"gang vocals"

  • Thread starter Thread starter keepeatingcars
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keepeatingcars

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Just looking to see what the best way to make 1-3 people sound like a room full of people is. what kind of reverb, delay, etc. do you use? pan a lot? pan a little? pan tight? pan wide?

Thanks in advance!
 
Record more than one take. If you want it to sound like a room full of people, then "more people" are on the menu (that doesn't sound right for some reason).


Tuesday is Soilent Green day.
 
Another thing you can try is to run the vocals through a detuner, change the output up or down 1/2 step and keep your original vocals as well. Now you have 6 voices out of 3 people. Do this two or three times and your set. Now, this will only work for things that are not sung. Things like people shouting "HEY!" or whatever the case may be are perfect for it.
 
nate_dennis said:
Another thing you can try is to run the vocals through a detuner, change the output up or down 1/2 step and keep your original vocals as well.
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You'd have to throw in a significant time shift as well, or it would sound like some weird fx. The time shift would have to be large enough that the listener didn't recognize it as a delay, and any distinctive noises might be recognized no matter how large the time shift. I sometimes pick it up in songs where they just copy/pasted a chorus or something, nobody's inflection can be THAT identical twice in a row! Just something to watch out for,

Several independent takes would work best imo.
 
I actually did this just this past weekend. The key is lots of layers/people and tight recording. Add some verb and you're good to go. You said you had 3 people...have those 3 record about 4 takes. Pan 2 hard to each side and place the other two where ever sounds good. That will get you a good start.
 
The acoustic duo I'm recording recently did this as well. (along with claps)

I basically just set up a few randomly placed room mics and we did about 4 takes (yes, the engineer got to sing along too ;) ). It was a combination of LDCs, SDCs, and two cheap SP-1 dynamics (I bought the SP-1's for about $10 each and they actually don't sound all that bad!)

After that, I deleted the tracks with mics that didn't sound "right" in the mix. Then I panned them to give a little stereo width, sent them to a subgroup and added a bit of short room style reverb.

Haha I probably went overkill on the micing but I like to keep my mixing options open.

I left the EQ alone (with the exception of a band-pass for the "radio" effect they wanted.)

Tada!
 
OR - Make it even easier, download the VST clone emulator free trial and BOOM! you have up to 64 different voices from 1 person. trial is 10 days I believe.
 
To tackle the problem of making 3 people sound like lots of people I'd recommend this.

You will record two separate takes of the vocal but have the singers standing behind each other, so different distances from the mic. We have person A, B and C.

track 1 - B, C, A
track 2 - C, A, B

Then pan those hard L and R out to speakers that are even further back from the singers. Now record track 3 - A, B, C, L speaker, R speaker. Track 3 can actually become tracks 3(left) and 4(right). It depends if you want the "gang vocals" to be a mono or stereo source, lead or backing, etc.
 
Multiple takes with each take having all the singers in very different postions, including a couple meters from the mic and some close up. Also encourage the singer to "act" a little bit and change their voices on various takes.
 
Ronan said:
Multiple takes with each take having all the singers in very different postions, including a couple meters from the mic and some close up. Also encourage the singer to "act" a little bit and change their voices on various takes.
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But I'm still assuming getting everything tight, right?

In a recent session we did hand claps and I found it sounded best when they were layered about 4 deep but quite precise timewise.
 
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