Read this article over at EQ and found this tip on “Barely There Vocals” by Greg Laswell to be interesting:

“One of my favorite things to do is to record the lead vocal to get it perfect, and then track two more but turn them down almost to the point where you can’t hear them at all. I actually make them so low that if you mute the lead vocal in the center channel, you can just barely, barely hear the extra two vocals, which are panned hard left and hard right. It still sounds like a solo vocal, but it adds a little space, width, and stereo image to it.”

I’ve done a similar thing routing a second, different lead vocal to delay+reverb and mixing that back in. That way the lead vocal and its delay/reverb are slightly different, too.

Here are a few more ideas for vocals:

Record flat with no effects and instead find the right microphone for the singer. In the mix, roll off everything below 100 Hz and above 12,000 Hz. Add 2-4dB at 160Hz for male vocals or 320Hz for female voice for warmth. Notch out the mid-range, 500-800Hz, by a few dB. Sometimes a little sparkle in the 7-8kHz area is good, if there’s no sibilance there. Finally, a little compression after the EQ can smooth the vocals out nicely.

Automatic double-tracking. Set a delay line to a short delay, between 5 and 30 milliseconds and hard pan the dry and delayed part for maximum effect. Or, use a pitch shifter set between 2-4 cents and again dry sound goes hard left while the pitch shifted part goes hard right.

Vocal reverb sounding muddy? Don’t send so much bass to the reverb. Use EQ before the reverb and take out everything below 3,000 Hz. This gives a nice, bright splash on the plosives and hard consonant sounds. This can make the words more intelligible in a busy mix, too.

Put a delay before your reverb and set it to a 100% short delay with no feedback. Send a vocal line to the delay and then on to the reverb. In the mix, you’ll first hear the dry vocal. The delay line then creates a gap before the reverb begins. This makes the room seem bigger, without needing a long (read: muddy) reverb time. Adjust the delay time to fit your music. On choppy vocals it’s cool. Dry sound . . . silence . . . reverb splash.

Do you have any cool vocal tricks to share, too? Add ‘em in comments below.