Death metal vocal mixing basics

[DSmolken]

I'm working on a death metal sample library. Got a girl growling all the phonemes in the English language with a few round robins. I'm trying to put together a short demo now, but... how do I mix the vocals?

I'm guessing compression and reverb, with probably a lot of compression, but is anything else standard? Distortion, saturation or stereo imaging of some kind?

And what's a good typical EQ curve to start with? I'm guessing the "highpass at 150 Hz" thing doesn't really apply to death metal vox.

[FormAndFilter]

Id definitely suggest experimenting with multiple layers with varying pan & imaging. Group these together and compress/eq to create tight sounding samples with weight to them.

Saturation as well as subtle (and not so subtle) distortions are pretty stylistic for metal productions. Small stereo room reverbs too...

[FormAndFilter]

Also maybe try some reverse style reverb tails leading into the samples as an option...

[Paschalis I.]

I'm working on a death metal sample library. Got a girl growling all the phonemes in the English language with a few round robins. I'm trying to put together a short demo now, but... how do I mix the vocals?

I'm guessing compression and reverb, with probably a lot of compression, but is anything else standard? Distortion, saturation or stereo imaging of some kind?

And what's a good typical EQ curve to start with? I'm guessing the "highpass at 150 Hz" thing doesn't really apply to death metal vox.

Each vocal/track/sound should be treated differently.

Start with EQ, remove the junk frequencies. About the high pass filter forget about numbers, Start from 150Hz but go as high as it sounds right.

Compress hard. REALLY HARD. It's death metal anyway , plus you can get all the grit you're looking for
in the vocals, since you're going deep into the sound with the compression.

When i say hard, i don't mean wrong though... Compress in series. Use 2 compressors to ease up the load on GR (gain reduction) on each one and try to keep the sound pretty.

So, instead of a -12db GR compression, use 2 compressors with -6db (just an example).

Duplicate the track and add a saturator. SATURATE IT A LOT. And blend it with the normal signal.

Maybe a slight delay/verb would take off the mic dryness but still you don't need much.

Good luck

[DSmolken]

Thanks to you both. I'll be recording more samples of her soon, so this advice will come in very handy.

[Aloysius]

Joey Sturgis Tones - Gain Reduction

Might be useful to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQwf45nnudw