On the dangers of aligning (rap) vocals

[T. Gundersen]

Hi Slutz. After having a week of intensive sessions with some very different rap artists, I would like to share a few thoughts on aligning vocals since the topic frequently pops up on this forum. Excuse the lengthy post in advance (you can skip to the conclusion if you want to).

Aligning doubles of rappers with less-than-ideal timing
When recording UK-style grime rappers, I had some issues with their timing. Their sense of rhythm is often different from the (in my opinion) more musical US-style hiphop rappers. They are skilled within their genre, and the loose timing are a part of their style, not just a result of going to the studio without proper preparation.

Their tracks required the lead vocal to be up front and in-your-face, so I did a single lead vocal track with two tracks for doubles on selected words or phrases with the intention of mixing the dubs relatively loud. However the timing of their doubles, despite me doing 6 passes of recording doubles and editing them, did not match the timing of the lead vocal by a longshot. So I align the doubles to match the lead tracks resulting in a tight match between the two. I will compare the sound of this method with the sound of the forthcoming example in a minute.

Aligning rappers with stellar timing
This week I also recorded a more musical rapper with stellar timing. Preparation and experience is of equal level to the grime-example, but his sound is more 'big' and oriented towards the American tradition. He does a bit more tracks, sometimes doubling up the lead completely in addition to 2-4 doubles and adding 6 or so tracks for shouts etc.

After comping his vocals, not much aligning are needed, if any. Just press play and it sounds right. However I did try completely aligning the doubles on one track just for the heck of it, but I actually ended up using the un-aligned ones.. The few places where I did use aligning on him, I kept it to a minimum.

Method
Personally I like to align vocals manually because I can do both rhythmical edits and stretch the vocals if needed. VocAlign could also be used, but it sounds a tad different to me, and I think it is just a matter of personal preference of workflow.

Conclusion
My point with this rambling is, that when I have to align all of doubles to the lead, while it gives a tight sound, it also results in a smaller sound. So whereever it is possible, I try to record the doubles so that they don't need aligning, even if it means doing a few extra passes, taking the chance of actively instructing the rapper and so on. And most importantly, I have become more aware of not unconsciously aligning vocals completely just because I can (even more tempting with VocAlign!), but to spend more time playing back the material and just aligning the parts I feel a compelling need to align - and when I do aligning, I do not only do it by the graphical representation of the audio, but I experiment a bit with the timing according to what I hear, even if it's not 100% "tight".

[Retrofreak]

It all depends on the MC imo.

With fast skippy rappers like Goodz and Ghetts I tend to take multiple takes of their verses and cut doubles out of them..then i'll let them do a couple loose doubles on top to fatten it up.

With slow rappers like Temps i'd subscribe to the traditional way of doubling (without vocalign as it starts to cancel vocals out imo).

[Nahuel]

I really dont understand your comments about grime. Grime rappers timing is far from loose, in fact good ones have a pretty tight timing and their flow is rather technical and musical, anyone with a minimal dancehall culture and used to jamaican horsemen styles can hear the direct influence... whatever... I beleive you just recorded bad grime rappers.

[T. Gundersen]

Originally Posted by Retrofreak

It all depends on the MC imo.

With fast skippy rappers like Goodz and Ghetts I tend to take multiple takes of their verses and cut doubles out of them..then i'll let them do a couple loose doubles on top to fatten it up.

With slow rappers like Temps i'd subscribe to the traditional way of doubling (without vocalign as it starts to cancel vocals out imo).

Interesting.. I never actually cut out doubles from completely doubled tracks. Guess I will try that sometime soon - you don't find that there's not enough variance from the lead vocal or extra power on it? Or are you doing it just to kind of thicken it up, tucking it underneath the lead vocal?

[T. Gundersen]

Originally Posted by Nahuel

I really dont understand your comments about grime. Grime rappers timing is far from loose, in fact good ones have a pretty tight timing and their flow is rather technical and musical, anyone with a minimal dancehall culture and used jamaican horsemen styles can hear the direct influence... whatever... I beleive you just recorded bad grime rappers.

First off, you do not know me nor the artists I have recorded, which should be yet another reason to keep a respectful tone. But since I have left out parts of the background, I guess I will explain myself rather than flaming up the forums. In my country, grime has had kind of a local resurge, which of course is inspired by the grime you might know from the UK or other places inspired by UK grime, but it is also to a very high degree inspired by the local hiphop/rap scene. It sort of takes grime in another direction than its origin, which is what I assume you hold the concept of grime up against. The MC's are very good at spitting fast and varied flows, but because they are usually very young, they are also inexperienced in a studio setting, not very conscious about their qualities and therefor they are not always able to accurately recreate their flows. They still churn out great sounding tracks that draw pretty big crowds, gets lots of hype and reach a lot of people, although technically (in a rhythmical, musical sense, they are far inferior to the most notable UK MC's). My point is that this is not the time nor place for you to call them good or bad as it is neither relevant to the discussion I were trying to start, nor do you even know which artists I am referring to.

