Once recording is finished, you need a phase where you choose and organize your takes.

A mixing engineer can do this for you, but if you clean things up even a little on your side, the overall workflow becomes significantly faster and smoother.

1. Choosing Takes & Comping

From the tracks you recorded multiple times, selecting only:

• sections with stable pitch and rhythm
• sections where the expression really works

and stitching them into one main track is called comping.

When comping, it helps to cut by sentence or phrase and check:

• whether the edit feels unnatural when you connect the parts
• whether breathing and line endings feel smooth and believable

If possible, keep your final main vocal as one consolidated track, and save your full takes on separate “archive” tracks. That makes later revisions much easier.

2. Basic Cleanup & Fades

In basic editing, do the following:

• Trim the front and back of each clip with breathing and endings in mind.