Vocal mixing, especially harmonies

  • Thread starter Thread starter jaja714
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Vocals in headphones ALWAYS sound different than speakers. Mixing with headphones can be done, but it is difficult - you have to learn how the speaker sound differs and adjust your headphone mixing accordingly. (in other words, make it sound 'weird' on headphones to sound good on speakers).
 
"Yes it is" is pretty badly out of tune but other than that I don't hear a tremendous difference between old and new.
"Ticket to ride" sounds like it would fit in just fine with the rest, in my opinion.

Having said that, all of the tracks sound like there's a like of highs in the vocal (esses like you've got a cold), and they all sound muddier than I'd like.

Having hear the clips, I'm not really sure what you're chasing.
Out of interest, are these backing tracks you've got from somewhere?
 
I'm doing all of the vocals you hear. Every ooh and ahh, lead and backup and harmony. Every voice. The "esses" you are hearing are attempts to recreate John and George's accent. I didn't do it on purpose but I tend to sing it like I hear it if that makes any sense.

Yes It Is is especially tricky (Yes It Is - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and many of the chords The Beatles sing here are not tonically intuitive. It was even tricky for The Beatles as they spent more time on this track than any other track in their early years (according to legend). Listen to The Beatles version, The Beatles - Yes It Is (2009 Stereo Remaster) - YouTube, and you'll see what I'm after. Remember, this is the "remastered" version from 2009!

Because I am singing to an instrumental take (take #9) recorded by The Beatles that day (2/16/65), there is a great deal of hiss which is fine with me becasue even that "remastered" version has it too.

So, perhaps most of the muddiness is intentional?

:yawn:

Oops, I am off on a tangent. Regardless of whether or not I sang the vocals correctly, did you notice how it sounds different in headphones as opposed to speakers. How can I get that headphone mix onto the speakers?
 
You do realize that your headphones would have a unique sound characteristic, right - not every headphone set sounds the same. IF you want the 'same sound' you hear in your headphones in the speakers, you have to keep tweaking until you get it.
 
mjbphotos said:
Vocals in headphones ALWAYS sound different than speakers. Mixing with headphones can be done, but it is difficult - you have to learn how the speaker sound differs and adjust your headphone mixing accordingly. (in other words, make it sound 'weird' on headphones to sound good on speakers).
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Though I agree that mixing with headphones is difficult (and, for me, impossible), I've noticed that, since I've started mixing with monitors, my mixes not only sound better on speakers, but on headphones, too. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm quite happy about it. :)
 
Steenamaroo said:
"Yes it is" is pretty badly out of tune but other than that I don't hear a tremendous difference between old and new.
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I noticed the out-of-tuneness, too -- the vocals sound a little flat (or, alternatively, the instruments sound a little sharp). Other than that, I don't hear much difference between the two versions. Disclaimer: I'm listening at work, so I have to keep the volume on the low side and my speakers, while okay, are hardly monitor quality.
 
jaja714 said:
Further, applying reverb to a dry vocal takes a long time as it involves track duplication and then a lot of trial and error.
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Wait....what? What track duplication? Why would you need to do that? Just apply the reverb to the vocals as a group. No "duplication" needed, no matter what DAW you're using.

And as far as "duplicating" is concerned, you mentioned something earlier about someone duplicating their tracks. If you're doing this, I hope you mean you're actually singing the same part twice. If you're just actually copying and pasting a track to make it "duplicated", you haven't accomplished anything other than making one track louder and cluttering up your track list.
 
RAMI said:
Wait....what? What track duplication? Why would you need to do that? Just apply the reverb to the vocals as a group. No "duplication" needed, no matter what DAW you're using.
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The primary reason I employ duplication is simply to make sure I keep a backup of the original without vocal effects.

Sometimes, though, I use duplication to recreate the classic Beatle slap-back echo by adding 4ms to the duplicated version and then lowering the gain on that duplicated version.

Most of the time, though, I apply full reverb to the duplicate. then, when I playback with both the original and the full-reverb duplicate, I can adjust the gain of that full-reverb duplicate to play around with how much reverb I actually want. That is actually how the hardware does it.

Anyway, all that effort above was more trouble than it was worth. I spent more time doing and undoing different vocal effects that I was losing sleep. Now that I am using the hardware directly in the original, I have yet to regret it ... so far. Never say never, right?
 
