Limited Time - Buy 2 Plugins Get 1 Free | Shop Now »

10 Common Problems in Vocal Recording and How You Can Fix Them

Jan 30, 2025

Tackle these ten common issues to make every vocal recording shine. We’ll teach you how to identify each of these audio problems and tackle them in the mix to ensure every vocal you produce can sound its absolute best.

10 Common Problems in Vocal Recording and How You Can Fix Them

Vocal production is a huge subject, which we’ve gone into detail many times across various blogs and videos. Whatever effect, mood, or vibe you’re aiming for, a vocal can’t reach its full creative potential if the original sound isn’t up to scratch. Starting with a strong source is and always will be essential for achieving the best results.

In the past, the only way to remedy a bad vocal recording was to re-record it entirely. In today’s digital world, we can avoid the stress of that as we have a lot of options now to fix recording issues we couldn’t solve before in the mix.

Whether you’re fixing it in the mix or working at the recording stage, here are some troubleshooting tips to help you get great vocals as easily as possible.

There’s Background Noise in The Recording

Microphones pick up everything, and that’s usually a virtue. But, when your microphone picks up more than you bargained for, you might be surprised to hear hiss, buzz, mechanical noise or hum in the background of your recording. Our brains are used to ‘tuning out’ the everyday hums, whirs and noises that are in our environment, but once they’re committed to audio in a DAW, they become very clear.

Fortunately, it’s easy to remove noises like these and leave only a crystal-clear vocal take. Reach for Clarity Vx and let our years of experience in plugin development and AI training make short work of your problem. You can demo Clarity Vx for free to see if it’s the right solution for you – here’s how to give it a try.

The Air Conditioner Was On (or The Fridge, The Computer’s Fan…)

Experienced home recordists know the importance of “going dark” by switching off any noise-producing equipment during a tracking session. This is essential when you’re not working in a professional studio. However, not everyone has access to a perfectly isolated space, and household mechanical or electrical noises can often creep into recordings. The solution is simple: use Clarity Vx. Just select the Singing Neural Network and increase the processing until the unwanted noise is gone.

The Volume Levels Are Inconsistent

If you have this problem, you’re not alone – it’s a challenge that’s been faced by generations of music producers and sound engineers before you. Inconsistent vocal volume levels happen for a reason: the singer’s volume itself fluctuates as the song goes on and the emotional needs change.

Fortunately, there are many tools available that’ll solve this problem.

Waves Vocal Rider being applied in a DAW to a vocal track with volume level fluctuations
Add Vocal Rider to a raw vocal take to instantly make it sound more under control and in focus

In the past, engineers relied on tools like compressors to keep vocal recordings at a consistent level. While solutions like our CLA-2A, in which the original hardware this plugin was based upon was designed to tackle this purpose, modern digital tools like Vocal Rider (above) have given us a different option that can sound way more transparent. This plugin makes it effortless to smooth out uneven vocals. Simply add Vocal Rider early in your vocal channel, set the target level, and let it do the work for you!

The Singer Sang Out of Tune

Another problem that isn’t the showstopper it once was is out-of-tune vocals. Which for many decades can easily be fixed without little fuss using plugins such as Waves Tune or Waves Tune Real Time. Both plugins let you retune specific words or a whole vocal take so that each note is spot-on.

For more natural results, you can reduce the processing amount so that correction is applied but not too ‘perfectly’. Or if you want to send things intentionally haywire, you can push the correction Speed to make those robotic pitch-changing effects.

It was Recorded Through a Cheap Microphone

We don’t always have access to the most ideal equipment, especially when we’re starting out in production, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t get a great result. Ideally, vocals should always be recorded with the best gear you have, and from there you sweeten what you’ve recorded with plugins to mix the best vocals you can.

Watch the video below to see how a handful of plugins can transform the quality of a vocal recorded with a $40 dollar mic.

As you can hear, with the right processing choices, even a budget mic can still give you professional results.

