Recording gang vocals

[Aaron Smith]

I'm talking like, a group of guys yelling something. Something similar to the gang vocals in "Hope is..." from Killswitch Engage. I've never recorded such a thing, but I will be soon, and I'm hoping that I can get a few pointers. How many guys are generally needed for it to sound legitimate? Or can you get a group of like three guys and then double it? My sense tells me that a stereo pair of condensers in an ambient room, at least ten feet from the "vocalists" might do the trick. Should the mics be further? Gang vocals are always saturated with a ton of room sound. I have a three car garage to work with, and I can imagine gang vocals actually sounding good in there. Some processing with reverb may help as well. Any input?

 

[TheStoryteller]

You don't need to record it in stereo... do several takes instead, with different distances to the mic, and then pan the takes until it sounds good. I'd say at least 4 guys and a total of 6 takes with 3 different distances (close, mid, far).

 

[booyah14]

I actually read a really good snippet of an article about this. I will try to find it for you. But the basics were just what storyteller said. I think in the article, he said he kept the mic in the same place, had a few guys do the phrase in about 5 different spots. He had them change their standing positions, yell differently in each take, and not yell at the exact time to give it that, tons of people vibe yelling. I'm sure just trying a bunch of things like that would definitely give you the sound you are after.

 

[Erik]

a decent tip -- you might want to tell your gang to leave out "S" sounds for the backing vocals because 20+ "S" sounds all slightly off time doesn't sound very good. the tracks will sound strange by itself but mixed with lead vocals it'll work fine. will save you editing/mixing troubles later.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

haha, yeah, I sometime ask singers when they do backing vocals to remove the consonants of the words... Sounds weird and funny but synchro is much better...

 

[SickBoy]

I suppose the nasty backing tracks consonants could be solved with extreme deessing if they stick out too much...

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Yeah, but where's the fun ???

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

When I was recording with one of my old bands, we got to the end of the last day and realised we hadn't recorded a section of gang vocals - but there was only me and the engineer in the studio. I'd spent the whole day doing vocal tracks (singing, screaming, grunting and other random noises for about 7 tracks), and I was recovering from tonsillitis as it was, so I wasn't up for trying to do it alone.

So me and the engineer did the vocals in the drum room, into the drum mics (which were still set up for the kit). We did about four takes I think. Panned them about a bit, EQ'ed the crap out of them, and then pitchshifted some of them a tiny amount with an autotune plug-in (setting it a couple of cents sharp and flat). Then we swamped them in reverb. It actually worked quite well - it didn't sound like typical gang vocals because there were lots of recordings from the same source , but it ended up with like a drunken Gregorian choir vibe going on. It was definitely different though

Steve

 

[Mr. Brokenamp]

I've done it before get a bunch of people around a room mic and record it.
I asked my friend the singer from this band www.labelthetraitor.com/ you can hear their gang vocals.
how they did it or should I say legendary Hardcore producer Don Fury fixed it up.
He said they recorded the "gang" around a room mic then the track got artificially doubled it up alot of times. Listen to some old Sick of It All albums they did it well too.