How do singers/rappers have that choral/multi-people effect with one voice?

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AlfredIV

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My apologies if this has been asked before; I don't even know how I'd begin searching for this.

The best examples I can think of:

Britney - youtube.com/watch?v=Vm0J7BrKlP8#t=0m59s at the Slave 4U chorus, there're a ton of Britneys. How does her producer do that?

Eminem - youtube.com/watch?v=7_QK8yGjhH0 for the majority of the song, a second (or third, I can't tell) Eminem is layered over himself for emphasis. How do you do this?

I'm new to this, so when I tried it I just made a new channel and changed the pitch. It made my voice sound robotic, but not necessarily good like these do.
 
Hi there,
You probably need to record the vocal part more than once.

Duplicating the track makes a digitally identical copy, so it'll never sound the same as recording the part twice due to the natural differences in your two performances.
 
Basically what he said ^ after you record the first vocal part, make a new track and record the same part again. This is called double tracking.
 
Or . . .

Copy the vocal track a few times and delay or advance the copies a couple of microseconds.
 
I just had a mental image of Eminem trying to describe how he wants his vocal to sound fuller, and Dre saying "why not just duplicate it, pan them apart, and nudge one of them forward a few milliseconds."

Funny to me.
 
Too late. :)

I've had to do this a lot with old analog multi-track recordings that didn't have dry vocal tracks. Chorusing when the track has reverb results in a mess. Doing what I described, while not ideal, works fine.
 
It may work fine for a particular effect, but it's not the effect the OP asked about.

He wants to record his vocal part at least twice.
 
I've done this on some of my tracks to varying degrees so thought I'd offer my thoughts. Used a vocal processor which gave my vocal a four fold output with each take where I could pan each voice and play around with pitch, vibrato ect. I used up to three tracks and did a take for each singing the same vocal, which when they play together gives me either a crowd or choir effect depending on the tonality and execution and choice of pitching. The effect is very convincing if one can get a second vocal added in this way, even if the second singer is not particularly on their game, as it can be held back in the mix but audible enough to add a variance in diction. Of course one vocalist can manipulate their own voice and diction for one of the takes if required. If doing it with bare bones equipment, I suggest a good number of tracks with same vocal sung a number of times as the execution will vary on each take. If simply duplicating one single voice take and adding latency the ears will see through it so to speak, there needs to be some variance so maybe try say three takes upwards which vary and duplicate them and alter timings by small increments and it should sound somewhere near convincing.

Tim
 
What Phrasemaker said.
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I often record backing vocals in my songs and I get my friends {mainly female} to do them with me. We record each part together, 3 or 4 times, depending on how much time we have and how many songs we're going to sing on. I often record each take at a different speed and sometimes just for further variation, will swap positions so on one take someone will be under the mic, someone will be behind it and someone will be as far away as possible. Then we might all stand together for the next one, recorded at a different speed. Then we might have one person with their back to the mic. Then we may arrange ourselves in a vertical line, quietest voice closest to the mic, loudest further away........the variations within 3~4 takes are endless. What you end up with are different vocals with a combination of depth, distance and upfront punch, with every voice blending as one, yet each distinctive.
On the occasions when I've been impatient and don't want to wait a month for everyone's schedules to line up, I've done this on my own, maybe 6 to 9 takes, each recorded at a different speed, with me doing each take in a different position and utilising a different voice {deep voice, normal voice, high pitched voice, American accent, cockney accent, rubbing adam's apple as I sing on some takes for a 'wobble', singing through cupped hands or empty toilet roll for cylindrical sound etc, etc}. You can put effects on some of the voices, some being louder than others, when mixing them together.
Aside from learning something, it's really good fun.
 
The little brother of the bad boy this woman is demoing is showing up in two weeks so I'll let you know what I think in about a month or so.

 
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