How To — mixing vocals

TL;DR Target -14 LUFS integrated for Spotify, -16 for Apple Music, -14 for YouTube, -14 for TikTok. Don't over-master: Spotify turns you down anyway. Keep vocals at -6 to -4 LUFS momentary above the instrumental. True peak below -1 dBTP. Mix at 85dB SPL if you can. Mixing a vocal in 2026 isn't the same job it was even five years ago. The streaming platforms normalize loudness, so cranking the master limiter doesn't make your song louder than anyone else's. What it does is crush your dynamics and kill your vocal presence. This guide walks through the loudness targets for...

TL;DR Delay is the most underrated vocal effect. Slapback (80 to 120ms) for intimacy. Dotted eighth for pop and EDM energy. Ping pong for space. Tempo-sync everything. High-pass at 300Hz, low-pass at 8kHz on the return. Use it on a send, not an insert. Reverb gets all the attention, but delay is what makes a vocal sound wide, rhythmic, and alive. U2's entire sound is delay. Billie Eilish's intimate ASMR vocals: slapback delay. Every modern pop chorus that feels big without feeling washed out: delay. This guide covers the five delay types you actually use on vocals, the settings that...

TL;DR De-essing is compression on a narrow frequency band. Target 5 to 9kHz for most vocals. Threshold should only catch the harshest S sounds, not every sibilant. Use 3 to 6dB of reduction. Split-band mode beats broadband every time. And fix the mic/performance first if you can. A great vocal with harsh sibilance sounds painful on headphones, amateur on earbuds, and unusable on small speakers. De-essing is the fix. Done right, the listener never notices it happened. Done wrong, the vocal loses life and every "s" sounds like a whispered "th." This guide walks through what de-essing actually is, the...

TL;DR Plate reverb for most pop and rock vocals. Hall for ballads. Room for rap and intimate vocals. Set pre-delay between 20 and 60ms so the vocal stays upfront. High-pass the reverb return at 300Hz, low-pass at 8kHz. Keep decay shorter than you think (1.2 to 2.5 seconds). Reverb is the difference between a vocal that sits on top of the mix and one that feels like part of the record. Get it right and the vocal breathes. Get it wrong and everything turns to mud, the vocal loses intelligibility, and the mix collapses in a small room. This guide...