Harmonies

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ido1957

ido1957

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Tough to do harmonies when the lead vocals is at the top of your range to start with.
a) falsettos? (sound wimpy)
b) lower than lead harmonies? (kinda weird but Nickelback do that)
Opiions , samples???
 
Get a female singer to help with the higher end harmonies?
Some lower than lead, others on same note as lead with different melody line?
Use a synth pad to mimic the backing vocals and blend in with real backing vocals? My keyboard has Oooh and Aaaah patches. I used them once with mediocre results.
 
Don't have access to 3 Hot Black Female singers. Too bad.
But seriously I was thinking of me doing the harmonies to my own tunes. lol
 
I'm not interested in machines either like harmony boxes. Although they do a good job for their purpose.
 
Harmonies don't have to be higher than the main melody. Lower harmonies are good. The Beach Boys?

Or you can re-arrange the main vocal melody so the harmonies are up where the main vocal melody used to be.
 
ido1957 said:
Don't have access to 3 Hot Black Female singers. Too bad.
Click to expand...
I do !


I do like the harmonies to be higher than the lead in general, I guess. But it's by no means a foregone conclusion. There are a few things that can be done with harmonies, especially if you're doing them yourself. You can varispeed them if your DAW or recorder allows it. That means recording the harmonies at different speeds so altering the texture when you playback at proper speed.
You could also try to exaggerate the words/vowel sounds on each harmony, that is take on a different voice for each one. When all put together, it won't sound exaggerated. I'll often say to whoever is harmonizing or backing vocalling, do this take in an American accent, do the next one in a very London accent and the next one like a Colombian. Can sound great.
Sometimes the ooh and ahh sounds on a mellotron are good but such times are few and far between !
 
I had the same problem with a particular tune I was tracking. My solution,at least for me, was to drop the tuning of my guitar from A440 to D. Learned that little trick from John Fogerty, he used it, among other tunes, on "The Midnight Special".
 
Harmonies are not rocket surgery....it's simply forming a chord with vocals. They don't HAVE to be anywhere (lower/higher than the lead). The lead can be in the middle of 2 harmonies for that matter. Harmonies can either move with the lead vocal, or hardly move at all. For example, if the chords are going from an A to a D, one of the harmony parts can stay on the A throughout the chord change, rather than moving from an A to a D or F#.

Doing your own harmonies is done all the time, especially by home recordists...like me. :)

Slightly OT to the original question, but doubling up the harmony parts (by singing each part twice, not copy/pasting :rolleyes:) and panning them to taste almost always sounds nice and full.
 
ido1957 said:
Tough to do harmonies when the lead vocals is at the top of your range to start with.
a) falsettos? (sound wimpy)
b) lower than lead harmonies? (kinda weird but Nickelback do that)
Opiions , samples???
Click to expand...

I have a really low voice, can't sing lead on most pop / rock tunes (not that I'm trying to) because I just can't get up that high, let alone harmonise up even higher...

So whenever I was trying to sing along to stuff when I was growing up, I usually had to sing a harmony underneath the main vocal line - it's not so hard - I mean you can still do a third harmony in the octave below, and there are other variations... and I also harmonise against my own vocals in recordings by going both over and under in the same line... again... not so hard once you work out what you want to sing...
 
Greg_L said:
Harmonies don't have to be higher than the main melody. Lower harmonies are good. The Beach Boys?

Or you can re-arrange the main vocal melody so the harmonies are up where the main vocal melody used to be.
Click to expand...

I agree with Greg.

And harmony is harmony, higher or lower doesn't matter as much as making sure the harmony itself sounds good. And regarding falsetto, a lot of harmonies are done in falsetto - but because they sit in the back of the mix you won't notice as much.
 
Lots of great ideas guys - thanks! I am applying the concepts you've provided to a couple of songs and it's not the same result as singing chest voice high harmonies. It will take some mixing tricks to get them to sound "okay". The falsettos are .... well..... wimpy! lol
 
I guess that bass player in Van Halen is a good example of what I'd like to be able to do....
 
Greg_L said:
Grow a cool balding mullet? :D
Click to expand...

Ha - luckily I only have that receeding hairline thing going on. I think you get it from your mom's side however my Grandfather was balding so I'm not sure how I dodged that bullet. :D
 
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