Huge Queen vocals

N

natmj

New member
Queen's Big Choir Vocals

Queen were great singers and produced some awesome choral vocals by laying tons of vocal tracks on top of each other. (Is this called overdubbing? That seems kinda wrong. Overlaying?)

I'd say the same for Enya, even though I'm not a big fan. My question is how much do you think each individual track was perfected in the studio? I haven't tried this sort of recording myself yet and I'm miles and miles away from my studio for a few more weeks, but I do understand that with overlaid tracks you can hide a lot of individual vocal imperfection.

So if you could break down Enya one track at a time or Queen or any choral band, would the individual tracks sound surprisingly ho-hum or would each track be recorded to perfection since these are big market productions? It seems like perfecting each vocal track would take forever with 10-20 tracks per song. Probably would take a toll on the vocalists too.

Also, did Queen record four vocals at a time or did they blend together a dozen individual tracks?
 
Hey Natmj,

I know that Roy Thomas Baker would have Queen record each note of the vocal harmonies 3 or 4 times. These would then be bounced to one track. The end result would be a 4 note harmony recorded on 4 tracks, with each constituent note comprised of 4 separate takes. Given how good they sound you can bet that they nailed each separate take. It also explains how you can be in the studio everyday for a year just to make one album!

Hope this helps!

Richt
 
Wow

That blows my mind. How on earth do the vocals sound so smooth then? And how did Queen sound live? They must have been a different band on stage than in the studio.
 
Dunno about live (though friends who saw them said that they were great), but keeping the vocals smooth in the studio is mostly the technique of the singers, with a good engineer and ace equipment adding that extra 10%. My suspicion is that the harmony vocals were probably grouped and then a mild compression was added to that group just to keep them under control.

Richt
 
hey

there is a live queen album called "live killers" check it out and see if they pulled it off.sometimes the underrated or not so popular member of the band does the amazing back up vocals.i think that was the requirement for being in queen was that aside from kicking ass on their instrument,they had to be a competent vocalist.

my friend and i would always look at van halen in wonderment and say"why do they keep the "fat"guy playing bass?he doesn't seem to fit in there.but then later another person told me that the fat bass player was the one hitting all the killer high harmonies!

some bands like aerosmith,these days ,especially cause now they're sober and play much better,their songs have harmonies they can't perform live.so,they sometimes have a pre-recorded back up vocal track(i was told that and i don't know how feasible this is,now that i am writing it out.i do know they use the miracle of the digital vocal harmoinizing technology at hand.do you know this thing?it automatically harmonizes to your vocal line,depending on what harmony you program it to.


back up vocals are so underrated.it's annoying sometimes to see one lead singer(in rock a roll)and no back ups in the chorus or anywhere. it's a blast to have back ups,even if you got 4 crappy no tone singers and 1 good singer,it adds so much body,strength,emotion all that good stuff.
 
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