Genie in a bottle

[funkster]

Hi there. Anyone know how to get that "distance"-like effect on pop productions like Genie in a bottle. You know where she sounds like she's singing in a bottle? Or countless other pop songs where a short vocal phrase is inserted as a kind of hook - scrunchy or "different" sounding? Do I make any sense here? I could cite more examples I guess but does anyone know what I mean?
THANKS!

 

[drstawl]

Have you tried any methods of your own?
Seems like you could create that sound by
EQing out all the low end and changing the reverb used.

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo Funkster:

If you have an FX box, you can get that Bottle sound from a patch or by editing a patch.

I have two FX boxes hooked into my MD-8 so here's how I get a funky vocal:

While mixing the completed cut down to tape, I just put the vocal track in union with a bottle-type patch on my Ensonique DP-4; it it is only a phrase or a couple of lines I want in the bottle, I just monitor the mix with my headset and just before the lines come up to go into to the "bottle" I flip on the FX patch; then, I flip it off when the FX in done; so, you can toggle the FX you want or just put the entire mix/vocal into the bottle.

If you only have one FX unit, you would have a slight problem because you would lose whatever FX patch you wanted for the other tracks; so, I guess you might want to borrow an FX unit to achieve the desired results on the vocal track.

Keep twiddling the dials,

Green Hornet

 

[dobro]

The software I use has both graphic and parametric EQ. The parametric EQ is worth the price of the whole software package in terms of getting interesting sounds. I like that old sound on 78s of the guy singing through a megaphone, and it took me about 15 minutes to get it using the parametric EQ (first time I'd used the software). Shazam! Genie in a bottle.

 

[funkster]

Thank you! As you can tell I'm "aspiring" so thanks for the tips. It seems that much can be done with EQing, something I need to explore more. I'll be working mostly with DAW- Logic and protools (LE?) Havn't got G4 yet, fence-sitting for speed bump.
And yes Dobro, that old "megaphone" is what I'm looking for. Good articulation there. What software are you using? Care to share an eqing example from your tweaking? (Hz/kHz/ect...?)