Critique Requested i tried using reaper to mix

na4a4a

Outwardly Opinionated and Harshly Critical
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
Reaper is a very usable DAW for mixing, but you perhaps need some more practice to improve your mixing!
Right now it sounds more like the voice is sitting on top of the instrumental rather than being a part of it. It also sounds very unprocessed/dry.

A good trick for checking if the voice is too loud is to turn your speakers (or the master bus/fader) very quiet, the differences in volume will become more apparent. After that you should EQ the voice some.
I suggest not looking at vocaloid/utau specific mixing tutorials since they have very bad advice. You're better off searching how to mix as if it were a real voice since many of the rules are the same.
She sounds like she needs a little EQ boost around 6kHz+ to add some brightness and to bring the consonants out since they are a bit muffled. you can also add another boost above 10kHz to add some air and sizzle but you need to be careful as boosting too much can get gross. Also keep in mind that anything above 15kHz will be removed by Soundcloud. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You may want to reduce around 250-300Hz to make her less muddy. Adding a wide but slight boost around 1.5kHZ-2kHz will make her more present if she gets buried in the song too much.
Here is an example of what that might look like:
w03A7UE.png

Another tip, just like how you can boost(increase the volume of) the voice around 1.5kHz, you can actually cut (reduce the volume of) the instrumental similarly if you find the song to be a tad too much for the voice to push through. But definitely don't overdo it.

After that you can try to very lightly compress the vocals. Compression isn't that necessary for UTAU voices since the vocals are so flat, but adding a little can still round out the voice, especially after a bunch of other effects. Here is an image that represents a very basic but good base to start with for most UTAU users, Just reduce the threshold slider until the voice is reduced (the red bar) by around -5dB or less.
NkfkyOC.png


Then you'll want to add some reverb or delay so the voice isn't so dry and sitting by itself. It'll also add some stereo width. I suggest adding reverb after the compressor in most cases. Less if more with reverb, too much will make the voice hard to hear.
auxJcUt.png


And this will give you a very basic mix that you can change and build upon. There are many more plugins built in to reaper that you can play with! MDA Pseudo-Stereo is another plugin can be used to add even more width to a track if you want to play around but still keep it simple for the time being.


Note that I can't say exactly what you need to do since I don't have your mix in front of me, they are general suggestions and it's up to you to experiment!
The built in Reaper plugins are very clean (they don't impart their own character) but if you download other plugins you may not find that to be the case, so feel free to experiement and be ready to make a LOT of bad mixes! These are only some very basic things to try.

Good Luck!
 

Ndō

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Reaper is a very usable DAW for mixing, but you perhaps need some more practice to improve your mixing!
Right now it sounds more like the voice is sitting on top of the instrumental rather than being a part of it. It also sounds very unprocessed/dry.

A good trick for checking if the voice is too loud is to turn your speakers (or the master bus/fader) very quiet, the differences in volume will become more apparent. After that you should EQ the voice some.
I suggest not looking at vocaloid/utau specific mixing tutorials since they have very bad advice. You're better off searching how to mix as if it were a real voice since many of the rules are the same.
She sounds like she needs a little EQ boost around 6kHz+ to add some brightness and to bring the consonants out since they are a bit muffled. you can also add another boost above 10kHz to add some air and sizzle but you need to be careful as boosting too much can get gross. Also keep in mind that anything above 15kHz will be removed by Soundcloud. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You may want to reduce around 250-300Hz to make her less muddy. Adding a wide but slight boost around 1.5kHZ-2kHz will make her more present if she gets buried in the song too much.
Here is an example of what that might look like:
w03A7UE.png

Another tip, just like how you can boost(increase the volume of) the voice around 1.5kHz, you can actually cut (reduce the volume of) the instrumental similarly if you find the song to be a tad too much for the voice to push through. But definitely don't overdo it.

After that you can try to very lightly compress the vocals. Compression isn't that necessary for UTAU voices since the vocals are so flat, but adding a little can still round out the voice, especially after a bunch of other effects. Here is an image that represents a very basic but good base to start with for most UTAU users, Just reduce the threshold slider until the voice is reduced (the red bar) by around -5dB or less.
NkfkyOC.png


Then you'll want to add some reverb or delay so the voice isn't so dry and sitting by itself. It'll also add some stereo width. I suggest adding reverb after the compressor in most cases. Less if more with reverb, too much will make the voice hard to hear.
auxJcUt.png


And this will give you a very basic mix that you can change and build upon. There are many more plugins built in to reaper that you can play with! MDA Pseudo-Stereo is another plugin can be used to add even more width to a track if you want to play around but still keep it simple for the time being.


Note that I can't say exactly what you need to do since I don't have your mix in front of me, they are general suggestions and it's up to you to experiment!
The built in Reaper plugins are very clean (they don't impart their own character) but if you download other plugins you may not find that to be the case, so feel free to experiement and be ready to make a LOT of bad mixes! These are only some very basic things to try.

Good Luck!

aaaaaaaaaaa tysmmm for the help, this is actually really helpfujll qwq i might have to get my head around this info because ima complete beginner to reaper but once again, tysmmmm