The Vocal Chain
Every professional vocal mix starts with a standard chain: EQ, compression, de-essing, and spatial effects. The order matters — get it wrong and you will fight the mix for hours.
Start with subtractive EQ. Remove the mud around 200-400Hz, cut boxiness at 800Hz, and tame harshness around 3-5kHz. You want to clean before you compress.
Compression Strategy
Use serial compression. A light optical compressor first (2:1 ratio, slow attack) to even out the performance, then a faster FET compressor (4:1 ratio) to catch peaks. This gives you control without the pumping artifact of a single aggressive compressor.
The key is gain staging. Each stage should only reduce 2-4dB of gain. When you stack three or four stages of light processing, you get transparent control that sounds natural.
