Professional tips for vocal mixing
Hip Hop vocal compression techniques – Tips for mixing Rap vocals part 01
In Hip Hop music and related sub-genres, compression plays a very important role. Sometimes you need very gentle compression settings, sometimes harder and “over-compressed” compression.
Here you will find some Hip Hop vocal compression techniques we use every day for our mixes.
Vocal compression has a basic concept: don’t make the compressor work too much.
Normally is a good practice to compress after the eq, so maybe you should read as well our article about vocal eq. Once you’ve reached a pleasant sound without resonances and annoying frequencies, you can pass to the compression that good audio signal to give it that tight, powerful, “hip hop” character.
Start with a gentle compression with a medium slow attack and a fast release (not the most fast setting anyway) making the compressor work to reduce MAX 3/4 db, not more. Remember to listen instead of watching the compressor needle. Listener will not see the compressor needle!
You can use many compressor plugins on the market, great ones are the UREI 1176 and API 2500 emulations (UAD ones are really great) , but there is not a law about it and you could find some really unknown plugin that for “that vocal” will sound terrific but for other vocals will sound crap. Listening is the key, I will never get tired of repeating this concept.
Hope that you found this quick guide useful! If you will need some more assistance or question don’t hesitate to contact us.
If you need a more detailed assistance on your song, please refer to our services page!
