keyboards are your slaves work them into the ground they are usually built for it.assertive confident strikes are the sign that warren has done this a thousand times or maybe ten thou?
I know this video is a few years old now but I have just started out in the world of home production. You have no idea how much frustration I have had trying to get my vocals to sit snugly in the mix. Whatever I tried (including watching countless other videos and trying their suggestions), the vocal always sounded like a separate entity; like it didn't belong there, HOWEVER, having watched your tutorial today, my vocals now sit where they should be, so a massive thank you for taking the time to help newbies like me find their way. It has made a huge difference to the overall sound. Obviously, I have now subscribed!
Finally: a professional producer sharing his expertise, who doesn't spend two minutes telling you that it's a quick tutorial and five minutes getting to the point; so I've subscribed. Bravo.
Yeah Warrens good value. Plus he's an old rock dog like me who grew up in the multitrack tape world, so I can relate to his thinking about recording a bit better than some of the younger digital-natives.
Warren, this is an amazing technique, I threw all four pitch shifted tracks through a distressor for a little bit of extra sizzle, and it brought my lead vocals to life
Tried this for the first time today! Have one of my own tracks that I’m mixing and found the vocals to be lacking weight! Tried this and presto! That’s what it needed! Made a night day difference to the mix. Thanks Warren, you’re a wealth of knowledge and experience and I value your input on here very much! Cheers from Sydney Australia!
Thank you very much Warren for posting this. At first the result sounded a little bit too processed but when you blended everything together, it sounded very good. I can tell you of one cool vocal trick that I like to use from time to time. You create an aux teach with a reverb on it. Then you send a good amount of your lead vocal there but you set the send as pre fade. Then you put a pitch sift plugin right after the reverb and pitch it up an octave. Then you been it with the lead. it can give you some sort of liveness during the choruses when you don't have any high vocal harmonies available but you still want to ad some excitement. I think I've picked it up from Dave Pentad at some point but still it's worth sharing. Have a nice day =)
Hi +Greenleaf3791 Thanks for the great comment! That sounds like a great tip! Thanks for sharing! Thanks very much I really appreciate it! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
Started mixing around a year ago, didn't know my way around and everything Warren said was basically magic to me. Coming back to it now I understand the meanings behind all the knobs and whatnot, and I actually understand what Warren says! Many, many thanks for all your videos!!
Warren, this sounds amazing. Keep up the great work! I happened upon your tutorials while I was recovering from a broken leg and ankle. Since I am getting back to writing and recording after a long multi year hiatus, your channel has helped me out immensely to get back into the swing of things again. Thanks again!
Hi +Michael Feravolo I hope you;re leg is feeling better! I'm so glad to be able to help! Happy New Year! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
I have applied this vocal thickening technique on two of my music, one is Marimba instrument and the other is Female chamber choir.I just can't thank you enough.The song has more body, fullness & depth now.I used doubler 2 mono and panned hard right & left with little compression & blended it with the original signal.The stereo image has also increased of the track.Thank you so much 🤗❤️
I'm not a very big fan of my own singing voice but when I did this with a chorus track I started to love the sound of my voice. It helps bring everything that one or two vocal tracks just can't do.
i added more symmetry by keeping all the lefts sharp and all the rights flat, then after printing, reversing the stereo image on every other. this way the the delays also alternate so it doesn't sound left heavy. probably use these so low in the mix it doesn't matter but who knows, every little but helps! haha, thanks for all the tips
Hi +James Strazza Music Yes perfect! That's exactly what I do I keep them uneven so they alternate sharp and flat! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
That's my first thought James. After I heard a few of the tracks I noticed it being left heavy also. I was going to reverse the delay times with the tunings to get the same results you did.
Watched this thinking it’s surely nonsense..... then tried it myself, on my own singing. The effect is AMAZING - hasn’t improved my actual singing all that much, but nothing will save that (!) but the shifting really does the business. Going to use this on everything now
Warren, your work is marvelous. I studied Music Technology at college, studying DAWs, studios & consoles, and I loved it. I then moved more towards the performance/composition side at Uni where I studied Popular Music but discovering your channels and watching your videos has reignited my love and passion for production. Your channel has helped me decide my goal is to become a record producer. I'm not sure I'd have realised my goal without your help so thank you ever so much. Your videos are fantastic and I really appreciate them.
