5 Steps to a Better Vocal

Last week we posted an article that briefly mentioned the crucial positioning of a lead vocal within a mix for church. I thought it might be helpful to expand a little and give a few simple tips for attaining a strong lead that helps our congregation to sing. 

Sung worship is a word ministry, to honour God and build up his church. Our focus is not on the power of music for emotional reaction, but on the power of God’s word and the work of his Spirit. With that in mind, a vocal lead is key because:

1. We want God’s word to be prominent and clear

2. We want to lead our congregation in singing

Here are 5 steps to a better vocal:

1. Understand the Instrument’s Voice

As with all inputs, the first step is to listen. The human voice projects across the whole range of frequency spectrum. It’s important we know where the key areas of the vocal tone are so we can prepare where it will sit within the overall mix.

The body of the voice sits within the mid range (250-1kHz) and the intelligibility or clarity in the high range (5k-12kHz). By understanding the tone of the voice, we can prepare for instruments with a similar frequency response that may clash within our mix. Keys and guitars also sit within the mid-range which may make our mix sound muddy and ill-defined. Cymbals and acoustic guitars have a lot of high frequency information that may interfere with our vocal clarity. These are things we will bear in mind when we come to balance and EQ our channels.

2. Choose the Right Mic in the Right Place

Okay there is no right or wrong because mixing is creative, but there’s some key practices that help get a killer vocal sound. 

Mic Type:

We’ve created an infographic that details examples and provides a more thorough explanation on microphone theory, but for the sake of this post I’ll keep it brief and simplistic. Two main types of mic in live audio – dynamic and condenser. Dynamics more robust and forgiving, condensers more detailed and often more ££. The Shure SM58 is an affordable industry standard or try the Sennheiser e935. For more detail we love the Shure Beta 87a, KSM8 or Neumann KMS105.

Mic Placement:

Mic placement is key for obtaining a great vocal sound. While it varies depending on microphone model, I’ll give some examples that are likely pretty standard. 

• Up close to the source – full warm tone with exaggerated low mid/bass build up (proximity effect)

• Far from the source – exaggerated high frequencies, lacking in warmth and vocal body

• Pointing directly at the source (on axis) – good gain (level) before feedback

• Off-axis – not much use for anybody 

We encourage our vocalists in church to hold the microphone as it helps to familiarise the singer with a microphone and keep a consistent distance and placement for the microphone which improves the tone we can achieve. If for a guitarist or keyboardist, we raise the stand and point the mic on axis at the source, minimum 1 inch from the lips. 

Super useful article on the effects of hand placement from DPA here.

3. Set the Gain

Next step – good gain structure. We’ll be releasing an infographic soon to provide clarity on this seemingly complicated topic. But to keep it simple for this blog, the two controls I’ll talk about here are Gain and Fader (explained in the signal flow below).

Signal Flow: Acoustic level of the source > Microphone > PreAmp with Gain control > processing > Channel Fader > Group/Master Fader

• The Gain encoder controls the level INTO the desk for processing

• The Channel fader controls the level OUT the desk to group/master output

The channel fader should be your most valuable tool for balancing during the service, while the gain control should be fixed (as this affects all processing including sends to monitors). Due to the logarithmic scale of a channel fader, you have most detailed control around 0dB or ‘unity’. A good gain structure will have enough level coming into the mixing console for processing (set by the gain encoder) and a channel fader that operates around 0db or ‘unity’. Avoid too much input gain leaving you with a low channel fader as all you’re doing is raising the level to reduce it with the fader and minimising you’re detail control at the fader end. 

4. EQ

Following the steps above, we can now focus on the tonality of the vocal. We can use the equalizer to deal with trouble frequencies and set our vocal in its own space, supported by the band. When mixing in church, we are aiming for a full and natural sounding vocal that’s easy to follow but not so full that our congregation feel there’s no need for them to sing or no space for them to sing into. 

With a flat EQ, listen to the vocal sound. Listen in isolation and in context. Is the vocal clear and polished? What frequencies are building up in the room? As the melody rises and falls, are some notes exaggerated while others disappear? Can I hear the diction of the lyric clearly? 

Here’s a chart of how I break up my vocal sound:

• Intelligibility and Glass (clarity and sparkle) of the voice sits 5-12kHz

• Metallic Presence 2-5kHz

• Nasal Hi-Mids 700-2kHz

• Honky Low-Mids 250-700Hz

• Thickness and Bass Warmth 120-250Hz

• Sub Rumble 20-120Hz

I pretty much always add a high-pass filter on vocals to clean up the low end. I’d usually add a high frequency shelf to increase intelligibility (be careful to control sibilance). Then I’m into dealing with the mid range build up. I’ll likely reduce somewhere in the 250-700Hz range, something nasal or metallic in the 700-2.5kHz range. When finding the frequencies I’ll listen with no EQ, sing the frequency out loud so I know what I’m aiming for and then find it with EQ. 

5. Balance

As we consider how to balance our vocal level against the other channels, it’s important we revisit the role of the vocals. In the intro to this post, I highlighted two aims for our vocal mix:

1. God’s word should be prominent and clear

2. Our congregation should be led in their sung response

So as the prominent lead in the mix, our lead vocal will sit in the context of the band and other vocals. Vocals should lead the music with the support of the band, not swamped by instruments nor faintly accompanied by a distant keyboard sound. 

Listening to recorded music is an invaluable tool for hearing the effect of vocal balance. Here’s a playlist of some examples

With careful processing, a vocal sound can have polish and provide a strong lead without feeling like a concert. Over the next few weeks, sensitively experiment with different band/vocal balancing and analyse the effect it has on your congregation’s singing. 

Be aware that all congregation members arrive with personal preferences and react to musical issues driven by their own experience. It’s crucial we have thought through the theology of our mix approach so we can help our congregation delight in the gospel and respond in sung worship.

Let us know how you get on!