Vocalswells effect... how do I do them?

Ola Englund

Only gay in the village
Dec 1, 2001
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Stockholm, Sweden
www.olaenglund.com
I'd like to know your best tips regarding vocalswells, for ex. there is one on Arch Enemys Nemesis song. Kinda hard to explain but it's like a reverbswell before Angela starts singing. I'm not to good in these kind of tricks and would really like some help on this one...
 
That one's about as old as tape-based recording but still works great today. The days of Eddie Kramer recording Hendrix, George Martin and even Les Paul used it.....flip the old tape over, print a tape-echo and you're done. Very cool.
 
once i take a vocal line and reverse it...if at all possible i try to take the first syllable or two (which will then be at the end of the waveform) and seperate it, so i only add the reverb to the first bit of the phrase

that way i get that pre-swell effect, without the verb muddying up the rest of the line...i'm also using adobe audition tho, which has a really easy wav edit system for things like this
 
cobrahead1030 said:
once i take a vocal line and reverse it...if at all possible i try to take the first syllable or two (which will then be at the end of the waveform) and seperate it, so i only add the reverb to the first bit of the phrase

that way i get that pre-swell effect, without the verb muddying up the rest of the line...i'm also using adobe audition tho, which has a really easy wav edit system for things like this

Smart! Very good idea!
 
The other thing to try, depending on the effect you want, is this:

1 - make a new track
2 - take it off the mix buss (L/R buss, whatever it's called in your system)
3 - copy the word you want to effect to the track, and move it so that it's one measure earlier
4 - send that track to the reverb

This will make the word sound distant first and the full on when the main track comes back in.

Onother fun thing to do with the first method is instead of the reverb send it to a repeating pitch shifter, that will make the word come up from sub-bass, to the correct pitch, jumping in pitch each time. You can hear this on Queensryche's "Empire" at the start of the second verse.
 
Brett - K A L I S I A said:
"repeating pitch shifter" : any plugins you know that does that ? :)
As I understand that term, could that be a effect return with a single repeat delay followed by a pitchshifter, automating the pitch?