If your vocal sounds plastered on, like the music is in the background and the vocal sits on top, then here's a quick tip to fix that.

Whenever something is sitting in the way of the vocal, if you do a a wide cut from about 900 - 3 kHz in the instrument that's in the way of the vocal it will create a "pocket" for the vocal to sit in.

You may not be thinking about this frequency area when you're trying to make your vocals sit with the rest of the instrument, and that's why your mix sounds disjointed and your vocals don't glue into the mix as well as they should.

Don't cut too much because you don't want to ruin the frequency response of the instrument that's in the way. 

You just want enough of a cut for the vocal to pop down and sit snugly with the rest of the tracks. You can always make your instruments poke out of the mix somewhere else.

If you'd like more EQ tips to make your mixes leap out of the speakers, and a handy EQ plug-in to make your mixing effortless and easy, check out the Audio Issues EQ and Your Ultimate Guide to EQ here.