The issue is that if the track is exceedingly dense, there is no room for the vocal. After a certain point, loudness can only be achieved by increasing the density of the record, rather than the volume. The challenge here is that loudness isn’t as simple as turning the level up. The InstrumentalĪ pre-mixed instrumental is probably somewhat compressed (or, sometimes highly compressed). Because Hip Hop producers mix their tracks with this intention, there’s a unique set of skills that comes into play for throwing vocals into the mix. On rare occasion that vocal and instrumental would be released as the actual song. In Hip Hop, this is fairly common, and comes with the intention of the combined vocal and instrumental being the final release.
The idea of recording vocals to a mixed down instrumental has been around for decades.
Mixing vocals to pre-mixed instrumental is an issue that just about every engineer will encounter.
