I am going to apologize for the not-as-present and in-depth post. I spent my weekend with food poisoning, and I was writing this in between feeling like I wanted to crawl into a ball in the corner and not come out as well as working on mixes for my next EP. But I'm better now! I'm going to give you as much info as possible in the time that I have.
While I do love vocoders, I use a lot of other vocal treatments from echoes to filters to layering. I love layers! That's what we're going to discuss today: taking a vocal and making it really big by adding a bunch of layers and panning them. (Panning is where you mess with the side the sound is on when working in stereo or surround sound. I often like to put one vocal slightly left and one slightly right as well as having one in the middle.)
There are a couple of ways to approach layering. One is to record multiple tracks. The other is to take a single take (or a combination of your best takes) and copy it down to new track. Either way, I generally add a different reverb, filter, or other to the new tracks. It distinguishes them and adds a depth to the vocals that I quite enjoy.
On "A Penguin and a Giraffe" I sang each take as similarly as possible. I used a fairly heavy reverb with a slight slapback on the main vocal. As I went through, I added another take (but much dryer, just a touch of reverb and no slapback) and then another (also very dry). I kept any variation on the vocal relatively natural. Note that the song builds and builds as I add instruments and vocal takes. By keeping the extra vocals dry, it adds dimension to the vocal that would otherwise sound very similar. It keeps them separate without making them so very different that they would be distracting.
But I do love to get fancy! One of my favorite tricks is to take a vocal and add one treatment on the left panning and a different on the right with a slight delay. This makes the vocal move. I did this and more in "Muscle Memory, Fading." I think I went all in on the vocal treatments and various pans. I had layers and lefts and rights so much that picking this apart would take a couple of posts. I'll keep this relatively brief. So the vocals where it feels like it is moving very quickly from left to right have this: pick a dryer treatment on one side and a slightly delayed entrance with slight slapback on the other side (or scoot the vocal over a smidge and add a reverb) and you'll get that effect. This is cleaner and a bit more shimmery than simply adding a heavy reverb and playing with the panning on a single line. It's most apparent where the first first is being sung over the chorus toward the end. This was one song where vocoders just would have been superfluous because of how many vocal layers I had by the end of it (5 separate tracks of vocals with various treatments).
A note on panning, and I learned this the hard way: If you pan too far left and right, you can get a really crappy MP3 mix! MP3s, especially at the lower qualities, do not convey stereo very well. With streaming being so important, you do need to pay attention to how your mix will sound in low quality streaming formats. Sorry to purists. That's the way the music world works right now. I therefore have learned to not pan much past 30 or 40% left or right with my vocals. Play with your panning and convert it to low quality MP3 (128) and listen to how it sounds. A good way to do this is to upload your track to Soundcloud, keep it a private track, and listen to how it comes through on your speakers or headphones. I do a lot of additional listening on low quality formats and crappy dollar store headphones before releasing.
Another tip: LABEL YOUR TRACKS!!!! Yes, I just shouted that. I you have first verse dryer than the second, label them things that you will understand. I often end up with vocals named along the following lines: Main dry, Main reverb, Chorus echo, Vocoded, Chorus Harmony, etc Keep yourself as organized as possible! It makes a huge difference later when you are working on final mixes for your singles or album releases.
Other later posts will continue to discuss different plugins, effects, tips, tricks, etc for electronic and other music recordings. Please send me your suggestions for posts in the comments, via my website, or to my twitter account sarahschonert@sarahschonert.
Visit www.sarahschonertmusic.com to learn more about my music.
Definitions for the Layperson:
Track: In these posts, a track is a layer of recorded or programmed sound within my DAW. Each track can be tweaked for volume, panning, effects, etc
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