Open your preferred DAW program, such as Adobe Audition or Pro Tools. The most recently edited session opens automatically. If this isn't the right session, click "File" and "Open Recent," click on the correct session.
Click "File" and select "New Audio Track." Name the track "vocal sub mix."
Click on "vocal sub mix" and select "Send To." From the drop-down menu, click on "Bus 1," or the first available stereo bus channel. This routes the currently empty audio track to a stereo bus.
Click on each vocal track in the mix, click "Send To" and select "vocal sub mix."
Click on "Vocal sub mix" and select "Export as Wav." This renders the collective audio as one track.
Open a new session, click "Import" and select "vocal sub mix" to create a mastering session with just the vocals.
Click "Effects" and select the compressor. Depending on which software you use, the compressor may have a brand name, for example in Sony Soundforge the compressor is called "Wave Hammer (See References 3)." This opens up a vocal wave graphic that you can manipulate by adjusting the compressor parameters. Compression tempers the dynamic range of an audio track by cutting the peaks and boosting the lows, to create a more even and stable track. Visually, this is represented by a vocal wave with less prominent "spikes" and a generally more consistent peak to base line ratio.
Adjust the "Threshold" and "Ratio" dials on the compressor to tweak the parameters to your preference.
Click "Tools" and select the equalizer, or "EQ," again this may have its own name. The equalizer affects frequency bands as the compressor does volume. The equalizer, however, offers you more control over individual bands. Once open, the EQ interface presents the vocal waves on a grid. The horizontal axis represents the frequency band and vertical axis represents the gain, or strength of that band. Underneath are a series of slider dials.
Adjust the slider dials to tweak the strength of the various frequencies. Typically you should remove some of the bottom frequencies from grouped vocals (See References 4).