DOUBLING A LEAD VOCAL

[GTRNSAX]

I'm recording on a Tascam MSR 24 analog tape machine and have read about artificially doubling a vocal by copying it to another track and delaying it by about 7 miliseconds. Can anyone tell me how this is done?

[CyanJaguar]

hi gtrnsax,

I don't know how you can do this, but it might be a better idea to do the lead vocal twice, because an exact copy delayed by 7ms will give you some phasing.

peace

[DavidK]

gtrnsax, you run the track through a digital delay/
effects unit while copying it to a different track.
Do you have an effects box? If so, a Big hall
reverb will fatten the sound a bit.
As Cyan said, doing the lead vocal twice is a better
way to go, the small discrepancies in intonation
is what makes it sound so interesting.

[six]

after my own tests I'd say:

both ways will fatten the vocals, but it will sound way different.
doubling the track with a short delay will create that "bathroom" effect, which might stand out a bit too much (I personally hate it).
doubling the track by singing it twice will sound smoother but you're definitely gonna hear it. it's nice as an effect (adding a bit of the beatles) but something I wouldn't do the whole time to get richer vocals.
the best way to improve the vocals is to sing better - I didn't want to believe it myself too... but it's just very true.

doubling by delay I'd add some different eq to the copied track too - otherwise it might sound REALLY bad.

[John Sayers]

You can create a double using a modulating delay. Set your delay to around 20 - 30 ms and add a touch of modulation to it. The effect here is the Doppler effect.

When a train comes towards you the whistle rises in pitch and then when it goes away from you the pitch appears to drop. Jets planes do the same. When you modulate a vocal (or anything for that matter) the delay is constantly expanding and shortening due to the modulation i.e. it's 5 msec moving to 10 msec. This cause the pitch to change which when put up against the original vocal sounds like another vocal cos it's a different pitch and different time...hence Doubling.

cheers
john

[Shailat]

If you intend to use a delay here are 3 things you can try out.

A slapback with a 35-75ms delay.
It's important you pan them both center. Then bring the delayed track up until it sounds bigger. If it sounds unnatural then you have gone to far.

A delay but not 7ms as you wrote. Try a bit longer delay like 19ms-35ms.
Here, try to pan the source to one side and the delay to another.
This will give you a wide stereo sound (while in Mono if your not carefull can be a disaster).

And last -If you have a delay that can at the same time produce 2 different delays, try a triple delay by having the source in the center and the other two panned to different sides. Keep them low in volume and have one at around 13ms and the other at 29ms.
In general for Back Vox the delay should be shorter while for a full lead vox a longer delay time tends to sound better. Even using a 100ms can work well.

[GTRNSAX]

Hey...Thanks to all you who posted replies to my question...I really appreciate your taking the time to share. Very helpful!