Have you ever found yourself trying to mix choir tracks (or background vocals for English speakers), and they ended up ruining everything by taking the place of the lead vocal?
If so, that’s normal: I think everyone starting out in mixing faces this type of problem at some point.
However, while mixing a solo voice often requires going through many steps, choirs can generally be treated in a much simpler and more minimalist way.
What is certain is that you will always need to add processing to the choir tracks.
But by following the right practices, mixing them should ultimately take you only a few minutes.
Through this article, I propose a series of tips to help you easily position your choirs in the mix, so that they support the lead vocal instead of confronting it.
#1 – Be Ready to Apply Aggressive Processing
My very first piece of advice concerns the mixing philosophy you will follow.
If you are used to mixing solo vocal tracks, you know that you need to be careful with the various effects applied: a few decibels too much on the gain of an EQ, and the mix can collapse.
With choirs, however, it’s almost the opposite: you need to be ready to subject them to marked, bold, and sometimes extreme processing.
Indeed, choir tracks serve a completely different purpose than solo vocals: while the latter should be at the forefront of the mix and intelligible, choirs are meant to support the lead vocal by surrounding it, in the background.
To achieve this goal, you will need to apply sufficiently drastic processing to create a real contrast between your choirs and your solo voice.
#2 – Mix Choirs as a Single Instrument
When it comes to mixing choirs, a common mistake is to mix each vocal track independently, thus using different plugins or settings from one track to another.
This is not the right approach.
For effective mixing of your choirs, group them all into a single bus: this is the bus where you will add your plugins, not on the tracks themselves.
Indeed, it is much more relevant to visualize choirs as a single instrument rather than as a collection of individual tracks.
#3 – Adjust the Volume of the Choirs
Properly mixing choirs starts with good volume management — both the volume of the choir tracks relative to each other and the volume of the choir bus compared to the main vocal track.
So start by soloing your bus and precisely adjusting the level of each of the tracks that compose it. The goal here is to achieve a good balance of harmonies.
Then, check by listening to the entire mix that the balance you have built is well suited, and adjust it as needed.
Finally, you will of course need to adjust the level of the choir track group relative to the lead vocal track.
As we said: the goal is to create a contrast between the two.
Therefore, if you mix the two “instruments” at roughly the same level, it will be impossible to achieve this contrast.
From this observation, lowering the level of the choirs in the mix compared to the lead vocal will be a logical choice in most mixes: the choirs should be audible but quieter than the solo voice.
#4 – Manage the Panning of Your Choirs
Properly positioning your choirs in the stereo space is essential.
99% of the time, your main vocal track will be located in the center of the mix.
Once that’s said, if we return to our notion of contrast, it means… that the choirs should be around the main vocal, thus on the sides of the stereo image.
So spread your choir tracks to the left and right. Especially if you are a beginner, there is no need to go into detail: place your tracks either completely to the left or completely to the right and stop there.
#5 – Don’t hesitate to cut in the frequency spectrum
Often, choirs need drastic equalization, both in the lows and the highs, to ensure they do not clash with the solo voice.
To achieve this, several strategies are possible.
The first is to attenuate the highs more or less strongly with a high-shelf filter or a low-pass filter. Indeed, a bright sound is always more difficult to position in the background than a dark sound. Thus, by cutting the highs, you will easily push your choirs to the back of the mix.
Next, I recommend cutting the lows significantly with a high-pass or low-shelf filter. Since you probably have a considerable number of choir tracks, the low frequencies may accumulate, making the mix muddy. Therefore, they need to be controlled to prevent them from interfering with the lows present in the lead voice, in particular.
Finally, I find it particularly useful to take into account the equalizations applied to the solo voice track. Suppose, for example, that you have boosted it between 2 and 5 kHz. In that case, you should definitely not boost the same frequencies on your backing vocals: instead, try cutting them through an inverse equalization to create even more contrast between the two “instruments”.
#6 – Compress your choirs firmly
Necessarily, choirs are primarily voice tracks.
This means that you will be dealing with fairly dynamic recordings, whose level is quite variable.
It will therefore be almost essential to compress them, with mainly two objectives:
- first of all, by compressing the choir bus, you will level the overall volume and reinforce the impression that it is just one instrument;
- then, due to this leveling, it will be possible for you to adjust the bus level more precisely in relation to the rest of the mix since the volume variations will be smaller.
By default, I recommend using the same compressors as those used on the solo voice: while creating contrast is important, I find that on compression it is more interesting to give a sense of homogeneity.
However, your choirs do not need to be as realistic as the solo voice track. They will often benefit from being more compressed than the latter: lower the threshold, increase the ratio, or even the attack.
In other words, minimize dynamic variations.
#7 – Use reverb to push back the choirs
Creating contrast between the solo voice and the choirs naturally involves a notion of foreground and background: the solo voice is in front, the choirs are behind.
During mixing, the quintessential effect to give the sensation that one instrument is further away than another is reverb.
In the case of choirs, two strategies are available to you:
- Option 1: Use the same reverb as the voice track but increase its level for the choirs. This will allow you to give a sense of coherence while keeping the choirs in the background.
- Option 2: Use a different but wider reverb, to enhance the sense of depth in the mix.
In any case, do not forget to equalize your reverb to avoid, in particular, the accumulation of low frequencies that could harm the rest of the mix.
In conclusion
In summary, the most important point regarding mixing choirs is to create a real contrast between them and the lead voice track.
If you mix your choirs like normal vocal tracks, you won’t achieve a good mix. However, if you treat them as a single instrument while using bold settings, even a bit extreme, then you’ll be heading in the right direction.
► Keep reading and discover the steps for mixing vocals.