Fantastic!.. Coincidentally I've used this technique, or rather similar, with image resolution enhancement. Funny how everything has to do with everything. :)
Hi Dan, definitely! This is a very common technique, getting more and more common by the day! Haha Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
IT IS funny how we are all connected in some way with our LOVE FOR MUSIC...its a GREAT feeling when you or I see a techqnique shown and you realize you've been using that techinique in some way or another and didn't really realize that it had a NAME!!
Hi +Jake Mark Please check out this video for vocal mixing ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-syudb_B1x_A.html Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
you are the most open and honest youtube teacher. mad props for that. no one else shows the 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, etc. thing. i've used it since day one. the time i learned it had nothing to do with music either. it's some sort of witchcraft or some shit. clocks, calenders, inches in a foot, items in a dozen, hours in a day... it's everywhere. we're the third planet. would it be different if we where, say, the fourth planet? would it work better as 2, 4, 6, 8, ? ponder the universe lol
+Produce Like A Pro ....You don't specify what delay values you're using here Warren; are they the same on all three stereo pitch shift copy tracks? Excellent videos BTW!
+Produce Like A Pro Unless you click "align", then you can choose no delay at all, if you want. Obviously, the slightly delayed voices help streching the stereo image.
Produce Like A Pro found a much less labour intensive way to get this effect! 1. Set up an stereo Aux input track 2. Bus lead vocal to the the Aux input 3. Insert two instance of "Waves doubler 4" 4. Pitch first 4 doubles +3 -3 etc 5. Pitch second 4 doubles +12 -12 etc 6. Save these two settings as presets for next time! #jobdone
Hi Jed Wunderli don't have it too loud in the mix, keep it panned hard left and hard right and just tucked underneath the lead vocal. The effect will push the lead vocal forward. Have a marvelous time recording, many thanks Warren
Yeah, but flange is basically just splitting somthing up into two identical tracks with a very slightly detuning LFO on them. You could actually thicken voices with flange or chorus effects too. Quicker even. This trick is like the long road to the same effect.
very nice tutorial. Thanks for sharing. I believe those old Eventise H3000 units would do all this stuff in circuitry in realtime and they are still expensive even to this day. They have a VST now but it's still expensive. In any case, it's always good to get the experience doing these things manually to develop and appreciation for what's going on. Thanks again.
This is probably the single most illuminating and critical video that could ever be created on mixing vocals, and although this word is WAY overused, I would actually call this a "secret." For YEARS I thought that the vibrance and sizzle that pro vocals have were due to the microphone, but nope. It's because of THIS trick. That gives vocals "that" sound. Thanks Warren!!!!!
@@Producelikeapro how about EQ? my intuition would be to route all the completely dry pitch-shifted tracks to a bus, compress that and EQ, then mix that signal in with the main vox track. maybe try a reverb send but i feel like that would muddy it up. anyway another great vid, thanks!
Warren, THANKS! This is fantastic. I'm a singer-songwriter and have been forever struggling with vocal mixes. Whenever I put out a demo recording to friends for a first listen, they always say "... dude, I liked the song, but I couldn't really hear the vocals..." And bumping the volume just throws off the blend of the recording. Drives me crazy! I just bought the Reaper DAW (I'm a PC guy), and will give your methods a go for my next recording (and maybe re-mix some old ones.) I just subscribed to your channel. You've really got some of the best tutorials out there. Really appreciate your work, and I'm looking forward to "binge-watching" them all!
Warren - you're a genius. THANK YOU SO MUCH for this walk-through. I was struggling with a vocal that just wouldn't sit right. I tried all sorts of doubling techniques and they all sounded too unnatural (even with the doubled track brought way down in the mix). But THIS particular method worked WONDERS. I never would have thought to try it this way. THANKS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!
Hi ***** Thanks for commenting, I really appreciate it! I do often build harmonies in Melodyne, especially the Pop stuff and then blend them in the background to add thickness. However the trick in the video would still apply as it thickens the lead vocal. Have a marvelous time recording, many thanks Warren
Very good!-no silly too long intro, with annoying music-this is straight to the point. I have cubase 8.5 so its different for me, & I don't know how to do this yet.
Hello from Argentina , I've signed a few days ago and I love your tutorials , I have a doubt , you could use this trick to rhythm guitars , if only record a guitar, could " have two " with this trick ? Thank you!
