Harmonizer?

P

pewterbird99

New member
Im looking for some type of plugin that could help me harmonize vocals. I can sing pretty good but I have trouble making up harmonies in songs. I can sing the harmony if I hear it first but it's hard for me to just make it up. How do the pros do it??? I know not eveyone in the music industry can sing harmonies, look at Taking Back Sunday they have trouble singing lead; let alone harmony. Yet if you listen to their recordings they have harmony in there. So how do they do it? Is there some sort of plugin that could make up a harmony and I could re-sing it into the recording. Any help would be appreciated...thanks
 
Harmonizing

If you can't find a plugin - - -

A cheapo keyboard will do.

Find the notes you sang on the first track on the keyboard. Then, transpose it.

Usually the harmonies are in :

Major 3rd (four notes up)
4th (five notes up)
5th (seven notes up)
Octave (twelve notes up)

You'll get the idea pretty fast. Do one small section at a time while practicing.
 
plugins don't always work properly. Take the key of C for example. Say you originaly sung a C and you tell the harmonizer to go up a Major third...so now you're on an E. Now you go to the IV (F) and the harmonizer is on an A....then the V, harmonizer is on a B...then you pull the ol' vi chord and your root is an A. But since your harmonizer is on Major thirds, it's playing a C#. Now you've just modulated when you didn't want to. Besides, not all harmonies are always a 4th or a 3rd. Do something cool, add ninths and sevenths, and dissonance to your chords. I love sharp fours on Major7 chords.
Not to mention, harmonizers don't really sound realistic enough

Best thing for you to do is to practice practice practice. Do you really want to have a finished piece knowing you didn't really do the singing on part of it? Yes professionals learn harmonies. 99.9% of the pros do it correctly. The other .1% I don't have respect for in the first place (usually these are the ones that don't even write their own music), so it doesn't matter. Using a harmonizer for an effect can be cool. Hell, it sounds wicked on a trumpet or other instruments. But do yourself a favor and do it correctly. You'll improve as an artist and be happy with what you've accomplished. Grab a small keyboard like northside suggested and bang away at some notes while singing ontop of it. Best thing to do is figure out the chord you're playing and sustain that on a piano and see what notes you can sing on top that sound cool in that chord.
 
The article...

Avoid 4th, 5th, and octave? Resolve tritone and intervals properly? Don't get too far apart? Avoid crossing voices?

I'd say try this stuff out, but when someone tells you what NOT to do, take it with a grain of sand.

I've composed pieces where all of these 'wrong' things are occuring regularly and have been quite proud of the work.
 
northsiderap said:
Avoid 4th, 5th, and octave? Resolve tritone and intervals properly? Don't get too far apart? Avoid crossing voices?

I'd say try this stuff out, but when someone tells you what NOT to do, take it with a grain of sand.

I've composed pieces where all of these 'wrong' things are occuring regularly and have been quite proud of the work.
Click to expand...

in the article he was just explaining what and why these rules were. He even explained that these originated out of the Baroque era and that many people don't follow them anymore.
I do agree with him though that understanding these guidelines thorougly will help you compose pretty good sounding harmonies. You'd be amazed at how some of this just comes natural with a lot of composers/musicians. A lot of this has to do with how the human ear responds to certain sounds. We like/dislike certain harmonies and motion.
 
northsiderap said:
Avoid 4th, 5th, and octave? Resolve tritone and intervals properly? Don't get too far apart? Avoid crossing voices?

I'd say try this stuff out, but when someone tells you what NOT to do, take it with a grain of sand.

I've composed pieces where all of these 'wrong' things are occuring regularly and have been quite proud of the work.
Click to expand...

Yeah, breaking rules is the fun part. I still think it's a good article for folks who have no clue about writing harmonies. I usually just sit down at the piano and play/sing stuff until it sounds good, but having some guidelines can be useful.
 
My harmonies have been improving drasticallly lately. Sitting infront of sonar with a new song and recording all the harmonies I can think of is more fun then any other part of the recording process.
Just practice practice practice, you'll get it.
 
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