More vocoders!!! Today we're going to make a vocoder underscore a main vocal. A key part of my sound, I love to sneak it in on many of my pieces. Gonna break down a couple of my songs and let you hear snippets of them with and without the vocoded vocal while giving you some insights as to how I make this work. Before going any further, I highly recommend reading my first post here if you do not have much experience with vocoders.
Vocoded vocals can be, quite frankly, obnoxious (and I still love them). Sometimes we want them to be. Sometimes we just want that robot sound or that classic vocoded synth sound: chunky chords on a sawtooth wave-based digital sound. It's fun for pop and dance songs. Then there are other times we want to be more daring with it (Lori Anderson comes to mind) or even rather delicate. I like to try new things with it myself, but a personal favorite is the subtle effect you get on a regular vocal by layering it with a vocoder.
There are many ways to approach this, and I'm going to lay out one of my applications. In "We Were Something," the first verse is very dark. I achieved this by layering a dry, low EQed vocal with a vocoded vocal. You can also hear the vocoder pop up on the spoken questions later, but we're not focusing on those accent parts today. What I've laid out below are the components of the first verse, including the carrier sound, the vocoded vocal (modulated carrier), the first verse without the vocoder, and the first verse in its entirety. If you wish to hear the rest of the song, please visit my Bandcamp page. I think the most important thing here is that the vocal feels much dryer without the vocoded bit underneath it. It's a very, very, very (did I mention very?) subtle application, but at the end of the day, I use the vocoded vocal like an effect on the main vocal rather than a separate vocal. Sometimes you aren't trying to get it to stand out, but to support the main line.
Vocoder Carrier Sound:
Vocoded Vocal Alone:
First Verse no Vocoder:
First Verse with Vocoder:
I've done many variants of this approach. Sometimes I use the exact same vocal copied down to a new track; sometimes I sing it again. Often I put the "plain" vocal squarely in the middle (mono) and pull the vocoded part out to both sides (wide stereo). The nice thing about a background vocoder is that you have more freedom of carrier choice because your main vocal handles all of the enunciating and clarity that can be lost in a vocoder.
There is a flip-side to this. If you love the vocoded sound and want it to stand out, but you want it to be a little more intelligible, take the same approach as above but switch which track stands out more. Use the "plain" vocal as support. You still benefit from the sibilant clarity of the main vocal but can retain a degree of freedom to choose perhaps a less than ideal carrier. Be warned though that even with having the regular vocal for support, there are still some carriers that work much better than others. The more you want to bring the vocoded vocal forward, the more fluid and strong your carrier should be. Please refer back to my first post about carriers and modulators and what works well for vocals.
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
EQ: Think messing with the Equalizer on your stereo but with finer control. When I discuss EQs I mean the sound frequencies on a track and what I'm doing to volume of those frequencies.
Modulators and carriers were discussed in greater depth in the first post. For the purpose of this post, the modulator is the vocal wave and the carrier is the synthesizer sound.
Suggested resource for further learning: http://www.innovativesynthesis.com/introduction-to-vocoders/
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