doubling vocals

lopie

New member
i tryed to fatten a vocal by singing it again (with a good take) but when i listened to it in the car it didn't seem to shine
should i add delay or off set by some ticks or pan differently than both down the center, eq different or simply sing harmonies
i heard professional recording where it seem like there two voices doing the same thing (slight deay though and really big sound)
 
Panning down the center is the problem.. try hard panning them left and right. Don't mess with any effects, the slight variation in two separate performances should allow for the beefiness to come through..

Cy
 
I wouldnt recommend panning hard for a doubling effect but to first make shure its a clean dub if yoour using software then go to your edit screen chop it up in words or phrases line them up but with a very small delay so that its not muddy and its not to tight then pan left or right about 5-10 points 10 bieng the max for a doubling effect it will sound fuller it wont clash it will be clean
 
The best way I know of to get a huge vocal sound is the "whisper track" - Have the vocalist whisper monotonously along with the lead vocal track - TOTAL MONOTONE - No voice box at all - close up, into a condenser (obviously, with a windscreen).

Heavily compress & chorus to taste.

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com
 
Massive Master said:
The best way I know of to get a huge vocal sound is the "whisper track" - Have the vocalist whisper monotonously along with the lead vocal track - TOTAL MONOTONE - No voice box at all - close up, into a condenser (obviously, with a windscreen).

Heavily compress & chorus to taste.

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com
I'm going to try that tonight for sure.
 
You may also try to take the second vocal part and heavily compress it, then pan both center and with the first vocal part up, slowly bring the second (heavily compressed) up until it 'fattens' the vocal without making it muddy. Play with levels to taste. You can also try to pan the second vocal part off just slightly (1-5%) to seperate them just a touch. Putting reverbs with different settings on the different vocal parts is a trick I use to subtly create big vocals with interesting ambience.

Hope this helps some.
 
Using a methods similar to Massives' and Starchs' on verses and hard panned doubling on choruses, seems pretty common in pop music. Singing a part twice, will almost, always sound better than copying and delaying.
 
Query

I noticed on David Bowie's recent album some songs had at least 3 lead vocal overdubs (not harmonies).

Sorry if this sounds silly, but...
When you say 'monotone' whisper, so you mean on the route note of the song (eg if it's in the key of E then you sing an 'E' note) or just no note at all just the whispering effect?
 
<< or just no note at all just the whispering effect? >>

just whisper the vocal part--don't worry about "what note". remember that this won't be what the focus is on when you mix--the focus will be on the well-sung main track(s). since you're compressing the everliving crap out of it (and likely adding some chorus/delay/whatever to taste), all this whisper track is used for is "fattening'.

bring your main vocal track (or tracks) up to level, and then bring the whisper track up just enough that it fattens out the main vocal track, yet making sure that the whisper track is not noticible (or that if it is, you have to listen hard for it).


in all, the whisper trick is a lot like the cowbell trick......bury something deep in the mix that really adds to it but isn't individually discernable in the context of the entire mix. :D



wade
 
thanks -i'm getting closer to a real sound

does any one use delay and if so what is the ballpark for being useful (either on main vocal or doubled track
 
I don't know about delaying. I played around with delaying a copy of a vocal track and all I got was phase problems. The only way I've found of doing it well is to have the person sing the double.
 
starch said:
You may also try to take the second vocal part and heavily compress it, then pan both center and with the first vocal part up, slowly bring the second (heavily compressed) up until it 'fattens' the vocal without making it muddy.

I like this method. It's apparently an old Motown (sp?) trick. Depending on how severely you compress the 2nd track, you might want to boost it in the 5K region as well. The hard part is mixing it low enough to leave the emphasis on the real Lead vocal track. You should be able to mute the doubled track and still make out the vocal fine. Then, when you unmute the doubled track, you notice more of a clarity improvement than a volume increase.

If you listen to some of Sam Cooke's old recordings, the music bed is everybit as loud as the vocal, but you can make out EVERY word. The trick works well by just cloning the track, too.

Personally, b/c of the kind of stuff I usually do (acoustic), I like using the method only on the choruses, especially when backup vocals are used.
 
If the song has background vocals or harmonies, I highly suggest getting another person to sing them. If one person sings all the vocal parts, it sounds stale and boring, much like The Police. For example, If there's a three part harmony, get someone other than the person singing the lead vocal to sing one or even both harmony parts. The key is to give the lead vocals some dimension and this is a good way to enhance it.
 
The original question was about 'fattening' the vocals without losing clarity or introducing a lot of mud (if I understand correctly). There are a lot of great suggestions here to get you going.

lopie, you asked about delay. A lot of people use delay to fatten vocals. If you use a very short delay time (<20ms) and only 1 echo it is called a double. Sort of a synthetic way of creating what singing the part twice would do (sort of). A slightly longer delay time is refered to as a slap back, where you can distinguish the original and then the delay, but they are close together. Then there are longer delay times with one or multiple echoes. All of these will 'fatten' your vocal but in different ways. I would experiment and see if this is the result you are going for.

Also, singing the part three times and panning one track center while the other 2 hard panned (even an effect on the panned tracks can be nice) is another way to fatten things up. There are a ton of ways to acheive your goal, but you will have to experiment to find out which way best fits what you are trying to accomplish.

Good luck
 
I think the easiest and quickest way to do what you're asking is just to re-sing the lead vocal, pan them at 10 and 2 (or something to that effect) and balance the vocals. This gives a nice chorus-y effect since you'll never sing the vocal EXACTLY the same and it will certainly fatten your lead vocal a bit.

I'm a big fan of vox double tracking (probably a little too much so), but that's the quickest and best way to do it without sitting in front of your computer, chopping up the vocals and then making slight changes to each little snippet to make it a little different from the first vocal take.

Good luck...

Dave
 
in hip hop this voice over-ing is known as ad-libbing...

Lopie, I think you should try eq-ing the second phrase to contrast the lead...

what I do is lower the bass like -.5db on the lead and then increase the ad-lib to +5. I also increase the lead's mid's and highs, and then coversly do the opposite on the voice over...

I just started experimenting with this...It definitly is better than just having the adlib say the phrase louder...

I get a pretty "full" sound...I use Cool Edit by the way...
This topic really interests me, I started a thread in the cool edit forum if any one wants to check it out...

Thankx to all...those pan points were cool...Ima try it out..

Hope to be useful Lopie...Good luck man.
 
Pan and stereo-delays might get you where I beleive you´re going. Also the duoubling vocals dosnt have to bee high in volume, just beeing there in the background is often enough.
 
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