It Just Doesn’t Have That ‘X Factor’

Perhaps the performance you’re dealing with is uninspiring. Perhaps it brings to mind too many other songs. Maybe it's “just not giving my mix 110%”.

Assuming that re-recording the part in a different way isn’t an option, it might be time to try a creative effect.

An amazing performance isn’t the only thing that can give a vocal prominence in a track. For every I Will Always Love You, there’s an Around The World to match.

To inspire your next creative effect, try out Waves Harmony to create tuned copies of the voice, Space Rider to provide an out-of-this-world, textured effect, or OVox for wild vocal resynthesis.

You Can Hear the Sound or Echoes of The Room

There’s a reason that music studios go to such great lengths to treat their rooms. All those acoustic panels, reflectors and absorbers are there to control ambient sound reflections. Any room that’s not a studio is very likely to sound bad, unless you’ve taken deliberate steps to treat a room at home for music production.

It’s not always practical to treat a room for the sake of one recording, and it may not be possible to replace a badly recorded vocal part that you’re given. When this is the case, you might be surprised at the results available from Clarity Vx DeReverb, which was built specifically to remove excessive reverb and room sound from vocals.

It Sounds Too Hissy or Lispy

Sibilance refers to the “S” and “Sh” sounds in speech that can become overly harsh and grating, especially in close-miked vocal performances or when heavy compression is applied.

To manage harshness in vocals, you have a few options. One approach is to use EQ to notch down the harsh frequencies, though this can unintentionally alter the overall tone of your vocal. Another option is to use a De-Esser, a tool specifically designed to target sibilance without affecting other parts of the vocal. While De-Essers are effective, they too can impact vocal tone if overused.

Fortunately, technology is advancing, providing more refined solutions for these challenges. That’s why we developed Curves Equator—a smart resonance suppression plugin that listens to your track, identifies problem areas like strong sibilance, and offers a transparent way to treat them in seconds.

Watch the video below to hear Equator in action on vocals.

You Can Hear Rumble or Plosives

These might just be two of the oldest pieces of vocal recording advice in the book, and both are for dealing with very low-frequency sounds.

First, make sure the vertical pole of your microphone stand isn’t touching the floor, as it will be more likely to transmit vibrations of footsteps and other movements from there. Your stand’s feet are clad in rubber to stop this, but the central pole, which can usually move downward to help with dismantling, is not. For similar reasons, you should be careful of microphone stands that are attached to desks.

A microphone stand properly set up – the central vertical pole is not in contact with the floor, but the three feet are.
Photo by Yan Krukau

The second piece of basic recording advice? Use a pop shield. As you may have heard in public address systems, a bad recording setup can cause the “P” sounds to be too strong. And, to music producers, prevalent P sounds are known as plosives. Plosives can get problematic as the burst of low-frequency energy is very obvious when played back. A pop shield stops any overly strong ‘gusts’ of air from a singer’s mouth from hitting the microphone with full force, reducing low-frequency plosive problems.

But what if your recording has been made and can’t be changed? How can you fix plosives in the mix? Usually your best bet is by using a high-pass filter, set above the lowest frequencies but below the lowest frequency where the voice recording contains energy.

Waves Q10 in a DAW removing low-frequency plosive sounds recorded through a microphone alongside a vocal performance.

There’s Distortion or Clipping

Another hallmark problem of vocal recordings. If the vocal was too loud for the capability of the recording system, the peaks of the audio waveforms will have been lost, and these overloads will be heard as distortion to the signal.

Out of all the typical problems you may face in vocal recording this one would really benefit from you choosing to re-record instead of fixing in the mix. To avoid this altogether, make sure your input level isn’t too loud and you may also need to move the singer back off the microphone a little. If, however, you don’t have the ability to re-record a clipped take, try to improve matters using Clarity Vx Pro. The plugin wasn’t specifically designed for removing distortion, but it’s worth giving it a free trial in your DAW to see what help it can be.


More Production Advice

For more advice on music production, including useful tips on compression, EQ and vocal processing, check out the Waves Blog or get regular doses of educational material in your inbox by signing up to the Waves Newsletter.

Loading....