HOW TO RECORD THE BEST VOCAL DOUBLES (My Secret Arrangement) 

Awesome! Thank you!

Thanks!!! You're spot on

Hey pal! I might've just done it by accident honestly. Two years ago nearly so god knows! But it doesn't make a difference to the audio ofc.

Unfort not of this but maybe i’ll have more for you soon…

You'll find almost 100% of acts playing live have various live tracks playing to reinforce the show. A backing vocals track including doubles is almost always included in that. Cheating in music is a crazy take.

@@AdamRowleygrowley Crazy take for real? First of I said it about myself. But saying that "almost 100% of bands are using pre-recorded vocals during live shows" is a crazy and more importantly a false take indeed. I can name at least 10 bands from the top of my head who don't use pre-recorded backing vocals. There's actually more than one person in the band who can do harmonies and backing vocals during live shows. A shocker I know. There's a lot of problems in modern rock/metal music and it all stems from production stand point. Everything is quantised, drums are often not played live in the studio, vocals are pitch-corrected. This is very much a modern take on guitar music. I can say with a very high degree of certainty that majority of bands that are at least 20 years old don't have any pre-recorded backing vocals. I could forgive it for harmonies but again it's best those are done by other band members live like it used to be done. Besides pre-recorded backing vocals suggest that the shows are played to a click track live. Which is not great because every show becomes a cookie cutter replica of a studio recording and every live show is no different from each other. What is the point of seeing a band live if there is no spontaneity and surprise in a live show? There is no unpredictability or room for error which was always to me the appeal of rock/metal music... it's rawness, imperfection, spontaneity and surprise. With many modern bands these days not even recording drums for their recordings. Can you imagine a drummer like Danny Carey not playing drums on Tool albums? I don't think so. I bet he would also never sign up for that. Back in the day bands didn't even always use a metronome for their records. Nirvana for example recorded only one song (to the best of my knowledge) to a metronome for their Nevermind album which was Lithium. This approach made their records authentic and an actual reflection of how they play and approach their instruments. What's happening in modern guitar music is so weird to me and I say it's Djent that started this trend of overproducing and other bands replicate that approach religiously. Though that kind of production made sense for progressive music it's absolutely not necessary in less complex music. At the end of the day it's the producers that are to blame for these changes who replicate that same approach to death. I don't understand why fans of guitar music accept this nonsense as some progression in the world of guitar music. It's backwards thinking.

You are so welcome Peter! Yeah I totally get how overwhelming it is. The width and quantity of things to learn in the music production world is HUGE. I have been doing this for nearly a decade and learn big things every day. Just keep chipping away at it and remember the 1%'s add up over time. 1% better every day and soon you'll be making bangers!

@@AdamRowleygrowley That is very well said!

You get so fast at it if you do it regularly!!

All little 1% subtleties!

Really appreciate it dude. I should get back on the uploads at some point! Time correction is the biggest battle. Pitch is less important. Keep going, and you'll get there.

Glad it was useful Sid! Let me know if you've got any other Q's!

I've used Vocalign a bunch, it's great! I hate the business model. I bought the suite and they wanted me to rebuy it for M1, I was raging. So now I just use the built in logic flex tools and they work great.

@@AdamRowleygrowleycan you do a video on how to efficiently use logic flex to do this instead of vocallign 😎

Heck Yeah!

just a mistake!!! mono all the way

Exactly. Without diving into the technical reasons, if you just copy the audio and paste it in, you'll actually get LESS volume and LESS stereo feel. You need to do an entirely different take!

Instead of sounding stereo, it'll be like two people singing the same way but in different intervals which ruins the melody. I've tried it and it's bad.

This depends. On our new EP, we have two songs that have at least one double at ALL times. But the others only have doubles on main sections like chorus'/pre's. Harmonies go throughout in various places though.

Hell yeah!

Appreciate this!

That will be a fake double. It works, it isn't the same as re-recording though!

Don't pan them way too hard to the sides, actually if you have only to takes it's better to keep them centred, you can also use a doubler plugin, to give it more thickness and space

Hey! Sorry, ten months later, I dropped the ball. As White said. Try panning a little less. Try like +15/-15. Also cut more low end out of vocals than you think. I HiPass up to 120hz, and then I cut 6-12 db out of the 200-300hz area too! That'll help with the mud. Remember if everything is stereo, nothing is.

Hahaha I wish! I havent made a video in a long while but appreciate the support!

Hahaha glad it helped Sam!!

i’m not the genius unfort but probs a literal preset. so much huge music is preset focussed

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here? If you're asking volumes, you have to tweak it by ear in your context!

You're far too kind!!!

hell yeah!!!

In your DAW it should have a number for Pan left and Pan R. Logic is 0-63 I think. So just 15 on that scale!

Ah well. I'm glad Chris asked, because I thought you meant 15% left right etc. FL studio uses percentages. I'll just use logic when I'm doing this.

oooh whats the Al Gore Rhythm Channel! I need to tell them thanks!

Hey pal! didn't watch the video. It might be that the one take was a stereo track and I baked in the panning when I bounced in place!

Glad it helped!

I do! I usually apply gentle compression to the double bus. But if I can afford to, I'm processing each and every vocal with the main vocal chain pretty much, then bounce in place and turn off the tracks. Then the bus I give it gentle compression just to tie it together.

I actually didnt, and I actually HATE their business practices four years later. They didnt update Revoice so they made me rebuy it for my M1 Mac. I refused and just do it manually these days.

Goddamn, I should really come back to RU-vid....

Glad you liked it!

Wow, thank you! Hope it's useful!

Hahaha thanks Nate!! Glad you enjoyed it!

Yessir!

Heck yeah!

Ach appreciate it!

Hope you like it!

I usually bounce them into stereo tracks so "BV 1 L + BV 1 R" become "BV 1". Then all my BV's in that segment will be grouped into a main bus. Such as "chorus doubles" or "Verse Harmonies" etc etc.

@@AdamRowleygrowley Thank you!

Glad you liked it!

Glad this was useful Erik!

Thanks!

Of course!

No problem 👍 Hope it's handy!

Ahhhh so glad you liked it pal! thank you!

Maybe I should do a video on this.... I usually go through and time align everything manually, clean up all the breaths to make sure the volumes suit the song, and then clean up silences etc. It takes HOURS

Yeah I’d love tu see that I’ve been using vocalign ultra but I’m not 100 percent happy with the results

Thanks Brett! Judging by the response on some of these vids, I may have to do some more...

What name of the application

I try!!!

of course!!!

Ach maybe I should!!!

of course!!!!

Thanks 🔥

Hey pal! Usually I route all these vocals to a summing stack with an SSL 4kE channel strip, some light compression and a Desser. From there I can send to reverb or any other time based effects.

@@AdamRowleygrowley what's a summing stack? Do you have a video for that?

I don't! Just a bus though. In Logic, it's called a summing stack. You can create one by selecting a bunch of tracks, then it's in the right click menu. Or just hit Cmd+Shft+D

@@AdamRowleygrowley thx brotha!

Appreciate it!

Glad it was handy!