Live Mixing Vocal Compression

Some recording engineers think compression is a must for vocals.

Live mixing vocal compression.

In a live setting try dialing back the compression settings if you re using compression at all on your vocal channel and instead use the volume fader to control how the vocals sit in the mix. Rather than using one heavy compressor with a 10 1 ratio that s applying 10 db of gain reduction it s better to use multiple compressors that each chip away at the. Lead vocals in pop and mainstream music are the centre point of the mix. To achieve subtle natural sounding compression on your vocal it s best to use multiple compressors throughout the mixing process this is called serial compression.

There is no one size fits all formula to vocal compression. There are no magic settings that work 100 of the time. Heck it d certainly save me a few keystrokes. But the truth is it s not that easy.

I wish i could do that too. Compressing a lead vocal isn t always easy but avoiding these mistakes will help you mix vocals that sound modern and musical. And i don t want to mislead you. You can use compression on vocals to just even out the performance and to create an effect.

At this point you re done. Because humans are expert listeners any small unnatural sounding volume jump or dip will be noticeable and detract from the power of the melody and lyrics. Let me state up front that there s no single setting you can use for every vocal track. If you must use compression we recommend trying a ratio no higher than 3 1 for live use along with shorter release attack times.

It evens out the often erratic levels that a singer can produce and tames transients that can cause digital distortion. Your vocals should sound 100x better than they did before especially if you followed all of the other vocal mixing steps mainly equalization first.