[Arthur Stone]

I do home studio stuff and agree regarding manual editing of doubles - it's quite musical and intuitive and can give momentum to a part. It can be quite an absorbing process. The big problem I have is with consonants - not so much the de-essing aspect but aligning the percussion of off-time doubles.

[Nahuel]

Originally Posted by T. Gundersen

First off, you do not know me nor the artists I have recorded, which should be yet another reason to keep a respectful tone. But since I have left out parts of the background, I guess I will explain myself rather than flaming up the forums. In my country, grime has had kind of a local resurge, which of course is inspired by the grime you might know from the UK or other places inspired by UK grime, but it is also to a very high degree inspired by the local hiphop/rap scene. It sort of takes grime in another direction than its origin, which is what I assume you hold the concept of grime up against. The MC's are very good at spitting fast and varied flows, but because they are usually very young, they are also inexperienced in a studio setting, not very conscious about their qualities and therefor they are not always able to accurately recreate their flows. They still churn out great sounding tracks that draw pretty big crowds, gets lots of hype and reach a lot of people, although technically (in a rhythmical, musical sense, they are far inferior to the most notable UK MC's). My point is that this is not the time nor place for you to call them good or bad as it is neither relevant to the discussion I were trying to start, nor do you even know which artists I am referring to.

Dude in your first post you wasnt talking about your local grime inspired scene, you said "When recording UK-style grime rappers, I had some issues with their timing. Their sense of rhythm is often different from the (in my opinion) more musical US-style hiphop rappers.", I dont care if you dont like what I said, I'd say it again, I'd say it to your face too, you find my tone disrespectfull, it's not meant to, but feel free to take it like you want, I dont really care.

[T. Gundersen]

Originally Posted by Arthur Stone

I do home studio stuff and agree regarding manual editing of doubles - it's quite musical and intuitive and can give momentum to a part. It can be quite an absorbing process. The big problem I have is with consonants - not so much the de-essing aspect but aligning the percussion of off-time doubles.

I can't see which DAW system you're running, but I assume it has some kind of elastic audio... have you tried using that? I found that I were able to make both ess and pop sounds align without notable artifacts in the doubles using Logics. Unless you have already tried it with results you did not like, you should definitely try it out

[KT1]

Originally Posted by Retrofreak

It all depends on the MC imo.

With fast skippy rappers like Goodz and Ghetts I tend to take multiple takes of their verses and cut doubles out of them..then i'll let them do a couple loose doubles on top to fatten it up.

With slow rappers like Temps i'd subscribe to the traditional way of doubling (without vocalign as it starts to cancel vocals out imo).

You work with Ghetts? I like on a level..decent joint!

[ramil]

big up for Ghetts!

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by Nahuel

Dude in your first post you wasnt talking about your local grime inspired scene, you said "When recording UK-style grime rappers, I had some issues with their timing. Their sense of rhythm is often different from the (in my opinion) more musical US-style hiphop rappers.", I dont care if you dont like what I said, I'd say it again, I'd say it to your face too, you find my tone disrespectfull, it's not meant to, but feel free to take it like you want, I dont really care.

I agree. The best uk grime MCs are as tight as anyone. I do a fair bit of dubstep vocals, and the best guys are really on point. A nip and a tuck, manually tighten the doubles as much as needed.

[M.T. INDUSTRY]

Born an emcee, beatmaker by necessity, hi guys!
wth is align?
Are you talking about a program feature that fixes the points at which I insert lyrics when recording? Hmm...

Is this common practice? I haven't been in a big studio in years, and if somebody presumed to "fix" my track by shifting my vocals around... Wtf? I'm confused right? That not the case is it? If a vocalist cant say "hey" at the right time does that vocalist belong behind a mic?

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by M.T. INDUSTRY

Born an emcee, beatmaker by necessity, hi guys!
wth is align?
Are you talking about a program feature that fixes the points at which I insert lyrics when recording? Hmm...

Is this common practice? I haven't been in a big studio in years, and if somebody presumed to "fix" my track by shifting my vocals around... Wtf? I'm confused right? That not the case is it? If a vocalist cant say "hey" at the right time does that vocalist belong behind a mic?

Time aligning is part of professional vocal production. It's not as straight forward as saying get at the right time. It's making sure that with doubles, all the sibilances align, longthd of words are the same in doubles etc.

