Tom Shoultz on Kelly Clarkson

[Chris_Harris]

heh...no, I'm kidding.

But I was gonna' post something here b/c it recently struck me as beautiful. Yes, I've picked one of the most over-produced pieces of pop to come down the pipe since disco, but nevertheless...KELLY CLARKSON, BEHIND THESE HAZEL EYES.

Man, the way the vocals are tracked and arranged in that tune just melts my head. Some of it's very obviously auto-tuned to the point of being "sine-like," but it's a sound I've admitted to loving. There's a LOT of hard panning of doubled vocals, which I'd never noticed until I tried to listen critically on headphones. I dunno'...it gives me the guts to try to reach more with vocals. Slapping reverb on the lead and MORE reverb on the backups isn't going to cut it anymore, lol.

PREPARE FOR VOCAL MADNESS (if I ever record again).

Anyway, I thought this would be a good place to list any vocal tracking "tricks" you do.

Here...I'll go first.

I track through the same mic for all vocals, although I've read that it's best to use different mics.

1. Double track the lead vocal. Comp the best lead vocal out of the 2 tracks, and make a doubled track out of what's left over (the bad takes).

2. Hyper-compress the leftover track and autotune it like mad, lol.

3. Run the lead vocal through the Waves C-4 "Pop Vocal" preset.

4. Highpass the vocals at about 100Hz; boost a bit in the 12K region.

5. Slap reverb on the lead.

6. Bring the "doubled" track up just loud enough that I can't really hear it, but I notice the vocal thinning out when I mute it.

7. In the choruses, I bring up the doubled track a bit more and do 1 or 2 harmony parts usually. Nothing magic about the backups other than I usually put more verb on them.

This is probably a really stupid thread. I mean, I don't have any "secrets" to share, but I'm hoping some of you do. Splitting and hard panning 2 takes of the lead vocal...that's something I want to try on my next tune.

[Dafduc]

Antares Duo is a cool little vocal doubling toy. It's o my short list of shit to try.

I already do everything else in your list, except it's my crappy voice, no Kelly. And I don't have Waves. Oh plus I put different reverb on the doubled tracks - sometimes, I leave the lead completely dry.

[Chris_Harris]

[Trojka]

When people use 'highpass' as a verb, do they mean cutting or boosting?

[Trojka]

Sounds like a totally fucked up method of mixing vocals btw...






...but I loathe the way modern producers make Clarkson (and many others) sound

[Chris_Harris]

[Trojka]

Is this the way you record da Jaimster?

[Chris_Harris]

[Chris_Harris]

[Trojka]

[Dafduc]

So, it's only partially fucked up?

[Chris_Harris]

hehe

[Chris_Harris]

So my brother's riding with me in the car at Thanksgiving, and "Behind These Hazel Eyes" comes on the radio, and when she goes:

AAAAANNNNYYYYYYMOOOOOOOOOORRREEEEEE.

My brother asked if it was a person singing or a synthisized vocal simulator of some sort. So the moral of the story is that when my tonedeaf brother asks that question, you've used too much antares, lol.

[Hotz]

[pipelineaudio]

my tips:

1. Punch the singer in the face

2. Kick the singer in the nadz

3. Tell the singer to come back when he has finished writing the lyrics and hopefully actually practiced them to the rough CD's he keeps telling you to make for him

4. Tell the singer to come back when he can actually sing the parts

5. Tell the singer to come back when he has finally canned his fake accent. There is already a PearlGardenPilots, Bink Day, and BushVana thank you we dont need another one. Trying to be them will only amplify any flaws they may have as well as exposing you AS a flaw

6. Tell the singer to come back when he can hit the actual note he is trying to hit, or even worse, when he can actually even recognize the basic pitch. Quick test, play a note on the guitar, and have him sing it. Play a DIFFERENT note on the guitar and have him sing it. Does he sing the same note for BOTH pitch references? Tell him to get the hell out of here, then tell his band to beat his ass

7. Well you finally got assdisck to halfass his way through an assembled bunch of takes. You know for DAMN SURE he wont be up to any doubling since he has no idea what he did in the first place, and any "magic" that might be in the vocal is a funtion of your keyboard and mouse, not his useless polyped ass tone deaf vocal cords. So you got ONE track and he wants to be Ozzy. No problem:

7.a) Render that assemblage of takes down to one track so all the fades, crossfades, splits and stretches dont muck up your project. Save as a new mix and delete the edit track and keep the newly rendered one

7.b) Duplicate the rendered track twice, pan one copy left somewhere and one copy right somewhere

7.c) Figure out the projects tempo. Move one copy a 256th note late and the other a 128th triplet late. Mess around with these timings later on

7.d) pitch shift one copy down 10 to 20 cents, pitch shift the other up 10 to 20 cents

7.e) Compress the pitch shifted UP copy with a zero attack and about a quarter note release. Compress the shifted DOWN copy with a slower attack, about the same distance as you shifted the first copy in time. Release pretty short, as short as itll go without distorting the waveform itself. Set them both around 2:1 compression and try to get a swing of about 10dB reduction going on them, then even their levels to around the same

7.f) Try an eq of stupid boost like +9 at 12-15khz on the copies.

7.g) mess with the levels between the original and copy tracks till it sounds like Bark at the Moon

8. Punch the singer in the face again, just for good measure

[Mosfet]

Aaron, will YOU record me singing please?

[Chris_Harris]

[guitar junkie]

i just got done with a track where i used a pitch shifter to bump up a copy of the lead vocal about 3 semitones and from there i put another copy a 5th lower, then i mixed them all together really tight and it really made the vocal sound good an phat but its a rock mix with live drums and two really loud guitars so you cannot really hear what i did but it pulled the vocals out of the back of the mix and into your face a lot more, on one of the tracks from the same band i EQed the crap out of it cutting all the high end and the bass till it sounded like a phone setting and then i used that as the intro vocal.... not long ago for another band i reamped the vocals through amplitube and used all kinds of crap and made a break down in the song where it was just kick drum and that amped vocal and a wah guitar solo.... it was weird... but it sounds kinda cool... sad to say the bands do not want their tunes on the web and so i cannot post any of the stuff i talked about

[pipelineaudio]

[pipelineaudio]

[pipelineaudio]

[guernica]

first off, I love the Kelly Clarkson album. ...If i wanna hear a chubby chic who can belt like a goddess, I'll take her over tits-in-pits Mariah any day of the week.

......vocal tricks?

....for a full production kinda thing:

-get the best lead track i can (usually 10 takes with some punching in )

-manually double the lead track as tightly as possible (usually another nights worth of work). Lay it back so just the nuances come forward......I like to ride the fader for that.

-start laying harmonies, wether i use them or not. .....a 3rd, 5th, oct, etc....

-start fucking with the levels of the leads and harmonies to find a combination that suits the tune.

-double the harmonies that strengthen the melody of the song.

...........-then, start processing. I like chorus/reverb combinations.... I'll add as much as is necessary to each track to completely hide my shitty voice and make it tolerable. ................usually compress the piss out of the bg bus.

-Pan vocs that sound the least compatible the farthest apart.




this is actually a very cool thread..... I'll be back to steal shit.

[Chris_Harris]

Well pipeline...thanks. I grabbed the calculator and took a shot at the pitch shifted stuff in this mix... http://betteroffdad.com/MP3/ctjdelay.mp3 - Besides making the vocal bigger in places (I started it when the drums come in), it adds a really nice touch of high end that smooths and articulates the vocal a bit.

I probably did it wrong though, but THANKS

[pipelineaudio]

[mallcore]