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I copied a vocal track to a second track. I wanted to EQ them a little differently and add reverb to one of them,using the reverb from Audio Effects on Real Band.

The track copied and added the reverb fine. When I played it, a few measures would sound good but then I would get a measure or two of white noise.

Anyone had this problem and solved it?

I've had something like that happen. Make sure that if it's an audio track that the track is set for that. If midi, same difference.

Last, copy the track again. Make sure when copying you copy all the controls and FX in that track.
Then paste it all into the new track.

Hope that helps.

If you are using the hard written effects (Audio Effects-Reverb) and not a VST or DX realtime effect:
Try consolidating the track before running these effects.
To be frank, these effects haven't been updated in years. There are some lingering bugs for some people.
For me, if I use the hard write effects (which I rarely do as I prefer realtime), consolidating is a quick easy step that helps when weird things happen.

Make sure you select or highlight the whole track, then right-click and select Track-Consolidate Audio Region.

What this does is, if you have any edits or regenerated a section (or the track has audio chunk markers for any reason), this step makes the track one contiguous chunk.

I think the hard write effects sometimes have trouble when the track is in small chunks instead of one big one.

You did not say what EQ plugin you are using. We are left to assume you are using the PG Music EQ plugin that came with your PG music software or the EQ in the Audio Effects list.

I'm probably wrong but, are you using a Trial Version of a reverb or EQ plugin?

Some trials have limited features until you get the paid version.

Other trials give you full function but periodic white noise until you get the paid version.

Thanks to everyone for the responses.

The effects were the ones with Real Band.

I will have to find out how to consolidate. It makes sense that I would need to do that.

Thanks again.

What are you trying to accomplish using this method?


Copying a track for doubling or effect is not a good idea. You get phasing issues and that can result in comb filtering as well as cancellation and addition issues since the reverb will delay the frequencies and cause interference.

If you are trying to do track doubling for thickness, I would recommend recording a totally new second track and that way, the two tracks are far enough out of sync that the phasing issues are at a minimum.

I don't know what's happening in your situation, and I doubt it's related to the phase issue, but you never know. If the tracks are out of phase by 180 degrees, you will get something close to silence.

I never copy a track for the purpose of doubling. The only reason to copy a track is to use one of them in an experiment and knowing you have a clean copy in the event the experiment fails and you destroy the original.

Thanks for the response. My idea was to eq one of the tracks a little higher and add reverb to it. That way I could avoid reverb on the low end of the spectrum and one track would be dry so the lyric would come out a little more. However, you bring up some good reasons not to do it.

Thanks again.

Hey Guitar Hacker, I listened to one of your songs, "I Know You're Up To It". Nice job.

It's not necessary to do what you're thinking about to achieve a clean, audible vocal track.

Doubling is a technique used to fatten a vocal track and make it thicker but even with a single vocal track you should easily be able to get a decent quality with reverb and the track still be crystal in regards to the vocals being heard clearly.

The song you mentioned is a single vocal track with verb on it and you can understand the words.

Lots of free reverb plugins have a low cut filter that allows you to essentially change the sound of the simulated rooms low frequency reflections.
That way the low frequencies are not reverbing so much.
KJAERHUS
Voxengo
Are ones that I know of.

You can double a track, but if you do, you should offset it a little bit to avoid the phasing Herb talked about.

Kjaerhaus is well worth downloading (the whole free package, just be sufficiently careful of the source, as always). I like their Compressor more than their Reverb, but still well worth having in your toolbox.

If you want a lot of control on the EQ going in/out of a Reverb plugin, I might suggest getting Ambience.
Maybe too much control for some, but another free option.
Yet another great set of plugins is ReaPlugs (from Reaper). Another 'should have' plugin set I'd want to see in any DAW I work in.

Thanks for the suggestions. KJAERHUS is no longer available but Voxengo is.

How did you folks learn about plug ins? Are there books or did you just experiment?

Answer: PG Music Forums. Years ago.