How much is done depends on the style, but if you want to sound commercial there's a lot that needs doing.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Originally Posted by M.T. INDUSTRY

Is this common practice? I haven't been in a big studio in years, and if somebody presumed to "fix" my track by shifting my vocals around... Wtf? I'm confused right? That not the case is it? If a vocalist cant say "hey" at the right time does that vocalist belong behind a mic?

Yes it is true. Some people here mentioned that not about timing but also about volume. Not necessarily compression, but automation - it has been mentioned that on commercial pop records the mix engineer "rides" the volume of the lead vocals every syllable if necessary, so that the whole vocal track is exactly at the same level.

[batepesho]

Time aligning is LAW in my work, when working on hiphop & rnb.
in samplitude11 its as easy as playing a game. but you've got to calibrate the daw for it, to be comfortable for you. in samplitude manual aligning is easy and exact with its autocrossfade function while cutting the words.
i always make double on whole lead vocal and at least 2 backtracks, in which the mc punches exactly the same words...i synchronize the lengths of unequal words detailed like continuing a sinus wave manual.... its about 40-60 mins ot project that has 2 verses by 16bars and a chorus 8 bars...

[M.T. INDUSTRY]

Man, I feel real small right now...
Do rappers usually need this correction? Do they know its happening?
Are any. Surprised by how much better it sounds?
Do any refuse it? Would someone like kool keith use it?mor is it more for the radio rappers?
Sorry if I'm dragging the convo down with my noobish ignorance, I usually try to read and catch on, but this is too common to yall and new to me... I need clarification. Is this a mix engineers secret technique tha he pulls out once the rapper has passed out on the couch?

[badhorsie777]

Eminem absolutely does it, as one famous example. He aligns 3 (or sometimes more as I understand it) versions of his lines. Lets him have that almost chorused effect with subtle variations in pitch. Try doubling your own line PERFECTLY three times, with variation in emotion and pitch. Get em close to perfect and then align em so they're dead on. It's a different feel than having the "i hear 3 versions of the same dude" effect like when you keep em loose.

Me personally, I like the looseness of the doubles, but I'll often blend in a whisper track and/or a main double that's really tight. I don't have an aligning plugin, so it's an anal-retentive process. I'd take an aligning plugin with no qualms. Time-saving. Doesn't mean I'd use it on everything (just like auto-tune. I'm glad I have it, but doesn't mean I tune everything)

Blessings,
Matt

[fooloof]

Originally Posted by batepesho

Time aligning is LAW in my work,

I'm so Interneticized that I was trying to figure out what "LAW" stood for, LOL.
Then I realized it was just a word.

[Zachariah]

MT: Not ALL emcees need this! lol I hear you bro. What happened to skill?

But VocAlign is a plugin that allows you to align vocals. It works best when you have doubled takes that are on-point excluding a syllable or a word.

Rappers are lazy nowadays (well most wannabes anyway)...this is the way to clean it up when you can't re-record.

That way it makes a very thick tight sound. Pan it across the stereo field after you've done 4 takes and Phil Spectre's Wall of Sound is now a lead in a hook for rap music.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by M.T. INDUSTRY

Man, I feel real small right now...
Do rappers usually need this correction? Do they know its happening?
Are any. Surprised by how much better it sounds?
Do any refuse it? Would someone like kool keith use it?mor is it more for the radio rappers?
Sorry if I'm dragging the convo down with my noobish ignorance, I usually try to read and catch on, but this is too common to yall and new to me... I need clarification. Is this a mix engineers secret technique tha he pulls out once the rapper has passed out on the couch?

Anyone who wants that "sound" uses it. It's inhumanly tight doubling.

It's part of the production, not mixing. As a mixer, I'd only tighten things if I felt it was needed, and before doing do I'd check with the producer.

It's not possible for anyone, however good they are, to track themselves closely enough. Get all the sibilants and plosives aligned, even breaths. Not to say someone shouldn't get the lead vocal with minimal timing adjustments - that's whee the skill comes in. But tightening good doubles to make a perfect, thick lead? Everyone does it, everyone needs a bit of vocal TLC. No shame in it.

Not everyone wants that sound of course.

[M.T. INDUSTRY]

Cool, I was gettin nervous about engineers plottin against my grimy sound...
Glad to know it wouldn't just be done without me knowing... Thats something I might not notice until sessions are approved.

[Lex A]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

I agree. The best uk grime MCs are as tight as anyone. I do a fair bit of dubstep vocals, and the best guys are really on point. A nip and a tuck, manually tighten the doubles as much as needed.

Well Grime is one thing but how would you clean it up on a hardcore Jungle set with Mc's like Skibadee and Shabba d on there? They are pretty quick tongued....would this nipping and tucking technique work with them?