends up in that role will be better than I, and not worse...

[DrummerMan]

doing very naughty things to the upper mids of the vocals with mic selection and/or EQ.

Yeah, like I said, perhaps the 421 would've worked well. I've actually found it to be a new discovery as one of my favorite vocal and voiceover mics, especially since getting the LA-610. That combo really seems to work well, at least on low-mid ranged male voices that seem to be all I'm dealing with these days.

[mwerden]

I have to disagree with Professor's philosophy somewhat. Ultimately the listener is going to walk away humming the MELODY, and I'd be willing to bet that they are going to sing along with lyrics that aren't exactly correct. If they even sing the lyrics at all. I think of all the great songs that I love, and I know all of the lyrics to relatively few of them. Deeper appreciation of the lyrics seems to me to come with time and repeated listening, along with regular references to the liner notes if I'm to get everything exactly right.

However, I do agree that the most important thing you must do is keep in mind what you are making. When you are making music there is a point where turning up the vocal will detract from the musical impact of your mix. It will start to sound like all the shitty 002 demos where the vocal is WAY out front because everything is a honky mess of midrange. But if you are making a satirical video, there is absolutely nothing that can save you if you the vocal is too quiet to get the jokes. The point of making music is music, the point of making a satirical video is satire. If you lose the satire then you are missing the entire point.

PS to Professor - I totally agree with your "philosophy" on phase relationships. If I were a teacher all of my students would be reading your posts on that subject.

[masonpitzel]

Hey masonpitzel, I'm looking to paint the entire side of my house in one stroke. Where can I get as broad a brush as you seem to like to use?

Frank Sinatra, ever heard of him?

Frank's songs are mixed really nicely, though. It just happens that the vocals figure prominently in the mix.

To me it sounded like this was an issue of sacrificing a track's sonic balance for the sake of getting the lyrics really quite out front, which is an idea I can't really back.

As for the brush, I've got fix or six of these in my basement. I can lend you one if you need it badly.

[mwerden]

Yeah, so I'm mostly talking about what to do when absolute lyric clarity is the priority, and not so much about whether or not the concept is valid.

Try short delays (<50 ms). Maybe with a high pass. Livens things up and helps pull your ear to the vocal, as long as you don't make the delay too loud.

[rushofblood]

My $0.02: lyrical clarity starts with the vocalist's performance. Beyond that I cede the floor to my more experienced colleagues.

dingdingding

[RefD]

doing very naughty things to the upper mids of the vocals with mic selection and/or EQ.

Yeah, like I said, perhaps the 421 would've worked well. I've actually found it to be a new discovery as one of my favorite vocal and voiceover mics, especially since getting the LA-610. That combo really seems to work well, at least on low-mid ranged male voices that seem to be all I'm dealing with these days.

aye, imma baritone with a high-reaching range but wooly mids in my timbre.

this is most of why i HPF my own vocals, otherwise it sounds like i'm eating the mic even when i'm 8" away behind a perforated metal pop screen.

[rwc]

One of the definitions of rock and roll is that it's loud, your parents will hate it, and you can't understand what they're saying.

I sure have no fucking clue what the lyrics are on half the deftones CDs I listen to. But I have them. I like Mascara off around the fur, and Kimdracula.

If it sounds good, I don't care if I can understand the words. If it's something where it is critical that one understand the words, the arrangement or the song will tell all but the most tonedeaf engineer that's the way to mix it.

I am afraid at how some Deftones songs would sound if mixed with the sole goal of understanding the lyrics. What a clusterfuck.

Has anyone heard Alice In Chains' self titled album? The second track, Brush Away.. can ANYONE tell what Layne Staley is saying?

Does anyone care though?

On Tori Amos - Baker Baker, there's no problem hearing the opening lines. Opeth - Still Day Beneath The Sun, there's no problem hearing the words.

The only times I can remember on the records I have where I couldn't hear the words, were during parts where I could care less if I did or not. Does that make any sense?