Why do you look so sad - v0.9

[Mikael Hansson]

Gert van Santen wrote:
> I like it a lot. There still isn't enough space for the vocals in 
> the freq spec, though. This makes it sound as if the vocals are 
> not loud enough. Check it out, and perhaps add some extra 
> compression (to the vocals).
> 
> Great track :-)

Thanks Gert!

I'm not used to mixing for vocals but I'll try to put myself in some 
mixing sessions with this one and see what happens.

I read some articles on vocal engineering last week and I've tried to 
follow them.

First I put a HP filter to cut out the bottom end and then I put two 
compressors in the vocal chain, one with 4:1 ratio and, what I can 
understand of it, about 6-8db gain reduction. This was then followed by 
an 8:1 compressor with a rather high threshold just to level out the 
remaining peaks.

Then I had an EQ to sculpt the sound a bit and then it was time for 
Melodyne to do it's magic, most was listenable before but there was some 
notes that were a semitone off, mostly on bent phrases. I also reduced 
the volume of the breathing noise. The result was bounced to new tracks.

After that I added delays and reverbs and in some cases some more EQ. 
The chorus is for instance the original recording with the new one cut 
at 300Hz put under it adding some extra prescence.

/Micke