How To Use Parallel Processing During RECORDING to Get a Great Vocal Performance

Parallel processing isn’t just a mixing trick. You can also use it during recording to get a better performance from your vocalist.

Here’s a quick trick from the Parallel Processing Masterclass you probably haven’t heard of.

“Parallel processing can make your vocals sound huge. Here are a few advanced techniques to try out when you want bigger vocals.

Parallel Processing While Recording

A great way to make your vocalist more comfortable during the recording process is to give them a separate parallel signal in their headphones. This will make their voice sound produced and can often give them a helpful confidence boost.

It gets great results because the vocalist feels like he’s singing on a record, not a demo.

And the best part is, you don’t have to compromise the quality of your recording. In my Apollo Twin there’s a digital console that allows you to route the incoming signal to two aux tracks. One is for reverb to give the vocalist some nice space in the mix. The other is for either an LA2A or an 1176 that’s heavily compressing the incoming signal.

I blend that underneath and feed it to the vocalist’s headphone mix and the vocalist will feel more comfortable during the recording.

I don’t record either signal into the DAW though. It’s purely used for performance purposes. If you don’t have a UAD interface, you can do the same inside your DAW by creating two aux busses from the track you’re recording to. This results in a pretty in-your-face sound that gives the singer confidence and helps create a great performance.

Of course, be careful how much signal you feed the vocalist. And make sure you’re not crushing the signal with a really slow release because the pumping sound throws them off guard.

So try a nice blend of parallel compression into the singer’s headphones the next time you want to give your singer a sense of power.”

More Parallel Processing Tricks to Improve Your Mix?

That’s only a short sample of the vocal production tricks you’ll get with the Parallel Processing Masterclass I’m making available this week.

You only have two days to grab the stand-alone class so make sure you download your masterclass materials before Friday if you want to start using parallel processing to add that last 10% your mixes have been lacking.

Enjoy!

Björgvin

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