Hi +Andres Sosa Thanks for the great comment! Yes I use this trick on lead guitar parts all the time to help them sit out of the mix!! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
A wonderful technique I discovered at the beginning of the year. But you know what? You gave me a much more deeper knowlege about it and I learned from you to use this technique far better the moment I watched your video. Thank you a lot Warren! - Dante
freaking nice. The vocal track sounds so alone and get's this smell of demo quality without these pitched tracks, nice trick! never seen anybody go that drastic with it, definitely gonna try this :)
Hi +Frost Mutant Thanks very much! This is quite typical for most professional mixers, at least in densely recorded material. In open sounding acoustic vocal pieces I tend to more volume automation than anything else and very light EQ. I hope that helps? Thanks very much I really appreciate it! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
+Produce Like A Pro yeah it seems you pro's use a lot of different tricks to get those pro mixes :} it's just incredible that you are sharing those with the rest of the world, I'm so grateful for it!
Hi +Frost Mutant You're most welcome! There's lot's of ways to do this, I just want to make sure that we all share and learn together!!! Thanks very much for your great comment I really appreciate it! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
Here i will make it obvious, when i was 15, i was so 0IQ and couldnt understand what he meant i put dislike and never tried to subscribe, and this "Produce like A Pro" for 4 years was bad image for me by what i judged from my childly joke, Now that i understand him, i gave subscribe and so far nobody tells us so good things, its really complicated because he uses the shortest algorithms and routes but i gotta learn the thory then do the practice
man i love to watch these old school (or semi-old chool) guys work. they are so frickin knowledgeable and work at such a deep level of detail, it's staggering. they just eat sleep and breath music and sound engineering. i would never have the patience and dedication (the obsession?) to go this deep, which is why, if i can create a collection of songs (electronic music), there's a good chance i will send the "finished" product to someone of Huart's caliber for some addtional mixing and/or mastering.
Hi Samir Ahmed thanks for the question. You can pan the lead vocal if you like, however I prefer it come down the middle and place the thickening effects around it. The audio track is the standard audio track in Pro Tools. I really appreciate you watching and commenting! Have a marvelous time recording, many thanks Warren
as a producer would you do this before sending to a mix engineer? Or would you only do this if you were mixing? Im producing a song but sending this one off to a mix guy. Just curious if this would be something left up to him to do or if its something as a producer i should do
Hi +Tim Nienhuis Excellent question! I usually always mix my own music and but sometimes labels will want someone else to remix the tracks so they will have access to my vocals effects as well. Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
this is such a nice trick. i had the pleasure of working with martin rushent on an album and he told me that he used this trick on all of the guitars on all of the buzzcocks albums. of course back in the day, so had to be done by ear. but still the same result in principal. great video, as usual.
philip spalding the pitching, not the stacking. of course they didnt do that. but i'm sure you can hear it, and probably obvious to a trained ear. lol.
Hi philip spalding fantastic! Yes I do still it the old school way with an H3000 like Maryin would have done! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
Hi +Eugene baggins I don't know Cubase that well, but if you have a pitch plugin you can simulate this effect fairly easily. Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
Produce Like A Pro I get it, but i`m just wondering how easily u convert this from mono to stereo, that`s no that easy in Cubase,awh thanks for answer though!
Hi +Eugene baggins I'm not too familiar with Cubase unfortunately! I'm sure there is an easy way to do it! Anyone use Cubase who can help? Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
I used Cubase a lot in the past, now I use Logic and Studio One. I think you need to bounce the lead vocal 2 times to a new track. Then pan the first track all the way left, pan the other all the way right. Then create a mixdown from that, save it as a file. Open the file again on 3 different tracks and use another pitch shift plugin like lexicon.
Aw shucks anointed01 thanks ever so much! I really appreciate that, makes it all worth while. Let's create a place where we can share ideas. Have a marvelous time recording! Many thanks Warren
Been working in a mix whose reference is the over and over from The Goo Goo Dolls and this helped me to achieve a massive vocal!! Glorious mate! Thank You
Can never get enough tutorials, tips, tricks, and techniques for vocals. Keep em coming. I'm really looking for a great tutorial on how to get vocals sounding exactly like classic rock albums for instance The Doors Riders on the Storm. Thanks!
