Recording - February 2015 - 51

vocal is the star of the show, and the song
moves and grows around that vocal. If
there are background vocal parts, I always
like to picture a section of background
vocalists singing behind the lead vocalist.
As for mixing those background vocal
parts, one rule I always live by is symmetry.
If I'm recording background harmony parts,
they're almost always in pairs, because I like
to pan each note symmetrically "around" the
lead vocal. If I want to get doubles of the
lead, I'll always get three total. There's the
one lead who's alive and up front, and then
two backrounds that are blended lower and
panned 50% (or so) to the left and the right.
For harmony parts, I like to pan them according to note: the higher notes are wider and
the lower notes are narrower. I like the separation and soundscape this creates.

I have 4 or more tracks per note of a part
then I pan in varying degrees. For the lead
note (let's say I have 5 tracks) I'll pan the
main track down the middle, and the four
other tracks 100% left-100% right, and 50%
left-50% right, an even spread of vocals.
For harmonies I'll get 2 tracks (doubles)
of each note, panning them left and right
by pitch. I'll try not to pan any note to the
same degree. Because most pop vocals are
really dense, each section is flown throughout the song. That means that if there is any
section with repeating lyrics and melody,
the same performance is used each time it
occurs. To have the song build, I may introduce harmonies or accompanying parts
later in the song, or add certain ad libs to
create the illusion of an actual performance
from top to bottom.

Greg Ogan in session with Sean Kingston and Bruno Mars
For a more mainstream radio vibe, the
approach is different. I see it as painting the
song in different puzzle pieces that come
together to form a whole picture, i.e., each
section of the song is treated differently for
what's appropriate to that section. For a
verse, it may be one vocal that's intimate
and up close, the prechorus is starting to be
stacked and harmonized, and the chorus
becomes lush stacks of vocal textures and
background oohs and ahhs to create a big
landscape that pops out.
In these cases, the stacks may generally
be more dense. The "lead" part may be 1,
3 or 5 parts stacked. The harmonies could
be 2 or 4 tracks per note blended in. There
could be those oohs and ahhs or background lines that are also stacked heavily. In
these cases, I stick to my law of symmetry. If

For R&B vocals, I combine the two
philosophies of organic and pop treatments. During most of my R&B productions, there is a lead performance from
beginning to end, where each section is
an expansion upon the last, adding runs
and licks and vibe. However, at the same
time there is heavy vocal production in
terms of stacks, harmonies, little ear
candy riffs, runs, counter melodies, etc.
R&B vocals are very sleek and shiny, and
to achieve this I get tons of layers of
vocals. These are the most intense sessions in terms of organization, mixing on
the fly, and track management. I've gotten up to 8 tracks of each vocal part! I
always stick to my rules of symmetry, by
panning in various degrees, and keeping
everything even.

Cleanup
Comping, tuning and editing vocals is
a very in-depth process with lots of
options, worthy of its own article. To sum
up my philosophies: I don't like the result
of (or enjoy) over-comping, over-editing,
and over-tuning. In this day and age of
technology and potential perfection, I like
to keep vocals feeling human. I don't
remove breaths, and I comp in bigger
phrases, if possible. I enjoy comping
vocal takes with the singer in the room...
if I trust them and think they know what
they like. If the vocals need a lot of repair,
I will do it on my own time without them.
If the vocals either need a ton of repair,
or need very little repair to keep an honest performance and organic feel, I will
use Celemony Melodyne to tune the
vocals. If they need that radio shine and
tight tuning, I will use Antares Auto-Tune,
tuning the whole performance and
changing notes by hand if necessary. To
keep things tight, I will use Synchro Arts
Vocalign on background parts.
The mix
As far as mixing is concerned-well, at
least rough mixing during a tracking
date-every vocal part and section is
assigned its own bus for independent level
control and processing. See my vocal template article for more details. Whenever I
have a lead vocal going down the middle, I'll always add a compressor to it
before it hits the bus that already has
another compressor inserted. I usually serially compress most lead vocals like this.
There are other vocals going to that same
bus as well, and I really like to glue it all
together that way. I'll send to reverbs and
delays as appropriate for the song and
the part of the song. When a singer exits
the booth, they want to hear the song
down as quickly as possible, so most of
these rough mix moves are happening
during the recording process.
This sums up my mindset during vocal
tracking days. The one factor I didn't
mention is external input from artists, significant others, producers, managers,
labels, etc. That's always a wild card! I
can't stress enough the fact that every situation is different, but hopefully some of
these principles can guide you to some
cool creative results.
Greg Ogan (ogan@recordingmag.com)
is a writer-producer signed to The Writing
Camp/Sony/ATV, and former chief engineer for J.R. Rotem and Beluga Heights.
His credits include Britney Spears,
Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Sean Kingston,
and Kelly Clarkson.
RECORDING February 2015

Recording - February 2015

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