THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO PERFECT VOCALS

All you need for in-the-box vocal production

As a music producer, you’re probably using some vocals, in some form, as part of your process, be it snippets of film dialogue in a DnB banger, or a sumptuous, uplifting sung vocal on a house track. No doubt about it, vocals should be your first port of call when you want to add an element of humanity and feeling to any track, particularly if that track qualifies as dance music.

Back in the day, you’d have to spend £40-50/hour at a well-equipped recording studio to lay down even the most basic vocal for use in your productions, but now anyone with a computer, microphone and audio interface can capture perfect vocal takes in the comfort of their own home. And that’s where this guide comes in.

In this comprehensive tutorial, we’ll give you the lowdown on every aspect of getting pro quality vocals in your own projects. As well as serving up all the technical advice you will ever need to set up your recording rig, we’ll also deal with acoustic issues and bag the clearest possible recording.

We’ll then show you how to get the best performance possible out of your singer, edit those hot takes and deploy tuning and effects that will make your vocal sound stand shoulder to shoulder with professional productions.

To help out and provide some raw materials for our walkthroughs and videos, we’ve drafted in the incredible session vocalist Donna Marie, who’s provided us with a superb library of vocal samples and passed on some invaluable pearls of vocal wisdom of her own.

Without further ado, then, it’s time to step up to the mic…