Backing vocals for non singers and vocal harmonies from nothing...

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cowparsleyman

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« on: November 08, 2021, 01:17:22 PM »
Sometimes you may only have one vocal track, and wonder how to get some harmonies or backing vocals with not much at all.

There are a few ways round this...(first learn about sub mix busses...it's worth the effort)

Do the singing yourself (there a quite a few very self conscious singers, it'll be better than you think)...if you don't think you can sing then there's still a way around it..You'll need at least 4 recordings.

Sing each part twice, usually the same as the Lead Vocal (LVox)
Then a harmony twice
Then another harmony or an octave version of the LVox twice.

Setup a submix buss called subBVox, and route the above tracks to the subBVox, this will enable you to adjust each of the levels and panning (swing em out left and right leaving about 1 hr on the clock face distance between each on in the panning circle - which means that if the first BV is at 5 and 7 o clock then the next should be a 4 and 8) in relation to the other Bvox, and then adjust the level of the subBVox buss in relation to the whole mix, so you can "hide" the crap singing, you can also mask crap singing with fx... phase, distortion lofi, filters etc will also spare your blushes. A vocoder can hide a bunch of stuff, but generally get the singing in time and in tune.

Once you've done you'll have a beautifully spaced, rich layer of vocals that you can just hear, but give a great depth.

The other way to get a harmony vocal from nothing is to use a programme like Melodyne, where you can move each note around, so if you want a 3rd above and a 4th below then it's easy, just copy and paste, but be aware that some harmonic intervals don't sit too well at at fixed space, so a few will need to be nudged a bit.

Melodyne also has a formant tool, which effectively changes a male voice to a female one, as long as the vocals are sort of hidden, then it's generally fine. again, this take time and not recommended for lead vocals.

Hope this helps...as always any questions do ask..