So today, I mixed down Horchata & Smxk3's track 'Don't Sleep On Me' ready for release and I am super happy with it!
I used FL Studio for this mixdown, as i am the most comfortable with it than other DAWs. I began by dragging and dropping the vocal stems into the project, with the instrumental also. I then assigned different audio tracks to different channels, for example, the main vocal lead into one channel, adlybs and backing vocals into another etc.
For the main vocal lead, the processing chain was pretty simple! I began by using FL Studio's standard compressor to get the vocals sounding full, then i used the stock Fruity Parametric EQ 2 to cut any unnecessary low end from 100hZs down. I then used another EQ to roll off some high end (the air of the vocals) and boost the low-mids a little bit for extra thickness on the vocals. A small bit of reverb was used, to do this i used FL's standard Fruity Reverb 2.
As for the backing vocals and adlybs, i used more reverb than the main vocal lead (the same plugin), and a small amount of delay. For the delay i used Fruity Delay 2.
For extra effects, i used Gross Beat on the channel the instrumental was assigned to, to create a tape-stop effect in multiple parts of the track. I also chopped up the instrumental in different sections to give it an old hip-hop feel.
As for the master, I simply used a limiter at the start of the master chain. I used this to increase the volume of the track. I then used a loudness meter (YouLean Loudness Meter 2) to measure the loudness of the track. I kept adding gain to the volume until i was happy with the reading on the loudness meter. I managed to get it to -7 LUFS.
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