PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Harmony, backing vocals - can you add to my toolkit?

Hi folks!
To add colour to my songs and elevate sections, I often use vocals in addition to the main vocal, and to be honest, it also helps obscure my sometimes-lacking main vocal. I've listed below some of the vocal techniques I use in my songwriting production, and wonder if you have some suggestions of other ideas I could use?

BV - vocal fattening - I usually record a second and third main vocal and pan these 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock and dropped back 6 - 12 db to sit behind the main vocal but thicken it up
Harmony - 3rds, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths above or below - singing the same lyric and meter as the main vocal
Key words or phrases - as per harmony or unison but only emphasizing a key word or short phrase
Octaves - above or below the main vocal - singing the same lyric and meter as the main vocal
Call and answer - the main vocal sings one line with the BV singing the response
Ooos and ahhs - this might be layering other notes used in the chord triads or a line cliche
Dit dit dit dit - repeated 8th notes e.g. listen to 'Girl' bridge by The Beatles
Counter melody - Second vocal with different or complimentary melody and meter that sits behind or weaves around the main vocal e.g.'Blue' bridge by The Jayhawks or 'Scarborough Fair/Canticle' by Simon and Garfunkel

Any other suggestions (with examples if you have them)?

Andrew D

I use BV and harmony a lot. In almost every song actually.

I will tune only the main vox while leaving the others untuned. I'm generally very careful to be sure timing is perfect. I either fix it with punch or use volume automation judiciously to cover the nits.

A very nice plugin that does this automatically, and I have mentioned it before, is called Trivox. It goes in the FX bin on the main vox but it doesn't change the main vox. It creates 3 additional copies of the main vox. The octave above and below, and a third one. They are all adjustable to whatever interval you want. The cool thing is you can tell it the key of the song and major or minor and it sings the exact, correct note to harmonize the main vox. This is one of my nits with most harmonizers that let you select the interval and follow it regardless of the dissonance of the harmonized note. Trivox is intelligent and adjusts the intervals such as thirds to stay in harmony. You can also select the level of each note as well as a few other features plus total automation for every single feature and adjustment in it. I've been using it for almost everything I have done recently because it saves me a lot of time tracking multiple box tracks and mixing them.

I still tend to use multiple tracks and there's a new song I will be posting soon that doesn't use Trivox at all.

Just a FYI.

I've been trying for years to get good, usable doubling and harmonies without having to sing those parts. I'm not a good enough singer to accurately and reliably sing those parts myself. And, truth be told, I'm a bit lazy about trying over and over to get them just right.

So, I bought a double-tracking plugin (can't recall the name right now) and was never happy with the results. Then I tried just duplicating my vocal track and time shifting it a wee bit. That kinda worked for doubling but I was never thrilled with it. I even tried the harmony feature in early versions of the Nectar plugin from izotope with poor results.

I tried using the TC Helicon feature (I think that was the name) that was built into BIAB a few versions ago but it sounded way too robotic and was cumbersome to use. I bought an actual TC Helicon vocal harmonizer pedal from Sweetwater and while it is kinda cool it is waaayy too fake and robotic sounding!

So I bought Waves Doubler plugin but I couldn't get any decent doubling that I liked. I bought the Trivox plugin on GuitarHacker's advice but, again, I just didn't like the results I got even though I remain quite impressed with the harmony results GH got with it!

I had almost given up until I purchased Synth V last year. This product produces awesome synthesized vocal tracks using sung inputs from different vocalists. I quickly discovered how to import my vocal track, convert it to MIDI, assign a voice, clean it up and produce a new track with a different singer singing my vocal track! So, for doubling this can be extremely useful but what about harmonies? Well, you can edit the MIDI to pitch up or down. And I found a couple of scripts that will pitch up or down while also maintaining correct harmony notes! Game Changer! It is quite a bit of work to go from recorded vocal to synthesized harmony but def Game Changer!!!!

So, problem solved, right? Right!

BUT, as I mentioned earlier, I am lazy. 😂 So, when Nectar 4 came out I listened to their demos and was curious about the new and improved harmony/doubling feature. I had been disappointed by this feature in Nectar before but the upgrade was affordable so I took the plunge. And OMG, SUPER GAME CHANGER for me!!! Problem def solved!

I copy my recorded vocal track to a new track in my DAW, apply the desired harmony effects (usually just by choosing a preset), mute the main vox on the new track and just cut the areas where I don't want the harmony.

The Nectar 4 solution is fast and easy and it sounds awesome! I am beyond delighted with this! I'm still very happy with Synth V too but will mainly use it only when I want a different voice. For harmonies generated from my vocals it is Nectar 4 forever!

The secret to this is....less is perfect

Yeah, I know I've been chasing a unicorn when what I need to do is settle for a donkey! A friend pointed out that no matter what I do I will prolly never get a generated harmony part that stands up as a duet like Simon and Garfunkel (I can get damn close with Synth V and a LOT of work.) But I also don't wanna bury it so deep in the mix that you can barely hear it! I've prolly also made a big mistake by trying to depend on presets (did I mention I am lazy?) So, for me, at least for now, Nectar 4 is working like a charm!

Thanks Herb! I hadn't thought of using volume automation. I do punch in and have occasional spliced and moved to correct the timing, but with average success. I'll check out Trivox, but on my limited pocket-money budget, probably won't get it. Too many ideas, not enough $$! I'll watch out for your next post.
Andrew D

Thanks John! Now there's an idea for a song!
Andrew D

For my demos, I normally sing the backgrounds I need with varying degrees of success and diminishing returns as I get older (turned 71 a couple days ago).

Having Nectar 4, I’m looking forward to checking it out the way that Notes is describing.

That's a good list. Might also think about various combinations, like thickening the harmonies and/or the BGVs.

Another good "coloring" for vocals is a slight delay, which can be panned with or separate from the vocal. I almost always pan harmonies (at least slightly), too.

Waves' Abbey Road Automated Double Track is another simple solution for thickening, though it won't make you sound exactly like the Beatles.

Used to use a lot of shortcuts like Melodyne to create doubled tracks or harmony lines, but now I just go ahead and sing everything. Doesn't really take much more time (if any) and I like the results much better. I'll use composite vocals for all vocal parts to compensate for my lack of, uhm...precision.

As important as vocal arrangements are, and they are one of my favorite things to do, how they fit with the backing track arrangement is just as important. So carving out space (ie stereo image) and/or bandwidth (ie EQ) is necessary. Like a lot of you, I'll leave lead vocals, stereo drums and bass centered and distribute everything around left and right. I'll probably use a high pass filter on a harmony or BGV bus since I don't need those frequencies. I'll probably compress the BGVs a bit so they sit in the mix better.

The list goes on...

Thanks Ron for these useful tips!

Andrew D