How to get the "ooohhh"s and "aahhh"s right

[TheCreamOfEric]

OK

if anybody has ever listening to Elliott Smith's stuff then you know what I'm talking about.... He always does the oooohhhhs and ahhhs in the background. What I wanna know is how it sounds so good....

When I record the tracks, and I'm guessing he's doing harmony's (right?), I do that, add a little reverb, a little compression, and track noisegate, and pan a little..... But it still sounds just too plain. What effects or whatever can I add to make it better? Is it just my equipment (Samson CO1 Studio Condenser mic with a PreSonus TubePre Amp)? Do you actual get what im talking about?

I hope i make sense.... Thank you all

 

[ssscientist]

He strikes me as an 'oooooooh' and 'ahhhhhhhh' kinda guy...

What I mean by that is he's worked on that shit for YEARS and had it down to a serious science.

He could probably use your equipment and get decent results - it's his technique that you need to work on approximating.

 

[Atterion]

To get that Oooh-Aahh thing down good. It is important to use your full vocal power, a lot of times I see people fall into the perception that because it is quite oooh-aahh part, that they need to sing that part quitely. Remember most choirs are not individually miked-up. So they use vocal power, and even quiet passages are fairly loud at the individual level. Some artists (Hansi of Demons and Wizards for example, record dozens upon dozens of backup vocals, which is time consuming).

One thing to try would to be record several passages from each section of YOUR CHOIR, and even double them if you don't want to record that many. Then Buss them according to section. I.E. Sopranos buss1, Tenors Buss 2, etc. Then you can adjust effects, volumes, pan etc. by group. Good for like doing swells (i.e. Tenors perform swell, actually controlled by volume of buss), while sopranos and baritones sing stacatto.

 

[Clit Torres]

I'm assuming your trying to achieve this sound with your own voice as opposed to you with a group of vocalists. Anyways, the only way to get that Elliot Smith layered backup sound is to actually layer your backups. He didn't have a particularly strong voice, but he had great control and was able to double himself really tightly.

If you have a thin voice, you're not going to be able to get that density till you've doubled yourself at least 6-8 times, that's including the harmony, which is paramount in achieving that particular sound.

 

[TheCreamOfEric]

what is a "thin" voice actually? I am trying to do it with my own voice, not a chior(SP?) cause I have no connection to one.

but thank you everybody for replying

 

[crosstudio]

i sing each vocal part twice, and then autotune each vocal to a new "tuned" track, then i blend the tune and un-tuned tracks.

for instance, with 3-part oh-ah harmony, i'll have 6 tracks, 2 tracks for each part of the harmony. i'll clone these tracks to a new track, then autotune the cloned track. now i've got 12 tracks in total. 6 un-tuned and 6 tuned. i sub-mix the 12 tracks to a single stereo track (i won't have to do this once i get sonar4) and then i compress the living hell out of it.

 

[TheCreamOfEric]

whoa! that went way over my head. as you can tell im very new to recording programs, to ive never even seen autotune and stuff like that. I'm sure if I browse around the help section I can find something on it

or if someone can point me in the right direction

thnx guys

EDIT: my acid 4.0 doesnt seem to have an autotune topic in it.... anyone know if acid actually does have autotune?

 

[foreverdown]

auto tune is its own plugin. I don't know that acid has an auto tune in it, but it might have a pitch shifter. Sometimes that can do the trick, but its not quite what you're looking for and takes a while to get down pat.

 

[TheCreamOfEric]

ok, sorr for sounding dumb again but (should be posting in the newb forum) What exactly is a "Plugin". I've got the general idea of it, but still dont know what it is.

thank you