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I really like the sound of the harmonies in this song. I do feel the sound of them is somewhat specific to the song, as they almost create an "atmosphere" for the lead.

Harmony Example

And here there harmonies compliment, but also extend some phrases, and start adding a bit more to the background...

Extending and Additional Vocal Lines

This is what I would like help with. What are they doing to those vocals? They almost have a synth or vocoder type of sound to me. Yet you can understand them.

What effects are they using? I think, but don't know, I hear both reverb and delay. Is there heavy compression to get them so tight? What else? smile

I would love to get this type of vocal sound for some of my projects.

Anything and everything that you could let me know, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again. It's great to be able to ask these types of questions here!


Chad (Hope that makes it easier)

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Originally Posted By: HearToLearn

This is what I would like help with. What are they doing to those vocals? They almost have a synth or vocoder type of sound to me. Yet you can understand them.

What effects are they using? I think, but don't know, I hear both reverb and delay. Is there heavy compression to get them so tight? What else? smile


They likely are using all of that and more. Chances are good that Autotune is used on harmonies (though NO ONE can say for sure except the engineer). And they would move any syllable that is not perfectly lined up (to be lined up).

BUT... the biggest thing is... these guys have been singing together for YEARS. It's what they do. Finding GUYS who can sing that high is a tall order to begin with... but those kinds of harmonies come from people who have been doing it all their lives...

Extending/Additional Vocal Lines - that is simply arranging - like any other instrument - just takes a bit of thought/imagination - the same kind you might apply if you were adding strings or guitar fills, etc....

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The harmonies are high harmonies, several dB below the main vox line.

Very likely that have been pitch fixed for perfect pitch and it sounds like a flanger or a chorus on them.

The idea there is to have the harmonies low enough that they appear as a background and almost a part of the lead as opposed to being separate and distinct vocal tracks.

I like to triple the lead vocals on some songs..... one main down the center and 2 separately recorded duplicates panned 100% R&L but down at -18dB or more....and then record harmonies (R&L) high and mid, and place them about -12dB or so..... This gives a slightly fatter sound and the harmonies act like they are a part of the main voice.

I did that on this>>>> http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=12633485 Listen to the chorus since that's where I have harmony. The lead in the verses and chorus, IIRC is a tripled track.... the duplicates on the R&L are far enough down that the normal and casual listener can not hear them as distinct with the music playing. Soloed, it is obvious.

This one is also similar>>> http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11843061 The verses have the harmonies down..... but in the chorus the harmonies are intentionally pulled up several dB over the verses.

Not all parts of a verse or a chorus will get the harmony parts... that crosses into the production world a bit.... you have to decide where and when the harmony is improving the song and when it's best left out for the dramatic effect.

Getting the sound that Rascal Flatts gets is also a product of the vocal quality that the singers in that band have. Unique voices, the ability to actually sing high harmony well, and a producer who knows what they need.

I'm a big fan of the doubled/tripled lead and the barely audible harmony parts. If you listen to country and probably pop and rock as well, you will hear a lot of the low harmony that sounds like it's almost a part of the lead singers voice as opposed to the distinct harmony you hear from groups like the Oak Ridge Boys and the Statler Brothers.

I hope this helps a bit.


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Originally Posted By: floyd jane
[quote=HearToLearn]

They likely are using all of that and more. Chances are good that Autotune is used on harmonies (though NO ONE can say for sure except the engineer). And they would move any syllable that is not perfectly lined up (to be lined up).

BUT... the biggest thing is... these guys have been singing together for YEARS. It's what they do. Finding GUYS who can sing that high is a tall order to begin with... but those kinds of harmonies come from people who have been doing it all their lives...

Extending/Additional Vocal Lines - that is simply arranging - like any other instrument - just takes a bit of thought/imagination - the same kind you might apply if you were adding strings or guitar fills, etc....


Got it. That all makes sense. I guess I am trying to figure out the raw vocals I would even need to do a lot of that. Meaning, how many voices, how "airy" are they. Things like that as well.

I have seen some of RF's live stuff (unplugged) and they can sing...not as well as their recordings though wink

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Great advice as always!

Last edited by HearToLearn; 05/05/15 03:51 AM.

Chad (Hope that makes it easier)

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Originally Posted By: Guitarhacker
The harmonies are high harmonies, several dB below the main vox line.

Very likely that have been pitch fixed for perfect pitch and it sounds like a flanger or a chorus on them.

The idea there is to have the harmonies low enough that they appear as a background and almost a part of the lead as opposed to being separate and distinct vocal tracks.

I like to triple the lead vocals on some songs..... one main down the center and 2 separately recorded duplicates panned 100% R&L but down at -18dB or more....and then record harmonies (R&L) high and mid, and place them about -12dB or so..... This gives a slightly fatter sound and the harmonies act like they are a part of the main voice.

