Any tips for backing vocals?

Goldilox

Goldilox

New member
I was just trying to put some harmonies on a demo, and although I'm in tune and everything they just sound a bit unconvincing.

I just wondered whether anyone had any performance or recording tips to get those lush sounding harmonies that sit behind the lead vocal on Mumford & Sons, Fleet Foxes and similar at the moment?
 
One thing I do with vocals is send them to a bus. Then when you add reverb, compression etc., add it to the bus so that all harmonies have the same effect,
 
I saw this cool video about this vocal widening trick. Retrack the vocal you want (double it by singing the exact same part). Then create a mono track. Copy the copy to the mono track. Pan one hard left and the other hard right. Then nudge one left and nudge the other right. It sounds really cool.

 
Don't do it yourself. Its really hard to do backing vocals when they sound identical to the lead vocals. Allot of the Ramones songs with harmonies had joey's little brother singing on them.
 
MG Eddie said:
Don't do it yourself. Its really hard to do backing vocals when they sound identical to the lead vocals. Allot of the Ramones songs with harmonies had joey's little brother singing on them.
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Have to say, I've found this to be true. I do my own backing vocals and they work best when the main line is very low and the backing is very high.
When they're in a similar range, it can be hard to make them sit well.

This isn't a one size fits all question, but generally I find myself double tracking the backing, so if there are three parts, I'll have six.
I pan them l+r in pairs to varying degrees; Whatever fits.

I'll send the heap to a bus and eq the mud out. For my voice I usually boost the highs a little too, over the main line.
More often than not I'll squash them to level the volume. (That's the only time I'll use a compressor for that reason)
Then I use a nice verb, long tail for ooohs, short for tighter lyrics.

I've hear a lot of backing vocals that are very warm and full though, so YM definitely MV.
 
If you are going to do the backing vocals yourself, record each pass at a different speed. If you're going to treble track, say, then record one set at maybe a semitone lower than the melody, one a semitone higher [faster] and the other a tone either way. Point being, you can make one person sound like a varied choir by varispeeding.
Personally, I generally get my friends to do backing vocals with me as we have very different voices. I always do them at different speeds {double, treble or quad tracked}, often will put us at different points in relation to the mic for each take {putting someone behind the mic makes for an effective sound} and will use delay on some, different reverbs on others and keep some dry so you get a nice mixture. Some of us will sing high, some low, some with American accents, some with London accents, some with silly accents etc. The point is, when put together, you can hear elements of it all but not to the extent that it overpowers the overall effect of a backing vocal.
 
Bring the lead down the middle, pan the harmonies, give them a bit more air and verb. Also, "wiggle" the vocal verb and do so differently than the instrument verb, i.e., Instruments, 12341234 and vocals 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 in time with the BPM. Or vice versa, or some combination thereof? I put a send on the instruments to the Instrument verb, and a send on the vocals to the vocal verb, and then "move them" in time, but differently. There's a free plug that works well, I'm sure there are others, I use pancake.

Cableguys - Audio Plugins
 
Interesting thread this. I was about to post something similar when I saw it. I struggle with backing vocals/harmonies too. I think that with the likes of Mumford & Sons/Fleet Foxes etc they have the luxury of four or five very proficient singers to contribute vocals and the different vocal tones and ranges they have. Far more straightforward for a number people with different ranges to record harmonies than one person with their own fixed range.

I get a little success with doubling (ie recording another identical take that sits lower in the mix to fatten the sound up) or singing oohs/aaahs etc for backing, but I'm yet to successfully pull off anything involving phrasing that involves a third or a fifth up or down etc. Just not sure it's within my abilities at present. Will experiment with some of the ideas posted here though.
 
monique.bliss10 said:
One of the keys to good backing vocals is learning to blend, so however many vocalists your have it sounds like one voice.Also watch the lips of the lead singer and try to match their starts, stops, phrasing and volume tone.
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Come on, if you're going to pass off other's wisdom as your own, you may as well copy and paste the whole article: 50 Tips – Backing Vocals | Musicademy

...though I suspect this is all about the spamming the link in your signature anyway :spank:

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