Using Vocals (Tips & Techniques)

[matb123]

Alright guys...

Been looking on using vocals with my productions lately and was wondering what tips and techniques you lot have, i.e layering, pitching etc...

I also downloaded the Chase & Status - Time stems a while back and noticed there were lots of different versions of the acapella playing together but at different pitches etc which has got me thinking that there is a lot more into it.

Any tips would be really helpful, for me or for anyone who is interested in the same thing.

Ill start off... I recently obtained an acapella by using the phase inversion technique but this left the acapella sounding not as 'full' as it does in the original song so I duplicated the vocals and low passed one of them and turned it down a tad. This helped beef up the vocals.

[Basic A]

Well, okay, Chase n Status probably hired in that vocalist, so what that is the classic be your own backup vocals... If you listen to any pop tune, at any given point in time there are like 6-50 different takes of the vocalist all playing at once... creates natural chorus and harmony and timing flaw and other shit you jsut dont get in a daw... but...

if your working from an accapella...

Pitch things in key... like have the original playing, then have another one playing 5-7 semitones lower...

This will lead to one being faster/slower then the other, so the time will completely wreck... chop the one thats slower up, and arrange it so it stays in time-ish...

Turn the slower ones volume down, drench it in reverb... now its a backup vocalist...

Repeat the process, keeping scale in mind...

Bus them all together and add hints of delay/chorus/expanders/compresors/ect...

[RandoRando]

Well, okay, Chase n Status probably hired in that vocalist, so what that is the classic be your own backup vocals... If you listen to any pop tune, at any given point in time there are like 6-50 different takes of the vocalist all playing at once... creates natural chorus and harmony and timing flaw and other shit you jsut dont get in a daw... but...

if your working from an accapella...

Pitch things in key... like have the original playing, then have another one playing 5-7 semitones lower...

This will lead to one being faster/slower then the other, so the time will completely wreck... chop the one thats slower up, and arrange it so it stays in time-ish...

Turn the slower ones volume down, drench it in reverb... now its a backup vocalist...

Repeat the process, keeping scale in mind...

Bus them all together and add hints of delay/chorus/expanders/compresors/ect...

sorry for offtopic: but basicA, on your soundcloud, the "purchase on beatport" link is broken. its hyperlinked as https//www.beatport...... and so on its missing the semicolon after https and its fucking it up, i just deleted everything before www and it was fine, but just though you should know

[Filthzilla]

Try pitching the vocals at a perfect third and then layering them with the original. Have the harmony coming in every so often. Sounds kinda nice. [Check out the chorus of my track Chome for an example of what I'm on about]

[catmartin]

You can also pan the second vocal off to the side a bit, might help phasing. Raise the pitch up or down a couple of cents. Also, get Melodyne if you don't already have it. Hours of fun with harmonies (well, not quite,but great program).

[venuq]

Heard a lot of good reviews about this http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/nectar/. Not had the pleasure of using it myself but iZotope stuff is usually spot on.

[Atac]

I recently remixed some Dada Life tune.
I tried cloning it twice, and pitching the the two clones an octave up and another one down. This actually came out pretty nicely after a proper mixdown. If you slightly offset them and maybe pan them a tad for some stereo imaging, you can get some cool results.
Basically just try whatever you think will sound good. Have fun and experiment!
(A little bit of reverb after some light delay sounds cool too)