Vocals in production

[Lands]

Hello everyone! I've been making tunes for a while. All of them instrumental, though. I've tried to add some vocals (downloaded some from different sources) but i just can't make them sound like "part of the track".
They just seem as if somebody would be speaking loudly on top of the track.
I'd apreciatte any kind of advice when it comes to working with vocals!
Thank you!

[Tarekith]

Wait, so vocals meant for another song don't sound like they fit when you use them in your song?



Are they in the same key as your track? That's the first thing I would make sure of, will help a lot more than anything else. Make sure they are the same tempo too.

[Nick V]

I use a lot of vocal samples in my tunes and I can tell you they are one of the hardest things to get to sit right. Depending on the vocalist they can fill a very large harmonic range. I usually have to carve a pretty large place for them in the mix. You also have sibilance to worry about. If you are using a sample it may have a de-esser on the vocal already but it may have been turned up too far or not far enough for your mix so I would really listen to the 2–10K range. Sometimes acapellas are also over compressed so using an expander can bring back some of the dynamics.

If you are using live vocals you really need some decent hardware to get them to sound pro - a ribbon mic, good mic pre and smooth (slow) compressor is almost essential. You also may have to worry about vocalist going out of tune depending on their skill level and de-essing. Other than that it helps to use a reverb bus that other elements in your track are using so the vocals sound like they are in the same sonic space.