Let's Talk About The Ever Imortant Lead Vocal

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish doesn't it?. There are so many talented producers and mix engineers working for peanuts out there that in my opinion you don't even need to worry about your lead vocal; unless you enjoy doing your own mixing. In my experience most folks are either a performing artist, in which case someone else is handling production for you, or you are a songwriter and then often times you want a "wonky mix" that lets you cheat your hook and vocal in an effort to attract an artist to your song. Almost the opposite of a finished mix. Something more stripped down and vocal forward to accentuate the melody.
(Listen to this Bruno Mars demo he co-writes a lot.)



If you are a self produced artist one of the advantages to hiring a producer or mix engineer (even it's for three songs) is that you can have a grammy award winning mixer/engineer share with you a lot of his wisdom (chains, plugs, routing, etc) for getting "your sound" down. Then you can have a set of Pro Tools sessions that you can use as a template to various degrees.

As a side note, I have worked with some very good singers and I am always shocked by how much of that "lead vocal sound" is right there from the start. So much so that you could just about turn on a mic with any old preamp and be done. So just like some guys feel more improvement in sound comes from putting money into high quality mics as versus convertors, the same holds true for lead vocals. A marginal improvement (or variation) in technique returns giant, giant improvements in the lead vocal. Just changing jaw position can make your vocal sound like it was done on a different mic. Not pushing your voice can leave a lot more tone on tape than you would ever expect. And softening a vocal performance at tracking can accomplish what no eq could ever do. In other words I think the vocal can be cut consciously to sit forward in a mix way before any compressors or mixing are involved. So I generally prefer a vocal that is tracked first with "intent and vibe" and then the mix is built around it to support its objective. But that requires a lot of conscious planning as to how the vocal needs to be performed in order for it to sit right with the final material.

I was in some writing sessions for Chris Daughtry's last record and I was blown away at how hard that kid would sing in the booth. There was actually more vocal there live than what ended up on the final record. I've noticed this with a number of great singers. Their tracking performances have so much "content and information" that they don't need compressors or mixing to have that forward vocal. If anything they start with "a lot" of vocal and the recording, mixing, mastering process leaves you with something much smaller. So I think with vocal oriented music you need to start the process with a super high-res vocal. Not always, but often it seems to me that singers lose a little something when they retrack to a final mix. It's almost like they push too hard from the excitement of all the instruments and effects, much like they tend to over sing when playing live with a band. And it generally leaves a slightly pushed vocal that is just a little less in tone, pitch, vibe, inflections, grace notes, and most importantly dynamics and conversational feel, which is the secret essence of popular music (country, pop etc).

I generally try to keep the mids open for vocals. Almost every single band I've recorded has wanted to do vocals last in order to "feel" the song and get a "vibe" going with the vocals(usually because the lyrics aren't written yet).. I think it's a bit backwards but I've yet to convince anyone otherwise.

With that, almost every band also gives me strange looks when we track vocals and the vocals are buried in the mix when they listen back. No matter how much I try to tell them that is because I need to cut back the guitars and stuff to make the vocals have a place, they always say "but we like how everything else is and don't want to change it".. It's at that point I usually give them an excuse why I can't mix the vocals right away, like I'll say that "I need to do a lot of editing to get things fitting better", or something that makes them think I need to spend a lot of time alone on it.

It's at that point I'll go back and rework guitar and other instruments that fit into the vocal frequency range so I can make vocals fit better. Usually the band can't tell the difference even though it's pretty obvious to me.

Anyway, in the end I'll always rework the guitar EQ and possibly volume automation. The rest depends on how much clashing with the vocals happens.

I'm with you fellas...but there are exceptions.