Compression, side-chaining and ducking

Looking for tips on how to use these techniques in a useful and practical way.

I know ducking gets used in a lot of techno where a drum kick can punctuate a pad, but what about in other forms of music?

Is there a way to use these techniques to make my vocals sit better in a mix? I always think my vox sound a bit like someone singing karaoke over a backing track and I want them to sound 'realer' (or less real? I think you know what I mean - part of the music rather than on top of the music)...

do you mean by triggering the compression off of the vocals instead of off a kick drum? I don't think that would work.

Beyond just using it to get a pump effect in techno and house, musicians seem to be using it more as a pure sound effect rather than a mixing tool. For example, if you check out the Purity Ring album, there's extreme levels of ducking on just about every track, to the point where it pretty much defines their sound with all the fading in and out of melodic elements.

i think you want to experiment with compressing your vocals by themselves, not triggering the compression based on another element of the mix.

as far as i understand it sidechain compression was developed as a radio thing, to lower the volume of the music whenever a dj speaks. i don't think it would be very effective if you did that with a lead vocal on a song.

i've mostly used it for that now common effect of having a kick drum or a snare push other elements out of the way (like a bass synth, a pad, or the whole mix) to create some extra rhythmic motion and to make the kick sound bigger. i've always meant to experiment more with other sidechain effects, like say having the snare or hi-hat trigger an effect (maybe phaser or distortion or something) on a synth, but never seem to get around to it.

you can use your vocal to slightly lower the volume on instruments that might be clashing with it. usually if i'm mixing rock music with thick guitars i'll often have the vocal reduce the volume of the guitars a little bit.

YEah that's sort of what I was wondering, if that was a common technique or not. Not sure, but sometimes I just have trouble getting my vocal to sit properly in the mix - it's audible but it just sounds like someone singing over a backing track like karaoke.

maybe you need to play around with reverb, compression (non-sidechain variety), and double tracking more?

^^^

A bit of light reverb (useful if the vocals were recorded in a small room or a dry sounding space), some compression (most compression plugins have presets like 'male lead vocal' etc), some EQ (again most EQ plugins will have presets to suit various kinds of vocals), and just a touch of short delay (usually called something like 'slapback' and set the wet volume of the delay quite low). Put the reverb last in the chain, experiment with the order of the other three effects.

(although 90% of the time I use Delay > EQ > Comp > Reverb)

cheers. yeah i have tried those. sometimes it works, others not so much but maybe i need to fiddle a bit more. that's a weird chain sequence if ever i saw one.