BACKUP VOCALS--ANY SECRETS

[MREVOL]

Can anyone tell some of there secret backup vocal tricks.

Do you double them and pan them---if so how big is the pan??

If you have different harmonys do you pan them all together??

Any outboard tricks--pitchshifters?????

I have heard about filtering all the lows on backup vox's. Is this good or bad?

Etc...................................

[Lagerfeldt]

My vocal producer does normal dubs (2), air dubs (2) and sometimes shout dubs (2) with the artist. Then the same amount of dubs with the backing vocalist(s). He also dubs all the voices, very importantly he does octaves (especially the high octave). Mix the high octave very low but it will sound like there are more overtones than actually are present.

A normal vocal arrangement will include around 30 tracks or more, in a pop song.

I tend to pan pretty hard on both dubs and backing vocals. Normal and shout dubs I tend to equalize by cutting lows and highs (telephone style) while air dubs obviously still need the highs.

All backing vocals and dubs are usually cleared for breathing sounds and quite often all sibilance. I do this manually, rarely by de-essing. Sometimes I gate the backing vocals.

I use outboard compression while recording all vocals but I prefer not to individually compressor backing vocals. The reason is that good backing vocalists will tailor their performance dynamically so it follows the lead, and compressing each take too much will level out all dynamics. Instead send backing vocals to a bus and sum compress them.

I compress backing vocals somewhat harder than lead vocals.

I often only use reverb on backing vocals, not delay.

[rwhitney]

Yes, try panning the BGs wide--I like that sound. You can divide the parts, or even them out across the soundstage, depends on what you like; what's appropriate for the style. Rolling off lows is a good idea so they don't muddy things up. Chorusing used to be used a lot with BGs, but I think that's long out of style, (I'm not sure). Compression is important in getting a real smooth and even balance of all the parts, unless you're going for something real loose. the more parts, the more compression, IME. I'd recommend recording in a very dry space if you're doing a lot of layering of a small number of voices. The room sound can interfere. I usually like to brighten them up with eq, too. Just group them and apply eq to the lot.

But most of all, try something you haven't heard before; something others aren't doing. That might mean disregarding everything you're told.

[jarbar]

Try recording backing vocals with an omni mic and/or have the singer(s) stand further back from the mic than you would a lead part. I find them easier to mix with that extra bit of roominess in the sound.

[mtstudi@pacbell]

I use Two Dolby units (w/ Dolby A Cards), on a stereo buss running parallel to the hard panned BG Vx. This excites and slightly widens the background vocals. Included is 15 ms dly lft side 30 ms dly rt side. Also, a -9 cent pitched on lft and +9 cents pitched on rt. A usual short reverb with a dotted 64th predelay. A high pass filter almost always. Soft to extreme compression depending.

www.bluethumbproductions.com

[Ollie]

Whatever serves the song the best. If you need thick harmony backgrounds, with lots of voices then compression can be very helpful keeping the sound tight. Compress at tracking, compress at mixdown and compress a bit more.

If the singers can do the parts together well that will save you time, but if there intonation is less than desirable, you may try stacking each vocalist seperately.

I usually listen as the parts are stacking up how many mults are needed. I usually do not need as many mults on a top part as a lower parts.

Experiment and share you findings.

[AlphaDingo]

two words for ya:Autopan. Multiply the tempo times two and thats what you set the pan rate to. Then compress the shit out of it and add a ton of reverb, but tastefully. After you normalize it it should sit nicely in the mix.

[lordmiguel]

genre?

[Ollie]

Originally Posted by jarbar

Try recording backing vocals with an omni mic and/or have the singer(s) stand further back from the mic than you would a lead part. I find them easier to mix with that extra bit of roominess in the sound.

This is a good point. Not everything has to be done in cardiod. I have used omnis on backups before and it has worked nicely.

[dbbubba]

Because I started back in the dinosaur days of 2" 16 track and 2" 24 track I still comp my BG vocals.

