Processing Vocals in SoundBridge

You probably wonder how to get that wide and crystal clear vocal sound. Here at SoundBridge, we have decided to give you a close-up of vocal processing techniques. This tutorial will guide you through all the steps required to make vocals come to life from unprocessed recordings. So, let's start!  

Compression First

To start, we have a mono-vocal take that is unprocessed. Firstly, let's use a compressor to flatten any undesirable peaks. We will apply compression lightly in order to preserve the majority of dynamics.

Mono Vocal - Compressed

Add Stereo Width

In order to widen the stereo image of this vocal, we will use a simple yet beneficial technique. Basically, we copied the mentioned vocal take and placed it on a new channel just below the original one.  

Play With Panning

Now, we have two channels with the same vocal. Next, pan the first channel to the left (50%) and the second to the right (80 %). In addition, turn off the snap function in SoundBridge's transport bar and zoom in by holding CTRL and scrolling. Then, drag the second vocal take slightly to the left - enough to avoid phasing but not too much (See Blog: Phase and Phasing). It should still sound like one take. After completing this step, our vocal will look and sound like this :

Vocal - Duplicated, Panned, and widened

Keep Organized by Grouping

Now, our vocals sound a lot better compared to the initial take. The next step would be to create a group track in SoundBridge and place the two channels in it. On this group track, add a reverb to give it even more space.

Vocal - With Reverb

Delay Instead of Reverb

We will repeat the same steps for a second vocal, which will be used to add harmony to the overall sound. But, for this take, we will apply some EQ-ing to attenuate unwanted vocal sibilance (high frequency "s" sounds that pop out a little too much). Finally, we will add a bit of delay instead of reverb.

Second Vocal - With Delay

EQ

The next step of this tutorial is to make a new group track. Here, we will add the group we drove to the new take. In this new group, we can apply more compression, EQ-ing, etc... for polishing. Let's look & listen to the grouped & processed vocals:

Vocals - Final Processing

Final Product

Finally, listen to how the vocals fit a short track I made after these steps.

Context