Modern Vocal Mixing Steps

20 June 2025 Mixingvocals ، Modernvocals ، modernvocalmixing

Professional-Sounding Vocals


Step One: Your Recording Space Matters More Than You Think

I know you’ve heard this a lot, but the first step to achieving professional, pop-radio-ready vocals lies in the foundation — the recording environment.

 

For me, the first and most important step (and the irony of it all) is having a good-sounding room — or at the very least, a dead one!
Uncontrolled room reverb can ruin your vocals in the worst way possible.

 

You might say, “Well, there are so many AI-powered de-verb plugins and websites these days. I can just record in my bedroom and clean it up later.” But trust me, that's not a good idea. What happens under the hood of those plugins and algorithms often strips your vocals of their character and edge. They can end up sounding dull and plasticky, so to speak.

Step Two: Choosing the Right Microphone

It’s Not Just About the Gear — It’s About the Match

Some studios take the time to match the right microphone to your voice — and honestly, that’s not BS. You might think, “I can just change everything later with EQ and compression, so why does it matter what mic I use?”

Here’s the simple truth:
You choose the right microphone for your voice so you have to make as few changes as possible during the mixing stage.

Does it matter? Yes. Why? Let me explain in the following section.

My Mixing Ideology: Change As Little As Possible

Why Less Is More

My whole approach to mixing is built on one easy principle: change as little as possible.

I see sound like water — you can’t shape water in the palm of your hand without spilling some.

Every plugin you use has an error threshold. If you push them too hard, they glitch. One of the most common glitches is aliasing distortion! You might already know about it — but I’ll dive deeper into that in a future blog.

Now, let’s talk about the mixing stage.

The Mixing Stage: Clean Starts Make Clean Mixes

You Shouldn’t Need Much Processing

If you did everything right from the start, you won’t need a ton of processing during mixing. Your go-to tools should be EQs, compression, and saturation — all used for the purpose of controlling the sound.

 

The most important question to ask yourself is:
Is it need tonal control or dynamic control?
"What aspect of control do I need on this signal?"

 

Step One: Tonal Control, Shaping the Nature of the Voice

Tonal control is all about the nature of the voice.

With every note and syllable, certain frequencies will naturally be louder than others. Sometimes, certain sibilants whistle and grab your attention. Or maybe the singer sounds thin in higher registers and boomy in the lower ones.

These issues can be solved using multiband compression or dynamic EQs.

Step Two: Add Flavor with Saturation

After the first stage of control, you need to “cook” the sound using saturation.

 

Everyone talks about saturation — and for good reason. Here’s my take on it:
I add saturation, it gets louder, so I bring the volume back down.
I keep doing this until any more saturation causes distortion — then I pull it back just a little.

 

A great plugin for vocals is Alkane.

Alkane: My Go-To Vocal Saturation Plugin

When it comes to vocals, Alkane works like a charm. It injects a low-mid grit that gives the voice body and presence, along with a high-end sparkle that helps it sit right on top of the mix.

In a recent project (on Robobun’s track “Insane”), I used Alkane to make the lead vocals shimmer without ever sounding harsh. That word — sparkle — isn’t a coincidence. Alkane’s Tone controls bring out the air and detail in the upper frequencies, letting vocal lines shine through layers of guitars and synths.

 

Meanwhile, a touch of saturation in the low mids adds just enough warmth to make the singer sound full and intimate.
The mix ended up feeling more emotionally charged. Those haunting melodies in Robobun’s song suddenly came to life — all thanks to a little Alkane magic on the vocal bus.

 

Alkane doesn’t just enhance vocals. It enhances expression. Voices cut through clearly, with character — not that annoying digital fizz.
 

Step Three: Final Shaping with EQ

After saturation, I start shaping the vocal tone using EQ. By now, the vocals are usually tamed but still sound flat.

 

Fun fact: humans don’t naturally sound super bright — LOL.
You can brighten vocals in two easy ways:

 

Use EQ (digital or analog), but make sure it doesn’t cause aliasing distortion.

Use Spark saturation — just a little though, since it can be heavy-handed.

Step Four: Dynamics Control

Two Levels of Dynamics Processing

The last step is handling dynamics — and we only need two levels:

De-essing

General compression

 

A de-esser is just a frequency-specific compressor that kicks in when a threshold is passed, right?
One of the best de-essers is FabFilter Pro-MB.
You can easily create a de-esser using this multiband plugin — and I’ll show you how in a future blog post.

 

Full Dynamics Control: The Final Quest

 

Now let’s talk general compression.
I know most of you reading this already understand how compressors work: attack, release, threshold, ratio.

 

But here’s something to spark your thinking…

 

Unsolo your main vocal. Use your fader to place the vocal in the mix where it belongs.
Now listen to the full track — do any sustained notes fade out too quickly? Are some words too loud or others buried?

 

Before touching a compressor, start with level control. Don’t let all those uneven words hit the compressor at the same level.

 

And remember what I said about plugins having little bugs and error thresholds?
Don’t let your digital compressor do more than 3dB of gain reduction per instance. That’s why pro engineers use two or more compressors to shape tone and control dynamics.

 

Compression is a deep and heavy topic — I’ll explore it more in another blog. But for now, just know this: