# Mixing growls



## guy in latvia (Jul 19, 2011)

Hey guys, I could use some suggestions on how you guys usually treat growled vocals in a mix.

Thanks!


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## tvboy123 (Jul 19, 2011)

I think the first thing to do with growls would be to start off with a good dyanmic mic like a sm7b. I would go for a dynamic over a condenser in case you damage a condenser, but whatever, i know you can get good results out of one too lol. When it comes to the mix, i'd put a high pass on it just to cut out any mic rumble and so it doesn't interfere with the bass frequencies. Then i'd maybe cut the bass at around 500hz just to give the vox a bit more room. Maybe create a double track, just copy and paste, put a really harsh low cut and a high shelf on it, to give the track some air. Then bring it down in volume, so it's quite subtle. I always like it when you get growls or something with a little bit of delay on it (not too keen on too much reverb as it pushes the vox back in the mix, rather than having them up front), but yeah delay can make it sound pretty good. You can always do another track, put some distortion on that, and then bring down the volume on that. Or even pan one growl track to the left, and one to the right, and delay one by hardly anything e.g. in the verse you may have have a question and answer scenario (A-B-A-B), might be cool to mess with having something panned down the middle, and then switch to two hard panned vocal tracks. There's endless possibilities. Just do what you think sounds best! Good luck =]


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## guy in latvia (Jul 19, 2011)

Thanks for the suggestions, I have very little experience with vocal mixing and I was just thinking about what a normal fx chain looks like for growls. My biggest problem seems to be the vocals sounding like theyre taking over the mix, but when I turn the volume down their buried behind everything else and just sounds like a mess.


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## tvboy123 (Jul 19, 2011)

Oh okay, an fx chain might go something like....plugin wise i guess? Compressor, (deesser if needed), eq, (delay or any other effects). The reason it'll be sounding messy is because there'll be frequencies overlapping. Bassy instruments should be centred (kick, bass guitar etc.), and then more trebly instruments such as keyboards and guitars should be left and right. The vox are normally centred, so again watch out for the bass taking up the 500hz spot that could blend with the vox. You could try mixing from the vox up e.g. mix the vox on their own so you like how they sound, and then introduce other instruments like the drums and guitars. As each instrument is introduced see if there's anything making an instrument unclear....then sweep the frequencies boosting them with a steep Q so you can hear any frequencies you don't like in the new instruments, and then just cut that frequency subtly out. Another thing that can be adding to muffledness is the preamp and conversion quality. My best advice would be the export the recording and post it on gearslutz, there's a lot of great producers there that can give you advice. I'm sure more people will come and help here though! But yeah, another tip is try mixing at lower level volumes, you should be able to hear all instruments clearly, I know that's something that CLA sometimes does. Good luck man!


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## guy in latvia (Jul 19, 2011)

thanks for the tips, since the mix is far from being finished ill just keep on working with it.


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## atticmike (Jul 19, 2011)

Try to clear the recording from any low-sub / frequency interferences which probably destroy the rest of your mix. Keep it a subtle as possible and spice it up with some bus-sends such as distortion or noise filters.


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## newamerikangospel (Jul 19, 2011)

The biggest tips I learned while mixing vocals

-Dont add any low frequencies. Technically the low end of a growl is around 400hz. The growls will sound bigger in a mix

-Mild reverb (small room size, moderate-light reverb time, and the mix kept low) will smooth the growls out

-Compression choices will have a significant change on vocals. Since there isn't really a transient to capture, you can play with attack and release times.

Those will help the vocals sit in the mix, I always bus my secondary vocals (highs, or backup) into another channel and eq them differently to keep them sounding separated.


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## guy in latvia (Jul 21, 2011)

thanks for the great tips!


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