Handy vocal mixing "trick".

[Ford Van]

I have had a few people ask me how a certain "effect" was done on some vocals that I mixed. Basically, it is a little "sweetener/widener" type of effect, sort of like chorus, but without the same "obvious" pitch and warble artifacts.

I used to get that effect with the Dual Shift preset on a Eventide H3000. Since going into the box, I sort of forgot about it. But this morning, noisedude asked how I got that effect, and I told him he needed a $1200 box (used!) to get it! LOL He was a bit disappointed. But, I figured there SHOULD be a way to get it on the computer, so I set out to see what I could do.

Mind you, this is a very subtle effect, and it isn't the right thing for ALL vocal tracks. I take no responsiblity if you use this on an opera singer that paid you a dozen cookies to mixer her recital!

So, what is this "effect"? Simply, it is a stereo effect that pitch shifts one channel up 12 cents, and pitch shifts the other other channel down 12 cents, then uses a delay of about 25ms. The effect, again, is very much like a chorus, but not quite as obvious.

To do this effect, I used Sonar 5. But, just about any quality application should have similar functions available. Basically, you only need a Pitch Shift function, and a Delay. I did have some versions I did with the Sony (Vegas) Pitch Shift plugin, but decided to use the stock Sonar 5 effect.

Here are the steps to make it.

1 - Copy your lead vocal track twice and make two new tracks.
2 - Pan one track hard left, and one hard right.
3 - Insert a delay set to 25ms, with no feedback (repeats) on each track. Instead, you could assign both tracks to a stereo subgroup and insert a delay on the subgroup (this is what I did).
4 - Pitch shift one track UP 12 cents (this would be .12 semitones).
5 - Pitch shift the other track DOWN 12 cents (this would be -.12 semitones)

I mention the .12 because some pitch shifters go by semitones instead of cents (the Cakewalk one goes by semitones, but the Sony product went be cents). 100 cents equals a semitone.
Sorry, I am making a big deal about this, but it is important that you get the pitch setting right! A 12 semitone change would not be so good!

Simply, you are done. Mix to taste! I usually start out with the subgroup volume all the way down, then increase it's volume until I can JUST detect it's effect on the vocal. NO MORE THAN THAT, otherwise, the effect will get a bit squirly.

One thing you may notice is that the lower frequencies on the voice might start to get a bit "cloudy". To fix this, simply insert a high pass filter before the delay, and set it to at least 400Hz, maybe even higher. The higher you go, the more translucent the effect becomes.

Another little trick is to send the effected signal to a reverb (I did that in these examples).

Vola! You have a nice little effect that will sweeten and seem to "widen" the lead vocal. The lead vocal will just seem to sit over the mix a bit better, and not sound so "plain", yet, you don't have an obvious effect either! Many people will just not quite know what is cool about the vocal, just that something is.

Here are some audio examples. These are via the "Export>Audio" function via Sonar 5. I left these as .wav files so as not to have the effect mucked up in any way by mp3 compression. The "mixes" were increased by 4dB via the L3, and dithered from 32 bit float to 16 bit using UV22 HR via Wavelabs.

Here is the vocal, with no pitch effect.

http://www.phoenixlightandsound.com/...itch/GEVox.wav

Here is the vocal with the Dual Shift effect, but the effect is about 5dB louder than I intend to use it.

http://www.phoenixlightandsound.com/...iftObvious.wav

Here is the vocal with the Dual Shift at the intended volume.

http://www.phoenixlightandsound.com/...xDualShift.wav

Here is the mix with NO Dual Shift.

http://www.phoenixlightandsound.com/...itch/GEMix.wav

Here is the mix WITH Dual Shift.

http://www.phoenixlightandsound.com/...xDualShift.wav

To tell you the truth, I would have probably did this mix quite different if I was going to use this effect. I basically just called this mix up and added the effect just to see what it would do to it. So, this may not be the best place to use the effect, but it was a good song to show how the effect will effect the vocal, even if it might be a bit inapproapriate.

Enjoy!

[NL5]

Ed, that is badass - simple, but something you wouldn't just "experiment" and figure out.

Thank you!

[Ford Van]

I think the Eventide version has a bit more "character" to it, but this seems to work alright!

[MadAudio]

Cool technique. Thanks, Ford.

[NL5]

Well, I just tried it - couldn't be easier, and it sounds fricken fantastic!

[LemonTree]

nice trick that I've used in the past too but my preference it to just double track. It's the anomolies between the takes that make them sound less processed while standing out more....and a bit cheaper that a $1200 box.

Also, personal taste but I didn't pan hard when I used this method YMMV

oh...and the lexi mpx100 does some nice stereo pitch + delay patches for a lot less that the H3000

Something else I hear in a lot of music these days is a vocal being copied to a seperate track and wrung through an autotune then that being brought up under the main vocal

[Dogman]

Interesting stuff, Ed. i'm gonna try it on one of my tracks later. Can't hurt, but I don't sing as well as the girl.
She has a pretty voice.
Thanks, man.