I did that on this>>>> http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=12633485 Listen to the chorus since that's where I have harmony. The lead in the verses and chorus, IIRC is a tripled track.... the duplicates on the R&L are far enough down that the normal and casual listener can not hear them as distinct with the music playing. Soloed, it is obvious.

This one is also similar>>> http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11843061 The verses have the harmonies down..... but in the chorus the harmonies are intentionally pulled up several dB over the verses.

Not all parts of a verse or a chorus will get the harmony parts... that crosses into the production world a bit.... you have to decide where and when the harmony is improving the song and when it's best left out for the dramatic effect.

Getting the sound that Rascal Flatts gets is also a product of the vocal quality that the singers in that band have. Unique voices, the ability to actually sing high harmony well, and a producer who knows what they need.

I'm a big fan of the doubled/tripled lead and the barely audible harmony parts. If you listen to country and probably pop and rock as well, you will hear a lot of the low harmony that sounds like it's almost a part of the lead singers voice as opposed to the distinct harmony you hear from groups like the Oak Ridge Boys and the Statler Brothers.

I hope this helps a bit.


Awesome suggestions, and the examples you gave are typically the type of harmonies I would be using. I love the O.R.B, but it's not the sound I'm looking for. What you are doing is! Thank you for the suggestions! Keep 'em coming if you have more!


Chad (Hope that makes it easier)

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Here is something I am finding helpful as well.

No Lead

and

Harmonies Only

It gives me an idea of what it sort of sounds like at least.


Chad (Hope that makes it easier)

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Originally Posted By: HearToLearn

Harmonies Only

It gives me an idea of what it sort of sounds like at least.



That is just well sung, well recorded harmony vocals by people who know what they are doing. (both engineers and singers). Especially singers!

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One thing I really love is where a male and female are both singing what is essentially harmony parts and the lead is implied. I don't hear it too often these days but it used to happen fairly often in years past.


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Hi.

I pretty much agree with everything that's been said.

Listening to the track, I would have thought that there was a lot of tracking-up going on. If we're recording backing harmony, we'd have at least four voices tracked-up on each part, two each hard panned left and right. With three part harmony, that's twelve voices, but surprisingly it never sounds like twelve, it just sounds big and the natural phasing you get from so many hard panned voices singing the same line provides an effect similar to the one on your example.

With so much tracking-up, phrasing becomes really important and one of the skills which session singers have, is the ability to pick up accurate phrasing really quickly. If you have a word at the end of a line which ends in a hard consonant, like "hat", you can end up with Hatttt and there's only so much you can do with editing.

Another trick which used to be more popular than it is today, is using a vocoder on backing ooohs and aaahs. We used to use the old Syntovox hardware vocoder for this. By using white noise as the carrier and the backing vocals as the modulator, you could get a sound like a gentle breeze blowing through the voices. By mixing this in with the untreated signal, you could go from subtle breathy vocals to a full effect. Never tried it with software, but if you do and it works, let me know.

At the end of the day, good singing and attention to detail will see you through.

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While it's pretty much agreed that this was done with great backing vocals, very tight unison's etc, is his something that could be achieved with the same/similar success with Melodyne?


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Originally Posted By: VideoTrack
While it's pretty much agreed that this was done with great backing vocals, very tight unison's etc, is his something that could be achieved with the same/similar success with Melodyne?


Using Melodyne to create multipart harmonies, while it is possible, takes considerable work.

I have to tell you... I am working on a song at the moment, using the TC Helicon harmonizer in RealBand 2015 - first time I've done it since the move to 2015 (I used to use it quite often, but have been doing my own harmonies - often with the help of J&B).... I don't know if anything has changed (been upgraded), but the harmonies that it is generating are WAY better than they used to be - I keep listening to them and can't believe how much better they are...

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Quote:
Using Melodyne to create multipart harmonies, while it is possible, takes considerable work.


Agreed! It's not as easy as they would have you believe when demoing the product.

Quote:
I have to tell you... I am working on a song at the moment, using the TC Helicon harmonizer in RealBand 2015 - first time I've done it since the move to 2015 (I used to use it quite often, but have been doing my own harmonies - often with the help of J&B).... I don't know if anything has changed (been upgraded), but the harmonies that it is generating are WAY better than they used to be - I keep listening to them and can't believe how much better they are...


I haven't used them. Do you have an example by chance?


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Originally Posted By: HearToLearn

I haven't used them. Do you have an example by chance?


I cut out a couple of clips for you.

