question about stacking vocals

[fanito]

what do they mean when they say you can stack vocals. i understand stacking harmonies on top of the melody but someone told me it's a studio trick to double the melody as well. how do you do that? use two mikes plugged into 2 inputs? you can't sing the melody twice right? you couldn't line them up perfectly could you? i'm soooo confused!

 

[fanito]

sorry - i meant for that to go in the recording tech section. but if anyone here knows the answer, that's cool too. thanks, flo

 

[AlChuck]

how do you do that? use two mikes plugged into 2 inputs?

No, that would only give you two tracks of the identical vocal.

you can't sing the melody twice right? you couldn't line them up perfectly could you? i'm soooo confused!

Sure you can sing it twice! And no, you can't line it up perfectly, nor can you possibly repeat every syllable with exactly the same inflection and power and at the exact precise distance from your lips to the mic at every step of the way as the first time -- but that's what makes it work. It's the little differences that fatten and richen it up. The same principle is the basis for the chorus effect, where a signal is broken into two paths and one is detuned and delayed a little, then mixed back with the original...

The best way is to double the part by singing it over again as closely as possible to the original as you can manage.

You can fake this effect electronically with chorusing, fancier doubling or ensemble effects in tools like AutoTune or other vocal processors, or even just making clones of the original track and manually detuning them slightly and offsetting them slightly relative to the original... but all those approaches sound... fake.

 

[sonusman]

While in some cases, doubling a vocal line (singing it in unison) can be a neat effect, it isn't always terribly effective in "fattening" the lead vocal sound. If anything, it can "thin out" the vocal. It can cause a sort of comb filter effect.

Frequency "coupling" is where frequencies are totally in phase in the time line. Frequency "cancellation" is where frequencies are 180 degree's out of phase in the time line. Of course, you will seldom ever have total phase cancellation of an overall sound because most sounds are a combination of several frequencies combined.

So, you double the vocal track. One some frequencies, you will have coupling. In others, you will have partial or total cancellation. The skill of the vocalist will have a lot to do with this.

What I have found works best in the vocal doubling technique is when the vocalist can create a different timbre with their voice. For instance, on one track, they sing with more resonance, and on the other track they singer with more syllabance.

This is complex. Sorry, I just don't have the time right now to explain the whole thing in more detail. I guess what I am trying to say is, vocal doubling (unison) may NOT "fatten" the vocals. It may in fact make the vocal part more "thin". It really depends.

Try it out and see if it works out for you.

Ed

 

[AlChuck]

I would have thought most singers couldn't duplicate the first take so close that comb filtering and such would be much of a problem... I've only recorded myself singing a few times, which is a crime in most states, and it seems to work OK for me, but then I don't try too hard to duplicate the first take. I guess there are many "real" singers with great control and ears.