Hi there,

As I am new to this I am wondering how folks here use the Tc-helicon to add harmonies to vocals.

Do you,

1 add the vocal harmonies in biab?

2 Add them to the vocal track in realband on separate tracks of course?

3 Record the vocal in another Daw and then import the vocal track into Realband to add the harmonies on separate tracks and then reimport everything into your other Daw again?

While we are on the subject what would be good harmony parts in terms of intervals for country music?

Many Thanks
Regards
Jan

There is a thread in Tips And Tricks called "Adding Harmonies" that talks about this..

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=199488#Post199488


down in the thread a bit, is this (typical) explanation...

(It was a response in yet another thread that I reposted there)

"The BAIBettes - How I typically create harmonies"

(response to Jo's questions)
I can tell you what I do... though "your mileage may vary" (since I'm starting with a male vocal and you would be starting with a female vocal).

After getting the song set up in BIAB (meaning simply, the chords right), I open RealBand and load the BIAB file. Then import the vocal track. Select that vocal track, right-click and choose "Generate Audio Harmony (using PowerTracks or BBW...)"

I choose "Harmonize to the chord symbols of the song" - which is what the BIAB file is for. So far, I've only used "1 Down and 3 Up" as the type. And then generate. I don't typically change any of the settings in the plug in.

I then save each of the 4 (mono) tracks so that I can work with them in a different DAW (the one I know from the past). But you could simply work with them in RealBand

Listening to any one of the "voices" separately you will find... they don't sound "real". But add them all together at the right levels and you can get some decent results. But... not all the time. I often have to really lower or eliminate the highest one (because she's warbling something awful). Particularly if I am singing high (and loud). They (the BIABettes, as I called them) work best when I am singing low and soft - almost my natural speaking voice. At times, I have to drop them all out because they don't work for a particular phrase. A lot of it becomes finding where they work and how they fit in the song. And they work best (for me) when they are blended together. Here and there I will use the 1 Down and the first above - but most of the time it's all 4 together.

I pan two left and two right one a bit more than the other - meaning - L 70% L 50% R 50% R 70% (percentages out of 100). Obvious, I know, but some might not consider it...

Hi Jan,

I follow your third approach.

I record my vocal in Reaper. Then I tune those notes that are out of pitch. Once I've done that, I export the tuned vocal track to a WAV file and load that WAV into Realband so that I can use TC Helicon using the BIAB SGU/MGU file to provide the chord structure needed for the harmony.

The reason I tune my vocal before using TC Helicon is because it helps reduce octave jumps when TCH is processing the harmonies.

Lastly, I always harmonise the entire vocal track and then I use envelopes in Reaper to choose which parts of the harmonies I want in the mix.

Hope this helps,
Noel

Thank you very much Floyd and Noel for your very helpful and detailed replies. This will help me a lot.

I am indeed privileged to have two prolific songwriters such as yourselves giving me advice on this.

Thank you both again.

Regards
Jan

Ditto what Jan said.

Jan,
I use the VoiceWorks to sing my own versions and arrangements in a “The Four Freshmen”-style all by myself.

I use the "output chords option" in Band in a Box and use the chords I have entered in my song. As this function only works with 3 and 4 note chords, there are some restrictions; C7#5 is OK, but C7#9 is not OK. I often bypass this by writing my arrangements with full chords, then freeze e.g. piano track. Then I reduce all chords to 4 note chords, so e.g. C9 becomes C7 etc. This way VoiceWorks will work OK, while BiaB is still sounding the full chords.

Also I enter passing chords if the melody only move one half step or one whole step, as the other voices then remain stationary, while I want them to move. So when the melody moves e, f, g and the chords is Cmaj7, I would enter e.g. Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7.

Hope this helps.

Tonnie