Tracking/editing vocals

[Ericlingus]

When recording vocals how often do you double track them? Do you double track everything pretty much or just during chorus's? Also do you edit the vocals before double tracking? How do you guys go about it? When do you autotune? Before you double track the take or after everything is done?

 

[bryan_kilco]

The last demo my band did, we literally doubled every line of vocals. With our current work in progress, we were trying to shoot for a single solid take and double some accents here-and-there. This ended up turning into doubling a lot more than intended.

I'd say it's safe to, at the very least, double just about everything for safety and options. Maybe quad the choruses for the same purpose.

I don't autotune (yet) and I don't do much editing on the fly. Usually get the takes down and then edit. Vocals are fairly easy to edit and some simple nudging/stretching etc can go a long way.

 

[Ericlingus]

but wouldnt you have to have a edited take in order to double track it? Otherwise you would be double tracking a take that is not going to be the same in the end.

 

[Christian WUFU]

I would say that learning to edit on the fly is a good skill to develop regardless of what you're recording. It saves me so much time in the end.

If you edit after the fact, just edit the doubled takes to match

 

[JeffTD]

Cleans (choruses): main, octave below, left/right doubles for impact and usually a harmony left/right doubled.

Screams: main, doubles left/right for impact, layered extra low/high layers in for effect.

I honestly hate double tracked vocals in 90% of situations. With growls/screams I find it to be useless unless the guy needs some thickening up because his voice isn't great and just causes me to have to do a ton more editing to get them perfectly aligned.

With cleans, I only double the main if it's a higher falsetto or something that needs impact, or sometimes when the chorus just needs to be huge sounding.

I edit on the fly for fades/silences/getting rid of mouth noises and stuff, and use VariAudio in cubase for rough pitch correction on the fly (super hard to track harmonies to untuned mains, for instance). I don't need to edit before tracking the doubles as most singers have good relative time (i.e. they're off by the same amount every time) and I'll want to change the timing of the main vocal after we're done tracking (play with push/pull, get syllables grooving properly, generally push the original tracks to be 5-10ms late to pocket better by default)

After the band leaves I go back, remove the vari-audio stuff, comp takes, tune with AutoTune, and then do all the timing alignment and quantizing.

As much as I want to be the guy who edits everything perfectly on the fly, I find that I hit a certain point when tracking where if I spend extra time on editing to make it perfect it kills the session vibe/takes longer than I want to spend while the guy waits, but you can't just leave everything as-is so I try to keep a good balance. I generally have to do my final edits/comping alone, after the session, with a clear head and no distractions. It may take an extra hour after the band leaves every day but it's worth it to me for maintaining good, strong momentum while tracking and still getting a perfectly edited end-result.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

for me it is usually better to edit later...it is more important to try to get a consistent vocal tone/timbre...depends on the singer but you'll hear me say, "that was perfect, do it again, exactly like that"

 

[egan.]

I'm with GGI on this: Always do doubles when you're in that spot. It's going to make timbre, rhythm and pitch more consistent. Often my doubles are just the second best take on the lead track. I tend to just stack playlists of various takes in PT so it's easy to go through line by line and pick the best after the fact if the singer is near passable. If shit is so out of tune/time that the double would be flat out wrong then IMO it's a take issue and not an editing issue. For harmonies I go back and do each "range" on it's own. They sing those harmonies with just enough of the lead vocal in to get timing and inflection cues but they should really be pitching off of the track and not the other vocal-- but again everything should be close enough to use raw.
If I ever have to deal with a vocalist that can't get close then I probably wouldn't double anything b/c it would just mean hours of editing.

 

[Ericlingus]

yeah thi sis my problem. The singer is having some pitch issues as well as not always singing each take the same way each time. It's hard to double track when there arn't many strong takes to use. I have to do comping/editing/pitch correction. When you guys double track a vocal do you have them sing over a previously recorded vocal line or just do another take? I just don't see how you could double track vocals without already having the main vocal line already recorded. Otherwise I could just use one of the (several) takes I already have recorded and use it as a double.

 

[abt]

I honestly hate double tracked vocals in 90% of situations.

This. Especially when it starts to sound "chorusy"