What makes the vocal special?

In my ongoing crusade against literalism, I want today to focus on the vocal.

Let me start by posing you a question: in the song you’re currently working on, what makes the vocal special?

I don’t mean the performance — let’s stipulate that you have taken the time to capture and produce a technically sound and emotionally thrilling vocal. I mean sonically!

Does it exist in an ear-catching space?

Does it have an unusual reverb?

Do you have a cool modulation texture on it?

Are you doing something interesting with Auto-Tune?

Are you using delays to build depth and rhythmic undercurrents?

Does the compression impart an interesting sonic character?

Are you using a noise gate or judicious manual editing to get a hyper-focused, clean sound?

Are you using saturation or distortion to give the vocal more urgency and emotion?¹

Are you using a high-frequency sweetening process² to add air and drama?

There are lots of ways you can make a vocal special. When I hear a recorded vocal that I love listening to, it always has at least a few of these things happening. And when I’m mixing vocals, I’m doing some or most of this stuff all of the time. Because interesting-sounding vocals are way better than boring-sounding vocals.

My challenge to you: experiment with these techniques to find new ways to add interest to your vocal production and mixing.

Never normal — jamie

1. This doesn’t have to be at 100%; I routinely have saturation or distortion on my lead vocal, but at like 10-15% on the mix knob.

2. Here and here and here and here are some high-frequency sweetening plugins that I love and use constantly.