I hear voices (doubled ones)

[cordura21]

Before coming to this BBS I really thought the only song in the world with the voice doubled was "Can't buy me love".
But now that I know, I am hearing doubled voices everywhere. From Roxy Music to Depeche and whatwever.
Is it that common, or is it a technique that belong more to the past records, and now it is used sparingly?
Do you think 'mainstream' records, like Creed or System of a Down, or No doubt, etc use them?

Cheers, Andrés

[Robert D]

Hi - Good question. My guess is that it's still used quite a bit, but that we don't hear it as much as on the old records. That would be because we now have digital editing. Anyplace where the dubbled vox is audibly out of time with the main vox, we can slice and dice, and bring it right in time where you can't hear it. They even have tools now to automatically do this. I don't recall the product name, but it was developed for film work, to automaticly align the soundstage audio with the camera audio. Should work well for voc dubs. Anyway, I do it by hand, or by mouse as it were, and then keep the fader down on the dub, and it enhances the main vocal without being audible to the point of picking it out as doubled.
Cheers, RD

[octoruss]

It does still happen alot, but Robert is right. With the advent of digital editing, the doubling is usually the initial vocal track just milliseconds aftre the first one, so the nuances and vagaries of the 60s and 70s doubled tracks seem less obvious. In fact, it is quite common to quadruple vocal tracks (especially harmonies) for that "Wall of Sound" sound.
Personally, I like the natural differences of doubling live, at least on certain lines of a song to add extra indiscreet "oomph".