1. Chain and cleanup
The order of the chain, evening out phrases before compressing, the high-pass, and what to cut so the vocal stops sounding like a room.
The vocal is what the listener follows: the whole chain points at one thing, being understood throughout the song. And that starts before compressing, with cleanup.
The chain, in order
The reason for the order: if you compress before cleaning, the compressor reacts to lows and resonances you’ll later remove. Each section of this journey covers one of these stages.
Even things out before compressing
A voice has very large differences between phrases, and if you let the compressor solve them all, it’ll overwork.
- Adjust the event volume on very loud or very quiet phrases, to bring them closer to the rest.
- Leave peaks of −12 to −10 dBFS on the track before the plugins.
- Don’t try to make it flat. Just keep the compressor from having to correct 10 dB jumps.
The high-pass
It removes rumble, air blasts and vibrations that aren't voice. Raise it until you notice the voice losing body, then lower it a little. With a very low-pitched singer, keep the cutoff lower.
The cuts that clean up
This is where the boxy or roomy sound lives, along with excess lows if you sang very close to the mic. It's the cut that most clears up the voice, and it usually pulls it out from inside the band.
A gentle, wide cut removes the telephone or blocked-nose sound. Many voices don't need it: don't do it out of habit.
How to find a resonance: boost a narrow band a lot, sweep the frequencies until something clearly bothers you, and turn that band into a small cut. Do it sparingly and with judgment: 2 or 3 cuts at most.
Try the effect
Load your vocal, or use the example audio, and go through the lows and mids, listening to what cleans up and what gets lost.
Playground · 3-band equalizer
- •▶ Play — plays the audio in a loop.
- •No EQ / With EQ — switch between the sound with and without the EQ to compare, at the same volume. The segment with the lit border is the one you're hearing (the classic studio “A/B” comparison).
- •↺ Reset — returns the controls to 0.
- •🎸 Bass — a synthesized riff with dynamics: ideal for hearing compression.
- •📢 Pink noise — an even sound across the whole spectrum: ideal for “seeing” the EQ.
- •🎵 Load your audio — your own file (MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, M4A…); it's processed locally in your browser and isn't uploaded anywhere.
Each control changes one zone of the sound. Move it and listen (and watch the spectrum above move):
LOWS
MIDS
HIGHS
An easy experiment: choose 📢 Pink noise, lower the LOWS Gain (it clears up) and raise the MIDS gain at 3–5 kHz (it gets more present). Switch the EQ on and off to compare with and without.
A high-pass and a cut in the low mids take minutes and solve much of what seems like a 'bad sound' on the vocal. And everything that follows works better on a clean signal.
Common mistakes
What NOT to chase yet
Quick path: cleanup
Quick path
- Adjust the volume of very loud or very quiet phrases.
- Peaks of −12 to −10 dBFS before the plugins.
- High-pass at 80–100 Hz.
- A 2 to 4 dB cut at 200–400 Hz if it sounds muddy.
- Up to 2 or 3 narrow cuts on resonances, only if you hear them.
- Check the result with the band playing.
Expected result
Expected result
A cleaner, smaller vocal that stops sounding like a room and starts to separate from the guitars. Don’t worry if it doesn’t sound big yet. What comes next makes it even: compression.