Hi +OzzelTheComposer Thanks for the great comment! That's a fantastic idea for a future video!! Have a marvelous time recording and mixing! Many thanks Warren
I think you could do a "Vocal Thickening" video now in 2020, sure you have learned something new on how to do this and we'd be delighted to listen to you
Amazing! I knew the trick, but only ever did it maybe once - not 4 times like you did. I usually only ever did - 7, +7 cents. Your technique works so well!
Warren knows his stuff. This is great for voices that are on the thin side. I stole this trick from Butch Vig a while back, as he's been using it for decades. You can hear the Eventide pitch shift along with some double tracking all over Billy's voice on the Pumpkin's 1993 masterpiece Siamese Dream.
I had a similar idea a few years back but also tried panning each track at different degrees to either side to try and spread the vocals. But am definitely going to try this method in more depth on my next recording.
Hi Dan Knittel yes that's a great trick! This is basically the same thing but a little more controllable. Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
Great! I use the Waves Doubler a lot, but never in this 'stacked' form and with such nice attention to detail and balance! Lovely Rhodes on that track by the way...
Hi Joe Lonsdale Thanks very much for your great comment I really appreciate it! Yes the Waves Doubler can create some amazing effects! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
This is a great approach to enhance the stereo image. I am going to try this on a new smooth jazz song I am working on that has a tenor sax melody. Thanks for the tip Warren. As always, much appreciate your teaching....
Love this technique, one thing I'd add though is to invert the stereo image on the second and fourth tracks just to get the balance right. When doubler is acting out hearing actually perceives a 3db lift on the left hand side of the speaker.
Produce Like A Pro I am, is a great tool for to use with this approach but it does get heavy on the lefthand side, at least to me this L/R flip is a must. Have a blast my friend!
I remember these good old videos where you didn't have that annoying and too loud intro music at the beginning of every video. These did get more strait to the point
Thanks for sharing! I've never tried this with four doubles before but I like the result! Usually i'll just do one doubler and play around with the left and right delay times till it sounds nice and stereo and then i'll place a resonant peak via eq somewhere in the top end to get them really present / bright sounding and then drop the volume really low on that track. It's like a nice little sparkling vocal way on the sides!
Hi +David Mack Great! Yes it's an amazing trick!! Thanks very much for your great comment I really appreciate it! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren
+Produce Like A Pro How can we get this same effect without the doubler 2 plugin? u use Cockos Reaper as my DAW I don't have pro tools and I've really been trying to get that sound that u got in this video
+malik harbin well one way to do it would be to duplicate your main vocal track 8 times, make them mono, and pan 4 hard left and 4 hard right, make the delay be 10ms (ish) for the 4 vocal tracks on the left and 20ms (ish) for the other 4 vocal tracks panned hard right. Then get a pitch shifter (i think you hit f2 on reaper to adjust pitch or I think u can use ReaTune. Make sure the pitch change doesnt effect the length of the vocal cuz sometimes pitched up means it just plays faster) and start to detune the vocals by 3, 6, 9, and 12 cents. And make it so on the left it goes 3,-6,9,-12 and then on the right -3, 6, -9, 12. Then just adjust the volume to taste. I think that should work but I've never used reaper.... Good luck!
Haven't used pitch effect on vocals. Will have to try that. Been doing recording on my computer for a year now and have done lots of remixes, but never took the time to thoroughly learn about daws and how they work until now. Have recorded using the ear mostly, but learning lots of tricks from you and many others. Much to learn. Thanks for all the videos! Recently retired but have spent my whole life as a performing musician and vocalist and now I'm working at perfecting my engineering skills for my songs as well as others. Keep up the good work.
Hi +Jesse Mendez So glad I am able to help! Sounds like you are having a great time learning and that is hugely important! Have a marvellous time recording and mixing, many thanks Warren
This is excellent! Thank you so much for sharing this technique! It seemed crazy at first on how many tracks you were adding, and than all the doubler fx on top of that. But once I saw how it was used I was amazed! I'm sitting here wanting to jump on my vocal editing right away! Thank you!
Hi +Jesse Bergeron Haha yes we can definitely get carried with the track count! This could also be bounced to a stereo pair and I would definitely do that if I were sending it out to an external mixer! Have a marvellous time recording, many thanks Warren