Music-Vocal levels calibration

I second thehightenor 's recommendation. I use a pair of Avantone's for this very purpose and the level always translates well everywhere. I mix on them and then I listen back on the bigs/car.

Thanks for the inputs all

I dohave a pair of Auratones that I use and I also do the bring the mix up from silence to see what is the first thing you hear …

What I was hoping for was a rinse-repeat method tool tohave the relative volumes checked and hopefully duplicated across mixes.

I guess I could put lufs metering on them and take notes of that and try duplicating to another song … or maybe rms would suit better.

I will experiment and if I discover some trick I will be sure to report back

I use a VU meter on the 2 bus to “see” any big swings over the backing instruments and, in conjunction with my ears, compress or ride or mult where necessary to pull them in line. If there’s constant huge swings going on, the vocal balance as a whole needs to be reevaluated. I also wait a few days and listen back while taking notes of any lines or syllables that jump out or get swallowed and weren’t obvious during the original mix session.

“In the Air Tonight” is a good one to use as a reference. The vocal comes in at a level that sits exceptionally well with the instrumental track.

But is this necessarily the goal?

this is hard to discuss because the frequency content of the vocal has a lot to do with how you hear the balance ex cathedra of what the actual level measurement is....

I can't even imagine trying to mix based on a VU meter level. Each song and each vocalist is different. I think ears are the only thing needed here. There is a wide range of where a vocal sits in the mix, above the mix or even under the instrumental mix.

It might not solve the problem, but when I try balancing the main vocal with the track, I first listen very very low to see what stands out. Usually it's the vocal and snare. Then I listen a normal volume for a while. When it seems like I have a good balance I then begin raising volume until it gets really loud. When I do that, if the vocal is too loud vs. the track, it becomes really obvious. The vocal just jumps way too far ahead of the track. The best mixes can be played at low volume and very high volume and still be balanced.

I've had difficulty getting tracks to sound the same volume when creating an album. The worst thing is they read as equal. I can't figure it. Really good mastering engineers seem to make it work though. But then I've had tracks be unequal in volume even when using some well known mastering houses. It's a conundrum.