Question re moving a vocal from left - centre - right in stereo mix..

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TomJonesTribute

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Hi guys, my name is Ian and I'm a 'noobie' to the forum so hopefully I won't be too embarassing ;)

First off, this forum has been a fantastic find for me and a genuinely good source of info and inspiration for me as a vocalist, so thanks for all the hard work done in putting it together and maintaining the website!

I'm currently learning the basics of Cubase 6 on a Windows XP operating system.

Evereything is going well and I have put together some decent mixes, using my vocal and some good quality backing tracks as a starter. I've used a variety of FX on my vocal, such as reverb, delay, compression, etc. and I'm very pleased with the results so far.

So, to my question...!

I've got a good quality backing track for a Tom Jones and Mousse T. collaboration, the 'Sexbomb' Peppermint Disco mix,which I want to use in my live gigs, but the track has no backing vocals on it, it's just the instrumental.

So far I've managed to mix some of my own backing vocals into the backing track mix and, if I say so myself, they sound really good, blending well with the instrumental and making a real difference to the overall impact and feel of the backing track.

My sticking point has come when I tried to record my backing vocal as you hear it at the start of the original artists recording of Sexbomb...

It's a bit difficult to explain in words but here goes...

The track starts off with a drum and baseline intro then TJ's vocal comes in, singing..
'Turn me on...me on...me on..me on...me on....' etc. It sounds like a looped and fading sound event which gives a perceived effect of moving from left to right across the stereo speaker setup.

The vocal starts in the left speaker/channel, then moves to centre, then to the right speaker/channel and then fades out as the keyboards kick in with the 'melody' section of the arrangement..

So, my question is...How can I best reproduce this effect for my backing vocal to travel from ' left - centre - right ' in Cubase?

I think it sounds superb in the artists original mix and it would be great to reproduce the effect in the backing track for my live show?

Any ideas on how to achieve this would be greatly appreciated!

Ian Anthony.
 
It sounds like you're asking how to pan?

Look for the pan knob on your vocal track, it controls whether your sound sits in the left or right or centre of the mix.
(sorry if you know this already!!! lol)

I don't now cubase intimately, but somewhere in there it'll have the option to automate your pan; This means you program in a shape and cubase will do it automatically in future.

In Pro Tools, I'm shown a line running left to right down the middle of the waveform and it represents pan knob position.
If i move that line so it goes from top to bottom of the wave over time, the sound will go left to right over time.

Google automation in cubase if you're stuck, or maybe someone else here will give details.
 
In Reaper you can automate the pan, I assume you can in Cubase, too.
 
Every mainstream DAW allows automation. How the hell could we mix without it?
 
Eureka!

Hey it's amazing how excited I can get, despite my great age!

Thanks for the info everyone...this is how I worked with the suggestions you made....

1. Put the original backing track into cubase as a stereo 'track'.

2. Opened a new stereo vocal 'track'.

3. Clicked on the 'W' ( Write enable ) and 'R' ( Read enable ) buttons for this vocal track only.

4. Recorded my vocal onto this W and R activated 'track' whilst using my mouse pointer to move the vocal track 'pan' from left, to right, to centre, in time with the backing track beat.

5. De-activated the 'Write' Button, left the 'Read' Button activated.

6. Played back the vocal recording and watched the 'pan' slider magically repeat the movements I made whilst recording the vocal ( The sound of the recorded vocal now moves automatically from left, to centre, to right speaker/channel smoothly and pleasantly, in time with the beat on the backing track ).

5. Recorded the backing track and vocal as a new mix ( whilst watching the slider for the vocal pan automatically move from left to right during mixing).

6. Got the result I wanted, backing track with all new 'left to right pan' backing vocals added!

7. Off to the practise hall now to see what the new backing track sounds like at performance volume!

Thanks again everyone for your suggestions :)

Ian.
 
I work in cubase too. You don't need to audomate while recording. You can do it after you lay down the track.
 
Doesn't a stereo ping pong delay do the exact same thing but with a lot less work?
 
brettbuc said:
I work in cubase too. You don't need to audomate while recording. You can do it after you lay down the track.
Click to expand...

You also shouldn't have to record to a stereo track. You should be able to automate panning of a mono track to the stereo bus. Recording a mono source to a stereo track takes twice the disk space for no good reason.
 
You are doing it difficult with no reason man :S Just do the follow steps:

1. Record your vox to a mono track without the "R" or "W" enabled. Maybe you have some latency with these enabled.

2. When your track is ready with your recordings, press the "W".

3. Start to playback your project and do ANYTHING you want to this track with your mouse. From paning to compress. Cubase is wrighting any movement you do with your mouse or controler and saves it to this track!

4. Enable the "R" and all is done!

After this, you can see and make anything you want with these movements by pressing the "+" sighn at your track!


Hope I helped you man!
Welcome to the magic world of recording!!!

Friendly
Johnny
 
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