This includes the main vocal (me) plus one harmony that I did (a third above) and 4 harmonies generated in RealBand - against my vocal - to do the 4 harmonies (1 down, 3 up) took about 2 minutes.

http://floydjane.com/Songs/HarmEx.htm

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Quote:
I cut out a couple of clips for you.

This includes the main vocal (me) plus one harmony that I did (a third above) and 4 harmonies generated in RealBand - against my vocal - to do the 4 harmonies (1 down, 3 up) took about 2 minutes.

http://floydjane.com/Songs/HarmEx.htm


I didn't expect them to sound that good! Not doubting YOUR abilities, just the technology. I was impressed!

Thanks for doing that!


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Just wanted to say a quick "Thank You!" again for all the insights on harmonies. I spent a lot of time today trying different things and feel I'm getting closer. That's always a good feeling.

Then I re-listen to the songs I like and...well, keep trying! ha!

Thanks for all of the help. I hope the questions aren't getting old for everyone!


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ROG made some interesting points.

On multi-tracking the vocals..... phrasing is very, very important. In addition to the consonants, those pesky "s's" will trip you up every time because they will be clearly heard even with the part -16dB down in the mix.

There's a song on my website called MISSING PERSON. http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11962059 It was never posted here because nothing in it is PG related and it's totally, 100% live acoustic instruments. Have a listen. It has about 12 vocal tracks in it for the 2 singers. One of the tricks I used to make the phrasing as close as possible without a bunch of overdubs and recording after the fact, was to use envelopes to pull down and hide that ending "s" or something else that stuck out. The one that was "right" stayed, the out of sync other was pulled down and no one knew the difference when listening.

Melodyne....yes, yes, and yes...... you can use it to easily correct the phrasing in a vocal part.


A really great example is still on the User Showcase. The song Joanne and I are working on...FOOLS ERRAND. In that song, we both sang on the chorus together. We're not professionals at nailing the phrasing that was mentioned above so, while most of it was pretty freaking close to perfect, there were parts that were not. Just one thing out of the phrase groove makes the entire thing sound like an elementary school choral group. However, rather that going back to JC or me recording it again and changing the phrasing in all the parts to match..... can't sing it one way in one chorus and another in a different one..... I simply used the timing tool in ME to move her parts as needed to line up more closely with what I had sung. Job done quickly.

In another section.... the bridge.... where she sang, "Half a million......" she came in on a pitch way lower than the part that I sang on the next line. In reality, both parts needed to be the same.... it is a bridge..... and it needed the higher pitch for the energy it imparted. For that correction, I used the ME pitch tool and simply moved her notes (I think 6 in all) up to where they needed to be to match the part I sang on the second section of the bridge. After it was moved, I listened carefully to that part to ensure no audible artifacts and there were none that were evident. If there had been artifacts, I would have asked her to record the part again with the higher melody. ME fixed it perfectly in 60 seconds.

I don't use, or haven't used, to this point the 4 tracks ROG mentioned per voice.... perhaps I will work with that on the next one I do. To this point I have done 3. Main lead in the center and 2 others on the sides and lower.... harmonies have been doubled. The inherent danger one must be aware of when using any close duplicate tracks, no matter how they are panned or what level they set in the mix..... is what he referred to as the "natural phasing" ...or comb filtering that results from the complex phase (speaking mathematically now) relationships of the audio waves interacting.... you get cancellation and addition at varying phase angles and the results can be quite unpleasing to the ear. I'll just leave it at that on that topic for now.... that could easily be an entirely new topic for discussion in itself.

Anyway... that's my 2 cents for this morning.


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Originally Posted By: floyd jane

I cut out a couple of clips for you.

This includes the main vocal (me) plus one harmony that I did (a third above) and 4 harmonies generated in RealBand - against my vocal - took about 2 minutes.

http://floydjane.com/Songs/HarmEx.htm




Dang.... sounds like the Gatlins.... sibling harmony..... impressive.

I might have to play with that again. I tried it in years past and it always sounded so fake and full of artifacts. I'll check it out.... 2015 version.


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Originally Posted By: Guitarhacker
Originally Posted By: floyd jane

I cut out a couple of clips for you.

This includes the main vocal (me) plus one harmony that I did (a third above) and 4 harmonies generated in RealBand - against my vocal - took about 2 minutes.

http://floydjane.com/Songs/HarmEx.htm




Dang.... sounds like the Gatlins.... sibling harmony..... impressive.

I might have to play with that again. I tried it in years past and it always sounded so fake and full of artifacts. I'll check it out.... 2015 version.



Herb,

My thought also! Good call.


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I thought this may be of interest to people following the thread. These vocals stems for a contest allow us a peak into what is actually going on. Two words...Wow! and Weird! But I like it! I just wish I understood it sooooo much more.


Vocals


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