ABSTRACT
This chapter examines an overview of existing findings on vocal clarity in music mixes. It presents findings stemming from scientific studies alongside creative concepts. An interdisciplinary approach is likely to lead to a nuanced and broad understanding of vocal clarity. When mixing engineers and producers describe how a specific vocal sound is achieved, they usually quote the equipment used, their process chain, their creative influences and anecdotes surrounding their creative process. Since most of the references for vocals were related to overall quality, rather than clarity specifically, vocal quality was also investigated. The importance of vocal clarity in music mixes is widely agreed on, but currently there is no formally proven basis of the factors that this depends on. While certain aspects of vocal clarity may be context dependent, it appears that acoustic parameters exist that all clear vocals have in common.
