EQ Magazine - August 2008 - (Page 34)

VOCAL CORDS TURNING DREARY VOCALS INTO POP STAR PERFORMANCES, PART II by Devine Evans Even after you’ve beaten a less-thanstellar lead vocal into submission, you may need to apply a little more polish before you can call it a day. I’ve found that a few single-line harmony parts can increase energy, as well as distract listeners from the main vocal. Although harmonies can be added anywhere throughout the song, I especially like to add these additional notes in the transitions from the verse to the chorus. Harmony synthesizers, pitch plugins, auto doublers, and other such processors offer infinite possibilities for creating harmony parts from an existing lead vocal. My personal preference is to do all my pitch modifications in Celemony Melodyne. To begin, I simply export a two-track mix of all the background vocals, a mono track of the vocals I will use to create the pitch variations, and a stereo mix of the music tracks. Once I open Melodyne, the first thing I do is set the session’s tempo to match the tempo of the incoming audio files. As with most DAWs, the tempo can easily be adjusted on the transport bar (ShiftCommand-T on a Mac, or Shift-Alt-T on a PC). Once the tempo is set, I can now import the audio files I exported from Pro Tools to begin the modifications. In Melodyne, there are a few things I always check to ensure the accuracy of my edits. The first thing I do is set the Scale Snap on, so I can properly analyze and transpose the vocals without any surprises. With the Scale Snap selected, I stop by the Prefs menu, and make sure the box that says “Consider original scale notes on Scale Snap” is checked. This enables Melodyne to understand which notes were—or were not—a part of the original scale. This is important, because as we generate new harmonies with different scale degrees, it will not force the original scale to snap to the new scales. Now, I open up the arrangement view (Shift-Command-A on a Mac, or Shift-Alt-A on a PC), select the audio, go to Edit and choose Paste Special Menu, and then select “Copy-andPaste selection to Parallel Track.” This will create a new track with an exact replication of the original audio file. Of course, this is going to introduce phasing, but, lucky for me, Melodyne makes this problem easy to fix. All I have to do is select the duplicated region, go to Edit, scroll down to Edit Pitch, and select “Add Random Offset to Pitch Center.” This randomizes the pitch center of the notes to simulate natural human fluctuations in pitch. This is one of the best ways I have found to ensure two copied audio regions have unique qualities. With the pitch center randomized, I now click and drag each note to the appropriate interval to create my harmony parts. With the new harmonies in place, I like to make a few minor adjustments to timing and formants. I do this to add a little more character to the vocal—making it even more different than the original file. As soon as I am pleased with my results, all that remains is to export my files and import them back into Pro Tools. FEEL INJECTION VIA WHISPER TRACKS The next time you listen to a song by Michael Jackson or Mariah Carey, pay attention to the techniques they use to increase the sense of passion in their words. You may notice these singers are masters of what I call “the breath to tone ratio.” A good ratio for this technique would be 70 percent tone to 30 percent breath. You want to hear the notes clearly, but you also want the intimacy of hearing the presence of breath (or air) change the feel and texture of the performance. There are five keys to recording successful “whisper tracks”: [1] The performer must perform the exact phrasing and intonation of the main vocal part. [2] They must sing as if they are whispering into the ear of a men’s magazine model like Vida Guerra, and that means no tone at all. [3] The performer must over annunciate the lyrics for maximum clarity. [4] Keep the headphone levels down! The vocalist will be whispering at such a low volume that you will need to boost the gain on your mic preamp quite a bit. The last thing you want is to increase headphone bleed to a ratio of 60 percent headphone bleed and 40 percent whisper. That would make this whole process painful and pointless! [5] Mute the lead vocals throughout the entire phase of the whisper track recording process. Believe me, you don’t want to deal with the challenge of editing out a lead vocal that slipped through the headphone defense system. The actual recording process should pretty much be a breeze. The most important things to look out for are the little pops and clicks that a whispering mouth can make. Once I have stacked two stereo 34 EQ AUGUST 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - August 2008

EQ Magazine - August 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Lyrics Born, Fink, David Kahne on Working with Paul McCartney, What a Future with no Record Industry looks like Tool Box ?uestlove Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 Apple Logic Pro 8 USM Mic Round-Up USB Mics Chameleon Labs 7720 Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - August 2008

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