If you never offset it, it remains exactly in phase and the only difference is that the track now sounds louder. You get no stereo spread and you get no doubling or thickening with an exact copy in phase. If you want to have some fun.... do this, copy a track, and then find the "swap track phase" button and swap the track phase 180 degrees. Solo both tracks so they are the only ones playing and hit the playback button. You should hear silence since both should be canceling each other out. Now... raise the volume fader on one. See what happens. Return it to the exact same level. Now add reverb to one. Hit play. You should only hear the reverbed signal. One more test to do.... With both back in phase and no reverb.... move one of the tracks about 1ms from the other. Play them and listen to the phase interaction carefully. Now move that same track another millisecond and repeat. Move it again.... now, add a third track and put it in the middle between them in a timing manner, listen again. You will start to hear some very interesting things going on. Mostly things you do not want happening in your mix. This will teach you a lot about phase and how it affects the other exact signal and why you need to be aware constantly, of the issues that can arise from phase problems.

Actually, when you offset it, that's when you run into trouble. If you offset so far that phasing isn't an issue, you end up with a distinct echo which is often NOT what one is looking for. So the track is often moved just a few ticks on the time line. Essentially a few milliseconds. Now, you have opened the door to the phasing and comb-filtering issues to join the party. Since you are now "mixing" these two tracks together in your rig, you now have the algebraic equation happening that is changing millisecond by millisecond depending on which particular frequency is mixing at a given point. It is practically impossible to avoid entirely when copying tracks and offsetting them. Reverb also plays a part because it is extending the frequencies by a certain amount. It is lesser of the causes. The interaction of the tracks is the big issue.

This is why, the majority of engineers would prefer to have a clean recording of a vocal several times to do the doubling as opposed to a copy/paste which is faster and requires less time on the singers part. No matter how close a singer sings the track, it will never be an exact duplicate. There is still a danger of phasing and comb filtering issues to occur, so using this method isn't foolproof, but the issues are to a lesser degree and easier to deal with due to the imperfections between the several tracks. Using this method, one does not have to offset the tracks. The imperfections in pitch and timing, while very small with a good singer, will provide enough variation to allow the thickening and doubling the engineer is seeking. By keeping those secondary tracks well below the original or main lead vocal track by -10dB or more (engineer's call), and panning it to the left or right of center, (remember that the algebraic thing happens when 2 signals are mixed together. panning mitigates that to some degree) the minimal phasing is essentially buried in the mix and is for all intents and purposes, a non-issue in the final mix.

When I use thickening, I use 3 tracks. One panned 100% R, one 100% left, both of which are at least -10dB below the lead, and one centered and much louder. I have used a single vocal take and copied it for this purpose. And it's acceptable to do that when there's absolutely no chance that you can ever get another take from that singer. Then, you just have to do what you have to do.....although, if the results end up filled with issues and artifacts, the best option is to delete the offending copy tracks and simply go for a very nice clean, well eq'd and reverbed solo vocal track. It's not impossible to get.

Not disagreeing with you Herb, but I have had success by offsetting (not by much) with no resulting phasing effect and it definitely fattened the sound. Detuning can help a little too.

But most of the time, like you, I just record multiple versions of the vocal (as you indicated) to accomplish it; however, it is sometimes difficult to nail it each time and it's really a matter of how much time I have to do it.

You folks spent a lot of time explaining this to me. I really appreciate it. I am going to keep working on this track. It's my first original recorded on anything except a hardware DAW. When I finish, could I send it to a couple of you for suggestions and comments?

Copy 2 times. Detune both copies. Pan left and right. Or, Voxengo's free Stereo Touch plugin have worked for me.

Or, copy 1 time. Voxengo's free Stereo Touch kind of heavy on the copy but the copy is turned down much lower with more reverb and a brighter or hall type reverb.

EQ off a lot of the lows on the copied tracks. Or at least EQ it differently.

Kjaerhaus can still be found in a couple places.
http://www.acoustica.com/plugins/vst-directx.htm

Another couple freebie links:
http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=5

http://magnus.smartelectronix.com/#Ambience