doubling your voice in a song

[robstar23]

hey yall. i had a question about doubling your voice when recording a song. for example, you know when jay-z or lupe might double their voice or something on a line to emphasize it, does anyone know how to do this? i use adobe audition 1.5 (cooledit) and i cant seem to make it work just right. how do you mix the voices and how do you set the volumes and how do you pan it? (if thats what you have to do) obviously it wont be on the same level of quality, but i'm trying to at least get the same effect that they do... where you can hear the main flow plus the background rapping/talking clearly without any distortion. thanks in advance

 

[get2sammyb]

Double up the vocal you want to do... maybe put two doubles of it one to the left and one to the right. Slightly offset them (maybe - but only SLIGHTLY).

You could also try bringing the pitch up or down an octave to create a harmony.

 

[dirtyp]

When panning do you leave them the same volume.

 

[studiomaster]

Double up the vocal you want to do... maybe put two doubles of it one to the left and one to the right. Slightly offset them (maybe - but only SLIGHTLY).

You could also try bringing the pitch up or down an octave to create a harmony.

Yup...I use Melodyne to do this...makes life so much easier cause you can actually see what key you would be singing on.

 

[studiomaster]

When panning do you leave them the same volume.

Yeah, leave the volume. Panning and volume are two different things.
However, if your volume for the left channel outsounds the right channel(or vice versa), it actually sounds cool. sort of like a stereo effect.

 

[Myriad_Rocker]

I would say that you have to leave the volume the same. If you think the effect is too much, you can decrease the volume of the doubled track(s) to get the desired effect. Play around with it as much as you can. Try as many things as you can think of.

Also, on vocal doubles...it's more crucial to get them spot on with the original as oppose to say, guitars.

 

[Sloan]

Always turn reverb all the way up, no matter what.

 

[cephus]

I'd just record a few to several takes of the lead vocal and use the volume envelope control to bring up the doubling/tripling when needed. I always record at least 3 tracks of lead vocals so I can fix sour notes or cherry pick the best phrases from each take. As a bonus, you can bring up the volume on all of them for the doubling effect.

When i "double", I usually triple by leaving the main vocal where it is L-R in the mix, then panning one doubled track left and one right. As you bring them closer to center or harder left and right, you can hear a definite diference, Toward the middle, the phasing makes it sound more processed, but if way left or right, then it sounds more natural (like 3 guys)

 

[Stereo Steve]

I Like This Technique

When i "double", I usually triple by leaving the main vocal where it is L-R in the mix, then panning one doubled track left and one right. As you bring them closer to center or harder left and right, you can hear a definite diference, Toward the middle, the phasing makes it sound more processed, but if way left or right, then it sounds more natural (like 3 guys)

I stumbled on this technique a while back and love it. I'll usually leave the "center" of the three tracks unaltered and attenuated lower than the other two. I'll pan one track hard left and boost at 500Hz and cut at 2kHz. I'll then pan the third one hard right, cut at 500Hz and boost at 2kHz and have been quite pleased with the additional depth of sound. You're right, it really does sound more natural than piling multiple tracks on top of each other. This is a good alternative without recording additional tracks if my vocalist isn't around.