Vocal Layering?

[underunity]

I'm currently in the very inception of starting my own audio engineering/production business and recording all my musician friends for free to get my name out in the area. Luckily, they all have talent and I've mixed live sound with many of them for years so we all gel pretty well. However, they are are as new to being produced as I am to producing. The project I'm working on currently is Contemporary Christian in style and requires a plethora of vocal layering. Can anyone offer some advice to the best ways to go about laying down harmonies and BGVs? Especially when in the end I know I'll easily have a couple dozen tracks of 'em?

[garagesailor2]

A couple dozen tracks of vocals? Are these all going to be different vocalists? It almost seems easier to me to just record the group as a whole in that case, like a small choir. I'm a fan of capturing as much live performance as you can though. I guess if they're not very good, this would be a bad route to take..

[edub357]

no he means recording multiple tracks and using them as harmony tracks. They way I do it is i record the multiple tracks edit them as needed and i pan them around to give that space your looking for, i.e.

lets say we do 8 vocal tracks for a chorus

2 dead center
1 panned 15 left
1 panned 15 right
1 panned 30 left
1 panned 30 right
1 panned 100 left
1 panned 100 right

or however you want to do it but its almost like making your own pyramid with the panning of the tracks and it will widen the sound and add that harmony your looking for.

again this is how i do it, not saying this is the only way but just an example. I hope this helps.

dont forget to play around with the levels of each track as well.

[underunity]

Well, there are only two vocalists. Both of them have great range and the music is very pop-driven. There are 2 tracks a piece for their melodies (doubled at some parts), a track each for BGV repeating some parts as if it were a delay, and each vocalist having room for 4 or 5 harmonies, with the occasional doubling of certain harmonies. This is approaching 2 dozen not counting group tracks or FX returns!

I know what I want in the end, it's just overwhelming to think of it all at once. I don't know if others have found it better to work in a descending manner by doing all the melody tracks, then the hi harmony with one of the girls, then the low harmony, then the octave, etc., OR do it in a linear fashion changing things on the fly, such as recording the 5 part harmony w/its 3 doubles at once before moving from say the verse to the prechorus.

[edub357]

what daw software are you using for recording? ive seen 20 tracks already used just for a intro so yeah it can get overwhelming but if you are looking for a paticular sound and you seem to know what it is then you will find it with the right amount of tracks per each harmony range.

[underunity]

My DAW is Cubase LE 4. Came free with my FireStudio, hence why I use it, lol. I have become a big fan of Cubase, however. Unfortunately, LE limits you to 48 tracks, which I will have to upgrade one day.

[edub357]

Originally Posted by underunity

My DAW is Cubase LE 4. Came free with my FireStudio, hence why I use it, lol. I have become a big fan of Cubase, however. Unfortunately, LE limits you to 48 tracks, which I will have to upgrade one day.

well 48 tracks can be used to its fullest potential if you bounce your tracks down during mixdown, get your layers how you want them and then bounce them down to a single track after all editing is done to free up tracks. I have to look into cubase to see its capabilities because im considering on buying a new interface.

[archiegood]

If there are only two vocalists, do you intend to make it sound as if there were twelve vocalists, or are you shooting for the duo to feature their talents?

Either way, you may want to use different microphones and effects on the various BGVs. If they all sound alike in every respect, it could get "brassy," if you get my drift.

I liked the pyrimid panning idea, too.

Let us hear this when it is finished.

[underunity]

I'm shooting to show off their talents. They harmony excellently with eachother, and I need to outcome to very poppy.

Archie: Favorite vocal tricks, female vocal mics?

[underunity]

harmonize*