PTravel said:
I noticed the out-of-tuneness, too -- the vocals sound a little flat (or, alternatively, the instruments sound a little sharp). Other than that, I don't hear much difference between the two versions. Disclaimer: I'm listening at work, so I have to keep the volume on the low side and my speakers, while okay, are hardly monitor quality.
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Cool, you are hearing what I am hearing ... "out-of-tuneness" at low volume on speakers. I wondering if I really am out-of-tune on this song ... because of my headphone mix when I am recording. Notice that the "out-of-tuneness" is consistent throughout the song. It always sounds "out-of-tune" in the exact same places and the exact same way.

FYI: I am certain that The Beatles were tuned down for this although I have no documentation to that effect. All I know is that, when I play keyboard along with The Beatles instrumental, my keyboard sounds out-of-tune. Yes It Is is a very difficult track. Galeazzo Frudua claims that this is the most difficult and complicated harmony in The Beatles catalogue.
 
jaja714 said:
The primary reason I employ duplication is simply to make sure I keep a backup of the original without vocal effects.

Sometimes, though, I use duplication to recreate the classic Beatle slap-back echo by adding 4ms to the duplicated version and then lowering the gain on that duplicated version.

Most of the time, though, I apply full reverb to the duplicate. then, when I playback with both the original and the full-reverb duplicate, I can adjust the gain of that full-reverb duplicate to play around with how much reverb I actually want. That is actually how the hardware does it.

Anyway, all that effort above was more trouble than it was worth. I spent more time doing and undoing different vocal effects that I was losing sleep. Now that I am using the hardware directly in the original, I have yet to regret it ... so far. Never say never, right?
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Have you ever tried simply adding a send reverb to the whole vocal mix???? That's really how it's done 99.9% of the time. No wonder you're losing sleep doing it the way you're doing it.


Anyway, if you say it works for you, then it works for you. Good luck.
 
jaja714 said:
I wondering if I really am out-of-tune on this song ...
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I'm not being blunt for the sake of it, but you're consistently out of tune on this song.
I'm saying this just incase this is the root of the whole problem.

It stands out to me because your harmonies are impeccable on other tracks. You're obviously more than capable.
 
RAMI said:
Have you ever tried simply adding a send reverb to the whole vocal mix???? That's really how it's done 99.9% of the time. No wonder you're losing sleep doing it the way you're doing it.


Anyway, if you say it works for you, then it works for you. Good luck.
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He is trying to mix in Audacity. FYI. I think most of the problem is he is trying to hammer with a shoe. It might work, but pretty hard.
 
DM60 said:
He is trying to mix in Audacity. FYI. I think most of the problem is he is trying to hammer with a shoe. It might work, but pretty hard.
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Yeah, I can understand someone wanting stick with what they're comfortable with. But in this case, it just seems ridiculously complicated to do something that's one of the simplest things to do in most DAW's.

Anyway, I'm not putting him down. Most of his Beatles tunes he did a great job on. The only one that sticks out as being really off vocal-wise is "Yes It Is".
 
Steenamaroo/PTravel, then you are noticing the same "out-of-tuneness" I am noticing on the speakers. If you listen with headphones, does the "out-of-tuneness" seem to go away?

I cannot stress how tricky this song is. When I play my keyboard along with the instrumental, the keyboard sounds out of tune. While I cannot find any documentation on this, perhaps The Beatles tuned their instruments off differently for this recording?
 
jaja714 said:
Steenamaroo/PTravel, then you are noticing the same "out-of-tuneness" I am noticing on the speakers. If you listen with headphones, does the "out-of-tuneness" seem to go away?
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No...off is off....it's off.

I cannot stress how tricky this song is. When I play my keyboard along with the instrumental, the keyboard sounds out of tune. While I cannot find any documentation on this, perhaps The Beatles tuned their instruments off differently for this recording?
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So maybe they de-tuned for some reason. You've either got to find a way to de-tune your keyboard while learning the parts, or simply learn it in the key they ended up in. Whether they de-tuned or not, you still have to sing relative to the tuning of the Karoake track you're singing to.
 
RAMI said:
Anyway, I'm not putting him down. Most of his Beatles tunes he did a great job on. The only one that sticks out as being really off vocal-wise is "Yes It Is".
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Thank you for the compliment on the other songs but I had some problems with a few of them as well. For example, parts of With A Little Help From My Friends and I Saw Her Standing There also sound "funny" on speakers. Anyway, those problems are small compared to "Yes It Is".

I'm starting to wonder if my headphone mix is too muddy during those tricky parts for me to stay in tune and that, because Yes It Is is so much trickier, the pitch problems stand out more. When I prepare my mix for headphones, I turn the accompaniment volume (instrumentals and previous vocal tracks) to 50% so that I can monitor the current track better. Does anyone have some tips for how to better prepare "what I hear" when I'm recording?
 
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