5 Myths About Vocal Mixing
What Can Be Fixed in Mixing, and What Cannot?

Mixing is a crucial stage in the music production process. It allows different instruments and sounds to be combined into one cohesive and harmonious sonic picture with high-quality sound. However, there are many myths and misconceptions surrounding this process.

A lot of people believe that absolutely any flaw in a track can be fixed during mixing. To some extent this is true—but in reality, many issues can only be corrected partially, and some cannot be fixed at all. Let’s break down what aspects of a vocal performance can be corrected in mixing, and what even the best engineers cannot change.

Table of Contents

• Myth 1 — You Can Remove All Noise From a Recording
• Myth 2 — You Can Turn a Phone Recording Into Studio Quality
• Myth 3 — You Can Fix Absolutely Any Vocal Performance
• Myth 4 — You Can Easily Change the Key and Tempo of a Backing Track
• Myth 5 — You Can Create High-Quality Backing and Double Vocals From a Single Vocal Track
• Conclusion

When recording in a room with poor acoustic treatment and soundproofing—or with low-quality equipment—the result can be very “dirty.”

There are tools designed to reduce or remove noise and unwanted artifacts (such as spectral denoisers and noise gates). These can significantly improve the quality of a recording—but only if the noise is not too dominant.

If the noise level is very high, it cannot be removed completely. This is because noise frequencies often overlap with useful signal frequencies. Removing the noise also removes part of the vocal, making it sound unnatural and introducing unpleasant artifacts.
While this might be less noticeable in dense, busy sections of a mix, it will almost always be obvious in quieter passages. This is why you should not rely too heavily on noise reduction tools.

Audio processing technology has reached impressive levels—but not enough to turn a smartphone or dictaphone recording into professional studio quality.

The reason is simple: phone microphones are designed differently than condenser or tube studio microphones. They are built to capture speech intelligibly, nothing more. They do not capture the low frequencies that give depth, or the high frequencies that give brightness and openness to the voice.

Processing can artificially add some of these missing frequencies, but the result will never sound like a real studio recording where those frequencies were present from the start.
Such recordings might work for a demo or rehearsal reference—but they cannot replace a proper studio session.

A very common misconception among people outside audio engineering is the belief that you can sing however you like, and everything will be fixed in mixing. Unfortunately, this is far from true.

• Small errors (slight pitch or timing issues) can be corrected without major problems.
• Severe mistakes (off-key singing, poor rhythm) can technically be corrected, but the results often sound heavily processed and unnatural.

Higher-resolution recordings (88, 96, or 192 kHz) tend to allow for more accurate correction, as the sound is digitized more precisely. Sadly, most studios overlook this detail and record at 44.1 or 48 kHz, limiting the quality of corrections.

Also, perfect pitch is not the only requirement for a good vocal. Performance and character are just as important. If a song requires energy and expressiveness, but the singer delivers it weakly and without feeling, no amount of pitch correction will make it sound powerful.

If you have a multitrack backing track, changing the key by a few semitones is usually possible without major issues, since only pitched instruments need to be transposed. Non-pitched elements (like drums or effects) remain unaffected.

However, if the backing track exists only as a single mixed file, changing the key can drastically reduce sound quality. Drums in particular lose their punch and detail, and other instruments may also degrade.

Changing both key and tempo in online services often sounds especially poor, since they typically use simplified processing algorithms.

By contrast, professional studio software usually handles such tasks much better, as it is designed for high-quality audio processing.

Sometimes only one vocal track is recorded, which can sound too plain and lack texture. Double and backing vocals add depth and richness, so the question arises: can they be created artificially from one vocal line?

Modern software allows duplication of a vocal track—but this alone doesn’t solve the problem.
For true thickness and texture, backing and double vocals need variation from the lead vocal. If you simply duplicate the track, the only result is louder volume.

Processing the duplicate differently (with EQ, reverb, pitch shifting, etc.) can help a little, but it will never sound like real separate takes.

When doubles and backing vocals are actually recorded, the singer naturally introduces slight differences in tone, timing, dynamics, and expression. Even after correction, these subtle differences remain—and they are what create the desired richness and fullness.

In this article, we looked at some of the most common myths and misconceptions about vocal mixing. Of course, every case is unique—sometimes an acceptable result can be achieved during mixing, while in other cases re-recording is the only real solution.

The key is always to strive for the best possible quality at the recording stage. But remember: even a technically imperfect recording with a strong idea will always be better than a technically perfect track with a weak concept.