I record them pretty much the same as any other vocal because if I am going to jack with them and do anything radical I do it during the comp or mix.

The number of stacks per voice depends on the style and what the cut calls for, but I usually at least double every part. Like string section doubling, there becomes a point where one more pass doesn't add anything.

When I do the comp I will cleam everything up and get rid of hangover "sssss" and other phrasing issues. I'll fade out whole parts of words if it helps.

A shortcut trick I use when I only have one pass of each part is to track each part through a pitch correction device and record the FX only to a track. This makes a double for that part and it sounds really convincing if used up under the real pass.

There are all kinds of other tricks like having the vocalist move away from the mic to varying degrees at each pass. This keeps the phasey/chorus-y sound from building up when having one singer do multiple parts.

In analog days I also used to speed up or slow down the multi-track a tiny amount when I recorded each past to get a different character with each pass. Obviously a shitty vocalist with pitch issues is going to be thrown off by this, but if they have good pitch, the net result is pretty cool.

Danny Brown

[Bob Olhsson]

Even without the "roominess," more distant miking will give you a much better blend because the inverse-square law won't be exaggerating each individual's motion in front of the mike.

For that matter lead vocals also sound better with a bit of distance provided the studio's acoustics are good enough to not lose presence.

[True North]

If we are talking about harmonies I really prefer the sound of having all of the harmonies sung at the same time into one mic. For instance, If you have a 3 part harmony (i.e. 1 lead + 2 BG's) I would have all three artists singing into the same mic at the same time.

You really have to pay attention to the balance of voices but it sounds better to me than trying to mix three seperate parts.

I usually double the harmony parts and pan pretty wide. You can also use the pan setting as sort of a build for the song. Automate the pan a little narrower at the begginning of the song and than slam it at the end.

I compress a little when tracking and depending on the dynamics of the part or the nature of the song I may hit it again with compression during mixdown.

[stevep]

MREVOL BACKUP VOCALS--ANY SECRETS

I like to have them all sing together ... use the omni


and of coarse really good singers helps allot !


If its only one person overdubbing there own backups, Try a different mic than the one used for the lead,


Each song is different so have fun and experiment



steve

[PT User]

Originally Posted by mtstudi@pacbell

A usual short reverb with a dotted 64th predelay.

Sorry, can someone explain to me about what a dotted 64th predelay is?

I know what predelay is but not sure what dotted 64th. 64ms? dotted?


Trying to learn something here


Thanks
Eddie

[stevep]

I think what he is talking about is ........

answred below....................




sorry i got it wrong Not for the Polka




steve




.

[H-Rezz]

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

My vocal producer does normal dubs (2), air dubs (2) and sometimes shout dubs (2) with the artist. Then the same amount of dubs with the backing vocalist(s). He also dubs all the voices, very importantly he does octaves (especially the high octave). Mix the high octave very low but it will sound like there are more overtones than actually are present.

A normal vocal arrangement will include around 30 tracks or more, in a pop song.

I tend to pan pretty hard on both dubs and backing vocals. Normal and shout dubs I tend to equalize by cutting lows and highs (telephone style) while air dubs obviously still need the highs.

All backing vocals and dubs are usually cleared for breathing sounds and quite often all sibilance. I do this manually, rarely by de-essing. Sometimes I gate the backing vocals.

I use outboard compression while recording all vocals but I prefer not to individually compressor backing vocals. The reason is that good backing vocalists will tailor their performance dynamically so it follows the lead, and compressing each take too much will level out all dynamics. Instead send backing vocals to a bus and sum compress them.

I compress backing vocals somewhat harder than lead vocals.

I often only use reverb on backing vocals, not delay.

I pretty much do what you , shouts i leave out depending on the style of backing vocal , i might also add some high pitch shift on notes an octave up on stuff i think a singer has no hope in hell getting to and mixing that really low in the mix to create upper harmonics .

I also find a chorus effect works wonders in Backing vocals , you just have to be careful to not overdo it .

