PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase "I Owed A Debt"

Bit thin this song, pitty as I do like a heavier bass on my tracks.

https://soundcloud.com/devonbiker/i-owed-a-debt

Sounds good here with headphones! Nice mix...well balanced. Would be nice to hear some backup vocals on the chorus.

Yes I agree, listening to one sing, (who's not the best singer on the block or using the best equipment to produce the sweetest voice), can be a bit fatiguing. I'm considering TC Helicon products but I do have Melodyn which I understand can be used to create harmonies - but I have no idea about harmonies to begin with, I can harmonize the odd bit here and there but nothing solid - so I guess a harmonizer would probably be the best option? Pitty TC Helicon don't sell a software version for a DAW.

Try the TC Helicon VoiceLive Touch. It does many different kinds of vocals...hundreds actually. You'll be surprised...I know I was!

I was close to buying their Mic Mechanic just to keep me in tune. I would like to keep the item small as VoiceLive is large. A foot pedal would be good I thing?

Great job on this one!

To use Melodyne for harmony,

1. open your original vocal track in Melodyne then copy to two separate tracks. TIP: about melodyne and correcting pitch, do not do it unless the vocal is extremely out of pitch and Never do 100% pitch correction, I would never use more than say 25% and that is probably too much. The reason is the human voice does subtle slides and trills through out a vocal performance and no matter how good a software is and Melodyne is a fine software it cannot keep up with the human voice. So what happens is you get parts that sound robotic when played against the mix. (AS A TEST: Put a vocal in melodyne correct the pitch and drift 100%, then put it back in your mix, and what sounded good against the mix originally will have places that are off key with the mix sharp and flat, which sounds crazy when the vocal is suppose to be set to perfect pitch.) I suggest instead of using correct pitch go through and the notes that seem out of pitch use the trill or slide function, this usually makes the note fall to the correct pitch for the rest of the song. If you use 100% pitch correction you will have some portions of the track that sound robotic and very unnatural unless the singer was nearly spot on perfect with their vocal and this is humanly impossible to do, not even the best singers can be in perfect pitch all of the time, just because of the way our voices slide and trill, the slightest change in air intake will change timbre and pitch, there will always be off notes, but against the mix they will fit because it is happening so fast, that it sounds like the singer is on pitch to the human ear.

2. On one of the copies delete all of the parts except what you want to use for a harmony part. Once you have done that;

3. hit select all, then drag all notes up the number of tones you want, I generally go with 3 up and 1 down for the harmonies as that sounds the most natural to me, you can however go 1 octave up and 1 octave down etc, use what is best for your application. on the copy track you have been working on, and I am sure if you work long enough you can make any harmony sound good.

4. Now go to quantize; this will make the harmony part sing off of the original which is what you want. Use the original track as the one to quantize to (the reason you use the orignal is because when you put these harmonies in your Daw the original is what you are harmonizing with.) Use whatever quantize you choose. I stay as close to the original as possible. 1/32 to 1/8 , but use whatever sounds best to you, this means melodyne will move the notes up and back throughout the notes the selected amount. Then mute the 2nd copy and play this harmony with the original and you will hear the harmony against the original.

5. Next use the formant tool to change the formant of the copy you are listening to in any places where the harmony sounds unnatural with the original. There is also a place to randomly offset timing, this is different than quantize because unlike quantize where for example if you set it for 1/8 off it moves the track either up or back 1/8. As you know harmony is not always that precise so the random offset will make the harmony more realistic sounding with the original part, still make sure to use the quantize first. The goal is to get the copy off of the original slightly forward and back so you don't have an exact replica but no so much that it sounds unnatural to listen to, also if the two tracks are exact it will sound muddy. I recommend also going through and choosing each note of the harmony part and setting the notes to either trill or slide, it takes a little time but is well worth it as the harmony part will sound more natural.

6. Use this same procedure for the second harmony, but if you went 3 tones up with 1st harmony go 1 tone down or more with this one, when going down though be very careful as this can get unnatural sounding very quickly and can cause muddiness in the mix.

I hope this helps!

Paul,

You have a very pretty tone to your voice. I like it. Nice song. I enjoyed it. You might also try the TCH that comes with BIAB. Some folks get good results with it.

This question about harmony comes up a lot. I'm going to start a thread in tips and tricks on adding vocal harmonies.