[Ford Van]

Totally different effect LemonTree. I have used that too. Not even close to the same (doubled track and autotune track)
Also, I have not found another "box" that sound even remotely as good as the H3000 for this effect.

[NL5]

Originally Posted by Ford Van

Also, I have not found another "box" that sound even remotely as good as the H3000 for this effect.

What about the Eclipse?

[djclueveli]

how do you do this without making the vocals phase when switched to mono because i did this and when i checked it in mono it phased.

[Ford Van]

Haven't used it. You can try it if it will do dual pitch shifting and delay at the same time.

[LemonTree]

Originally Posted by Ford Van

Totally different effect LemonTree. I have used that too. Not even close to the same (doubled track and autotune track)
Also, I have not found another "box" that sound even remotely as good as the H3000 for this effect.

I wasn't suggesting it was the same effect, just pointing out it was another vocal fattening trick that's in every day use out there. Seemed like a good thread to post it in at the time. There's also the copy and smash the life out of with compression and hit with the lo pass and bring it right in behind to fill out a shakey vocal with less than a 25ms delay that the brain isn't fast enough to pick up on, doesn't give the width but sounds totaly unprocessed unless you're REALLY listening for it.

I like your trick ED, wasn't trying to take anything away from it. Sounds good on the clips posted.

[Ford Van]

Sorry. Just had some guys at another BBS sort of suggest that you could do this "trick" with the other tricks you mentioned.

The regular ol' "double sing it", and "autotune the hell out of one and combine them", and "mash the hell out of one and combine them" stuff has been covered a LOT. I just haven't seen a lot of talk about cool "widening" and "sweetening" effects like this except for people suggesting chorus, which still doesn't quite sound the same.

[LemonTree]

Sorry about that, didn't know you'd had a bashing.

Tell you what I did do once with the chorus thing on some backing vocals. One track of them that I put an old Ibanez BC9 Bi-Chorus guitar stomp box on the insert of the channel and set both channels to the same width with different speeds and ran one back into the channel and the other to a seperate channel via the line in and panned them at 10 and 2 o'clock. Sounded really effected but it fit well with the style at the time. Still got that box somewhere, I'll need to dig it out again.

Any more cool tricks? I like this thread

[Hi_Flyer]

one thing I'm unclear on... Is the delayed signal like 50% wet/dry or is it just wet (just the delay- like if you copied a track and bumped it back 25ms)?

[Ford Van]

delayed signal is 100% wet

[Garik]

Ford i love you man!!! i've been looking for a way to do that,and bam!here u are.

Even though i hate ford cars

[RAMI]

As long as we're asking for other "tricks", I'll post this. This might be old hat to some of you more experienced guys, but I think it's really cool. The whole article is really good, but especially the 4th paragraph called "The Motown 1960's Exciting Compressor".

RIGHT HERE

[NL5]

Originally Posted by RAMI

As long as we're asking for other "tricks", I'll post this. This might be old hat to some of you more experienced guys, but I think it's really cool. The whole article is really good, but especially the 4th paragraph called "The Motown 1960's Exciting Compressor".

RIGHT HERE

Basically parralell compresion, right? Good tip as well.

[LemonTree]

That Motown technique is the exact opposite of the London technique used around the same time in the sixties.

As I mentioned above about the lowpass, the motown version put a high pass on the compressed channel.

If anyone has read Behind The Glass by Howard Massey (if not, seek it out) you'll know back then just by listening to a mix you could tell if it came from London, or east or west coast america. Different compression techniques, diferent EQ styles...the brittish boards had the 4 band EQ with 2 mid sweeps...

With the internet the world has become a village, we're all incorporating a bit of everything we hear from all over the globe

[Giant_Kyle]

ole girl can sing.

I've got a question for you. There's a song by Imogen Heap called Hide and Seek. What did she do to her voice there???

Check it Here!

[Garik]

That sounds like a vocoder

[David Katauskas]

Ford Van, thanks for the info. I just tried that techinique on a few tunes that I'm working on. It really sounds great on one of them...as you said, it's not for everything.

[Ford Van]

Yeah, I find that it really isn't that great on a vocal that needs an "intimate" feel.

In rock songs, it can be pretty nice.

You can warp this effect even farther with a bit more delay and more pitch shift and get that Ozzy Osborne type of vocal effect.

[ikon]

4 - Pitch shift one track UP 12 cents (this would be .12 semitones).
5 - Pitch shift the other track DOWN 12 cents (this would be -.12 semitones)

I mention the .12 because some pitch shifters go by semitones instead of cents (the Cakewalk one goes by semitones, but the Sony product went be cents). 100 cents equals a semitone.
Sorry, I am making a big deal about this, but it is important that you get the pitch setting right! A 12 semitone change would not be so good!

if i was using adobe audition where would i do this?