Being a Logic user like me , do you manually de-ess in the Audio Edit window by reducing the gain on problematic ess-es ?Thats how i do it anyway.

[davedarling]

a dotted 64th is a 64th note,plus a 128th note. (very hard to play on a tuba at any tempo)

dd

[mtstudi@pacbell]

Originally Posted by PT User

Sorry, can someone explain to me about what a dotted 64th predelay is?

I know what predelay is but not sure what dotted 64th. 64ms? dotted?


Trying to learn something here


Thanks
Eddie

It is usually around the 20ms range. Predelay is the space between source and effect. This is so the reverb doesn't blur the source. Dotted 64th was just a time value I threw out; I was being a little facetious. But I do calculate the timing.

Just for clarification, dotted is half the value of the note. A dotted 1/4 note would be a 1/8 note and 1/4 note time combined.


www.bluethumbproductions.com

[PT User]

Originally Posted by mtstudi@pacbell

It is usually around the 20ms range. Predelay is the space between source and effect. This is so the reverb doesn't blur the source. Dotted 64th was just a time value I threw out; I was being a little facetious. But I do calculate the timing.

Just for clarification, dotted is half the value of the note. A dotted 1/4 note would be a 1/8 note and 1/4 note time combined.


www.bluethumbproductions.com

Thanks for the clarification, I usually use about 22ms-24ms of predelay but this has nothing to do with notes. I just use my ears...guess I dont understand the technical side of things when it comes to talking notes.

so much to learn, If it sounds good then thats where I leave it.


thanks again
Eddie

[wilkinswp]

[quote=Lagerfeldt while air dubs obviously still need the highs.[/QUOTE]


Lagerfeldt, what are air dubs? Is that whispering or something?

[knerd]

what is the type of music?
on myspace check out A THOUSAND TIMES YES
they do some great harmonies.

When I produce songs, I often like to get 3 dubs of each harmony. I pan them
left, center, and right. I USUALLY take out more lowend on the harmonies than
on the lead. I compress the f-ing sh1t out of background harmonies. the reason I do
that is: well, I like how it sounds, and also I think of them as a padding instrument.

Originally Posted by MREVOL

Can anyone tell some of there secret backup vocal tricks.

Do you double them and pan them---if so how big is the pan??

If you have different harmonys do you pan them all together??

Any outboard tricks--pitchshifters?????

I have heard about filtering all the lows on backup vox's. Is this good or bad?

Etc...................................

[tomwehrle]

Here's a song I'd like you to hear and tell me what you think they did to get the bgv's the way they did, here's the link:

go here

I don't know these dudes and am just trying to promote them or something, i just heard of them last night for the first time...ok, so the area I have a question about is at like 2:07 into the song, its the bridge, then again at the repeating chorus at around 3:00...i really love the way the bgv's sound on this song. It doesnt sound like a lot of tracks, but it still sounds really full...any thoughts on how this is achieved?

[lordmiguel]

Originally Posted by joemeekfreak

any thoughts on how this is achieved?

this isn't hard at all, in fact ts mostly in the way it is sung, with more breath than throat or stomach. probabaly 4x dubbed, panned, eq'd on the lows (if needed, maybe some air, depends on singer) and tucked in back with some verb. thats all there really is, as far as i can hear.

[perun]

Originally Posted by joemeekfreak

Here's a song I'd like you to hear and tell me what you think they did to get the bgv's the way they did, here's the link:

go here

I don't know these dudes and am just trying to promote them or something, i just heard of them last night for the first time...ok, so the area I have a question about is at like 2:07 into the song, its the bridge, then again at the repeating chorus at around 3:00...i really love the way the bgv's sound on this song. It doesnt sound like a lot of tracks, but it still sounds really full...any thoughts on how this is achieved?

It's kind of MINIMAL, I realy like how they made the stereophony. But it's not that inventive. For a moment it reminded me of mixture of QUEEN and some RNB backing. Interesting 5 seconds, I must admit. Very airy, too...