Suggestions for recreating Thriller MJ vocals, He's using something..

LazerBeakShiek

LazerBeakShiek

Rad Racing Team
Anybody have some ideas on MJ's vocal chain setup before I give it a wack? That whole album is nuts. Great cuts. I listen to it a couple times on the LP record. Familiarizing myself with the flow.

I got the basic Beat It structures completed. If you have suggestions on that , yell it out. I am always looking for a way to make it sound like the radio..My recordings are notoriously bad. So I took the microphones and rooms out of the equation. This is all VSTs.


 
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Bonus question...what makes the star pattern on track2 of the spinning record? My mind is blown. The album is genius.

Billie Jean?



I see the greater light.

Screenshot 2021-04-22 223200.jpg
 
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What makes the Star? Is it a symbol?

Colwyn: The Glaive is nothing but an ancient symbol! It doesn't really exist!
Ynyr: It exists...up there, in a cave on the highest peak. Without the Glaive, you will never be able to reach Lyssa.
Colwyn: I need weapons, not symbols!
Ynyr: Once, the Glaive was a very powerful weapon. It can be so again, but only in the hands of the right man. For only the right man can retrieve the Glaive. Colwyn: Am I that man?
Ynyr: I wish I knew. I cannot go with you.
Colwyn: Don't worry. If it's there, I'll come back with it.
Ynyr: If you do not come back with it, you will not come back at all.
A_glaive.jpg
 
I'm pretty sure that is just the kick and snare. Since the drum pattern never changes on the song and the musical accompaniment is very sparse, it makes it easy to see.
 
This one has the voices up front.



It makes me laugh a little.

Hey man, I hear 5ths and 7ths in the song. Especially on words that finish lines. What am I missing here?
 
Well the main difference currently is the melody, you are doing something very different from the original melody of the song and if you don´t match it, it will never sound like what MJ did.

This is the isolated vocals track, very good to study:



The only effect that is a bit different is this reverb, sounds like a good Plate reverb a bit stronger than usual.
 
First I do not believe I am able to sing like that under any circumstances. Basically I was fuck'n around.

However, the multi voice effect in the chorus part, is paired with an extremely complex reverb. I would like to know more about how they did it.

The voice is filtered.

That isolated vocal is cool. Such an icon. I was in Florida in 82' not only was Jacksons 3 concerts sold out, but every major hotel had an impersonator act show going that was also sold out...I never seen nothing like that. Not even Elvis...
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
First I do not believe I am able to sing like that under any circumstances. Basically I was fuck'n around.

However, the multi voice effect in the chorus part, is paired with an extremely complex reverb. I would like to know more about how they did it.

The voice is filtered.

That isolated vocal is cool. Such an icon. I was in Florida in 82' not only was Jacksons 3 concerts sold out, but every major hotel had an impersonator act show going that was also sold out...I never seen nothing like that. Not even Elvis...
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The multi voice thing was actual multiple voices. It's just harmony parts layered. There are a couple parts that are just unison doubling, meaning he sang the same thing twice.
I agree with the person who said that it was a plate reverb. Nothing really complex about it, that's just what those things sound like.
 
The Jacket says Beat it was vocally arranged by MJ himself. On other album tracks the MJ Chorus harmonies sound eerily similar to the Emulator / vocoder tracks from Michael Boddicker. Like on Billie Jean, or Human Nature ,the very next tracks n the album. Most probably that is what he did for 'his' arrangement. Walk like a duck, talks like a duck..
 
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Since there are no vocoder robot voices to be found in those tracks...One would conclude the album credit is saying it was synthetic harmonies played on a vocoder.. It is possible to conclude? They don't throw vocoder credits around willy nilly..Do they?
 
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LazerBeakShiek said:
Since there are no vocoder robot voices to be found in those tracks...One would conclude the album credit is saying it was synthetic harmonies played on a vocoder.. It is possible to conclude? They don't throw vocoder credits around willy nilly..Do they?
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I've listened to the isolated tracks, and the harmonies are definitely separate performances. Vocorders don't just do robot voices, they are also used for modulation effects and there are a bunch of those on those songs. There is also something following the bass line on Billie Jean that could be a vocorder.

I don't hear anything in the vocal harmonies that MJ couldn't easily hit and we can tell from the unison parts that he can certainly sing really tightly with himself. There is no need for synthetic harmony tracks.
 
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