Panning vocals

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Ares

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Hello guys

Just to get an idea of what I'm talking about, please listen to that first: vimeo.com/29262251

As you can hear, he doubled the vocals but how do I do that?

I think I should record one track and pan them left, then sing it twice and pan this one right, then I'll add some reverb to them but what about the center? Should I sing it one more time?

I'll record with back vocals, so I can't be sure of how I will handle things and how to sort the tracks out. What's more, I can't try things and see how it happens since singing it with the back vocals will happen some 2 months later.

So can you basically list me the things I must accordingly do?
 
If you want to get the sound you heard in the video, you only need to record two tracks - one panned left and one panned right. You don't need anything in the center unless you want to do so for your own purposes. In the video you linked to the left vocal is slightly distorted and is pretty dry and the right vocal isn't distorted at all and has a bit of reverb.
 
guitarplayr82 said:
If you want to get the sound you heard in the video, you only need to record two tracks - one panned left and one panned right. You don't need anything in the center unless you want to do so for your own purposes. In the video you linked to the left vocal is slightly distorted and is pretty dry and the right vocal isn't distorted at all and has a bit of reverb.
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Thank you for the reply.
Do you know what this technique is called? I like to search for more works like this one, trying the keywords like multi-tracking etc didn't work.
 
Ares said:
Thank you for the reply.
Do you know what this technique is called? I like to search for more works like this one, trying the keywords like multi-tracking etc didn't work.
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It doesn't really have a name, other then "mixing decision". Like guitarplayer said, it's pretty simple. Record twice and pan. Add effects to taste.
 
Ares said:
Thank you for the reply.
Do you know what this technique is called? I like to search for more works like this one, trying the keywords like multi-tracking etc didn't work.
Click to expand...

Some might call it double-tracking, but that's a pretty broad term. It's worth a shot though, and here's a list of songs that have double-tracked vocals similar to this song:


Dave Days - You've Been On My Mind, Olive You, We're Just Kids
Blink-182 - All The Small Things (vocals are double-tracked, but not panned)
Good Enough (only double-tracked sometimes, you have to listen for it): Good Enough (Original Song and Video) - YouTube

Those are just a few off the top of my head, not really in the same genre as the song you mentioned though.
 
You can pan two different takes hard right and hard left.
Or, take one take and copy it. Delay one side by like 10-30MS and pitch shift it down slighty. This will make them different enough that they stick to the sides and appear stereo. (BTW this is how they thicken up distorted guitar as well) You can put another take dead center if you'd like, or play back and forth between the edge vocals for some nice contrast. Also, you can change the times and character of the reverbs so one side is longer than the other. Again, pan these hard to one side or the other. It'll make it feel like a real room. Again, this technique works well with guitar too. QOTSA do the more-reverb-in-one-side trick a lot with their guitars.
 
Don't do the copy/paste/shift thing, whatever you do.That "technique" never sounds good. It always sounds fake and weird. Why do some people still suggest that crap?

Don't be lazy, play it or sing it twice. Copy/paste/shift is a lazy, amateur way of doing it. It's the exact same thing as applying a delay and panning it.
 
Singing a part twice and Automatic Double Tracking (ADT) produces two very different sounds with different applications.
 
I never understood recommending that because it's exactly the same as using as stereo chorus plug.

If you want stereo chorus, do that.
If you want the double tracked sound, double track.
 
Steenamaroo said:
I never understood recommending that because it's exactly the same as using as stereo chorus plug.

If you want stereo chorus, do that.
If you want the double tracked sound, double track.
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Which is the same as a stereo chorus? Are you talking about Copy/Paste and pitch shift?
 
yeah, that's the one.

The only three variables in waves stereo chorus plug are pitch, delay, and pan.
 
Steenamaroo said:
yeah, that's the one.

The only three variables in waves stereo chorus plug are pitch, delay, and pan.
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Gotcha - yes that is true, those are the varibales. The guy with the tip said to pitch shift the second track, which won't even result in a proper chorus where the pitch of the shifted signal is normally variable and driven by an LFO.
 
If you take one track, make two instances of it, pan them to extremes and alter them (generally by pitch and delay) they seem to stick to the sides and give you a bigger stereo sound rather than merging somewhere in the center. It's a spatial thing; Haas effect. Sort of like chorus but not chorus.

Even if you did two vocal takes they still might be too similar and merge into the center channel.

When they try to get this effect with guitar they either have to artificially do it (cut and paste and alter) or record the guitar with a different tones/amp/distortion types.
 
Actually yeah you're right. My bad.

The waves plug technically isn't chorus then I suppose, and now that I think about it it's called 'doubler'

Still though, all that copying, shifting, pitching and panning when there's a perfectly good plug to do it for you.


Like, why aren't noobs suggesting making bucketloads of copies of your track then filtering each track to remove frequencies that walls and furnishings would diffuse, then playing them all back with tiny staggered delays in order to create a spacious effect.........

Cos you'd just use a reverb plug. :p
 
Steenamaroo said:
Actually yeah you're right. My bad.

The waves plug technically isn't chorus then I suppose, and now that I think about it it's called 'doubler'

Still though, all that copying, shifting, pitching and panning when there's a perfectly good plug to do it for you.


Like, why aren't noobs suggesting making bucketloads of copies of your track then filtering each track to remove frequencies that walls and furnishings would diffuse, then playing them all back with tiny staggered delays in order to create a spacious effect.........

Cos you'd just use a reverb plug. :p
Click to expand...

I agree with you about all the copying, shifting, pitching and panning - that's really why I replied, not so much to nitpick the definition of a chorus. I see a lot of posts with suggestions about copy, pasting, slipping and sliding. Let's just say I'm not in love with the results on the rare occasion someone actually posts an example....

As you noted - people will go to great lengths to avoid the obvious, and I wanted to counter the idea that the tip posted is what a chorus does under the hood. And so it goes, back to the grind :-)
 
S'all good :)

I studied with a guy who very generously offered to let us in on his 'secret mixing' techniques.

Everyone of them ended up being a complete myth, misunderstanding of a real technique, or just plain wrong.

He was a nice guy, but he did things like duplicating his kick twice, panning one centre, one left and one right; That's it.
No different treatment per channel, no filters, Nothing.

We tried to explain that mathematically his method is identical to just turning a single track up panned centre, but he wasn't having it.

Saddest part is he most likely wrote in detail about these 'techniques' and somehow got a damn good grade in the end.
 
Steenamaroo said:
why aren't noobs suggesting making bucketloads of copies of your track then filtering each track to remove frequencies that walls and furnishings would diffuse, then playing them all back with tiny staggered delays in order to create a spacious effect ?
Click to expand...
For the same reason the chewing gum crossed the road.










It was stuck to the chicken's foot.....
 
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