Doubling Lead Vocals?

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 2:41 pm

bent wrote:

Personally I prefer to double vox without plugins, as Remy stated.

Once you get good takes to work with, how do you approach mixing/blending the two (panning, EQ, delay, etc.). Obviously the song will dictate, but I'd like to hear some basic examples that perhaps you've done in the past.

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 2:44 pm

I'll see what I can find when I get home this evening.

I might have some tracks I can load in and make a quick mix with doubles and without, for comparison's sake...

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 3:54 pm

bent wrote:

I'll see what I can find when I get home this evening.

I might have some tracks I can load in and make a quick mix with doubles and without, for comparison's sake...

Beautiful, thanks Ben.

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:13 am

Dave and I gotta have a Pow-wow.

We'll see if I can post what I have...

Sorry for the delay!!!

-Ben

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 7:44 am

If you "sing" 2 takes, you will NEVER get them so close phasing will become an issue. Not even J Lennon could do that...

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:20 pm

Yeah doubling the vocals is KEy to a big sounding vocal. Your singer must be able to match him or herself 99% of the time. All this does is train your singer to be more consistant with their performance. They will love you later when they learn how to sing their song properly =)

Now one thing that I have been doing is tossing in a second mic on the stand ( TAPE IT UP ) SM58 or an AKG. Run this to a second Input so you can mix them 2 seporatly. Put a weeeee bit of Chorus on the second mic. Not a lot just a small bit. This will give you a doubled effect if your singer just cant pull it off. This will also save your singers voice if they are strugling to do the doubles.

I mainy use this for pre production. Saves the voice and we can move a lot faster to hear the sway of the song with vocals on it.

Hopefully by the time you move to your final takes they can pull off the doubleing, If not at least you have two tracks recorded differently at the same time =)

Its a cheet but it does sound 80% of a double.....

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:13 pm

Hey Mr Ben, any luck yet? Get distracted?

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 5:34 pm

basilbowman wrote:

Hey Mr Ben, any luck yet? Get distracted?

He posted it here...

http://www.recording.org/ftopict-46297.html

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 5:52 pm

Thanks!

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:45 pm

Sorry, I didn't know anyone else was waiting to hear that (aside from Sshack, that is).

Embarassed

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:58 pm

bent wrote:

Sorry, I didn't know anyone else was waiting to hear that (aside from Sshack, that is).

Embarassed

You have a following.

Cool

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:08 pm

Soon we'll be living in a rented house waiting for Hale-Bopp to return, of course that's not gonna happen until what... 4500AD or thereabouts?

Laughing

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:07 am

I like Strawberry kool aid please.

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 3:41 pm

hey I am new to this place, thought I would contribute some ideas.
If it was a rush job, sometimes I would duplicate the track. Delay it maybe by 15 to 25 mSec depending on what works. Also I use a plugin like Autotune on one track or possibly both pitch correcting with different strengths. It is a quick and dirty trick but it gives two vocal tracks that behave differently due to the fact one is more corrected than the other. Of course you may want to go through and just pitch correct the parts that require it and not do all of it.
I do prefer two separate takes especially when the singer is skilled and fairly consistent.

Also a Chorus on the second track I have done as well.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 9:33 pm

Kid Rock was on Howard Stern and defended his use of double vocals after the idea of "cheating" was brought up. He said that he was in fact harmonizing and that the vocals were completely different.

Perhaps it is cheating if you are covering something up.
But, since Blues is what people should be singing....I would say to add the second vocal because blues is never the same way twice.
Don't try and emulte the first track, but just repeat a few key words like they do in rap songs.
If you want to be great, then listen to TuPac Shakur and what he does with double vocals.
If they are an octave apart then go for it, or have one vocal track be spoken word like The Doors did.

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