FNLZ Studio Blog · Mixing · 2026-03-29 · 6 min read

Mixing Vocals That Translate on Streaming

Streaming codecs are unforgiving. Vocals that sound silky in your DAW can turn brittle once they're transcoded to AAC or Opus. Here's how to bulletproof them.

Tame Sibilance Early

De-ess before compression, not after. Aggressive compression amplifies sibilance, which then gets exaggerated again by lossy codecs.

Carve, Don't Boost

Cut competing frequencies in instruments instead of boosting the vocal — boosts add energy that streaming compression then squashes.