Dom Morley - Recording & Mixing Vocals

Dom Morley is a Grammy Award-winning engineer and producer who has worked with Amy Winehouse, Adele, Sting, Mark Ronson and many more big names. In this episode, he goes into detail with SOS's Sam Inglis about the art and craft of recording and mixing vocals.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:39 - Tracking vocals
02:49 - Favourite mics and preamps
05:43 - EQ and compression
07:30 - The artist headphone mix
08:50 - Recording in the control room
10:00 - Leaving the vocals until last
11:02 - Guiding and coaching the vocal performance
13:19 - Vocals recorded remotely
15:18 - Submitting vocal tracks for mixing
16:45 - Sending a comped version
17:24 - Full takes then working through sections
19:02 - Track mixing order
21:29 - Not using vocal presets
23:25 - Using analogue and digital
24:18 - Analogue EQ and compression
25:38 - Setting up compression
27:00 - Automating dynamics
30:35 - Drawing in the automation
31:36 - Processor plugin order
33:05 - Vocal tuning
35:21 - Choosing a reverb or delay
38:44 - Synchronising delays to song tempo
39:26 - Treating BVs as an instrument
41:15 - The Mix Consultancy

Dom Morley Biog
Dom Morley is a Grammy Award-winning producer, mixer and engineer, who has worked with Amy Winehouse (Back To Black), Mark Ronson (Version, Record Collection), Richard Ashcroft (These People, Keys To The World), Nick Cave (Grinderman), Sting (Live at Durham Cathedral), The Police (pre-production for their world tour), Adele, Morrissey, JP Cooper, Estelle, Live8 (DVD), Rag'n'Bone Man, The Staves, Rumer, Keane, Birdy, Lemon Jelly, Jeff Beck, Sting, I Am Kloot, The Verve and Underworld amongst others.

Dom is involved in sound design, providing all the sounds for the 'Dirty Modular' Kontakt instrument (Samplephonics), Stranger Synths, Modular Synthwave and the Roland CR-78 Synth Explorer (Loopmasters).

He is also the founder of The Mix Consultancy (an online service offering feedback and advice on your mix) and tutors MA students in Music Production at Leeds College of Music.

https://www.dommorley.com/
https://www.themixconsultancy.com/

Sam Inglis Biog
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts