Thickening up vocals on higher pitched voices.

[ffaudio]

So I get a lot of the younger bands in here, I'm talking guys ranging from 14-23, and a lot of the younger ones are trying to do the deep whatever vocals, and of course just have shrill and high pitched voices. I was wondering if there were any tips short of "get another vocalist" to help thicken these up to make them sound a little thicker or bigger.

I was thinking about maybe a send to a distortion plug and rolling off the top end or something, which I'm going to try tonight.

Anybody else have any suggestions?

 

[AStacy2]

Melodyne.

 

[Deus.exe]

Try using a doubler. If you don't have one, make a duplicate of the vocal track. Pan one hard left and the other hard right. Tune the one on the left down about 9 cents and the one on the right up 9 cents. The difference in tuning should balance itself out and end up with a thick sounding vocal.

 

[doc_backmask]

Try using a bass chorus plug. I've gotten some really interesting results using higher pitched keyboard parts, never tried it with vox. Also, consider layering a slight amount of distortion/bit mod plug into the chain. It adds a little bit of grit, and even made my spoken word part of "Dark Fiber" sound cool. And I don't have a deep voice unless I growl.

 

[ffaudio]

Try using a doubler. If you don't have one, make a duplicate of the vocal track. Pan one hard left and the other hard right. Tune the one on the left down about 9 cents and the one on the right up 9 cents. The difference in tuning should balance itself out and end up with a thick sounding vocal.

I do this pretty much always with a plug in. Helps a lot, but doesn't really fill out an already high pitched voice.

 

[Flal]

Is there any tip on how to get a Akerfeldt/ Paul Kuhr/ Joren Sandstrom type production?

 

[derfbonker]

Is there any tip on how to get a Akerfeldt/ Paul Kuhr/ Joren Sandstrom type production?

Be amazing.

 

[Flal]

hahahahaha =) But seriously, there's some serious production involved in getting that kind of sound. They are all amazing vocalists but without proper production, their voices wouldn't sound nearly as crisp as they do on their recordings.

 

[Aaron Smith]

If the vocalist's voice hasn't dropped yet, there really isn't any way to make his voice sound like an older, more matured voice. The doubling or distortion suggestions I think are about the best you're going to get, short of actually pitch shifting the voice down significantly, which would be extremely far from the reality of the performance.

 

[Jevil]

Try this:

http://www.antarestech.com/products/avox.shtml

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

is it for clean vocals or for screams / grunts?

in the last case i would use one take of the singers best "normal" performance and then have him dub the normal track with a layer as low as he can go, de-ess it pretty much, take out some highs to make it sound less prominent in the mix and then raise it in the mix until it sounds fat enough.

 

[ParsonsMatt]

is it for clean vocals or for screams / grunts?

in the last case i would use one take of the singers best "normal" performance and then have him dub the normal track with a layer as low as he can go, de-ess it pretty much, take out some highs to make it sound less prominent in the mix and then raise it in the mix until it sounds fat enough.

Didn't All That Remains do that on This Calling? I think that sounded pretty damn silly...

If the vocalist can't sound good with a certain technique, they shouldn't use it. Its that simple.