Need Help With Simple VVocal Harmony Technique

You simply use VV to transpose the track to different notes. You'd probably want to clone the original track to do this..... but that will create other issues. Things like phasing will crop up and also artifacts from the formants.  Not the best option.


The best way to use VV is to try to sing the harmony track as best you can and use VV to fix the notes as opposed to actually creating a harmony from the original.

If you have a problem "hearing the notes" set down at the piano and sing and play the melody, then find the harmony notes on the keyboard, then learn to sing them.... then record them..... use VV to fix the issues.

Having said that..... In the song Coming Home (on my soundclick page) I used Melodyne to move the female singer's vox to a harmony. doing this will work sometimes and others will leave noticeable artifacts of the move.  I use Melodyne.

Larry.... yeah , it's never simple is it?

The cool thing about the DAW is that it is so simple (oops there's that word again) to punch in and out.... you can literally record a few words at a time.... learn the next section and record it...and so on.


On the song..... IIRC the first female vox..."I'll kiss your lips beneath the willows........" was recorded as a unison with my vocal track. I used Melodyne to move the notes into a harmony part rather than ask her to record it again. I like MD since it is very transparent when used properly.

Best to pick out the harmonies on a keyboard first, so you know what your targets are. I wouldn't attempt to use V-V for harmonies more than a third apart (4 semitones), and even that's pushing the envelope for what V-V can do transparently.

That said, I have actually used V-V to synthesize a part that was a whole octave higher - mind you, it sounded like crap in solo but managed to work anyway when blended into the mix and equalized. It worked because it was one element in a 6-part harmony, the other 5 of which I sang.

IMO:

Fortunately:

1) Crap vocs probably only exist with sick throats or mental damage.  You and I, average Joes, are certainly able to be top-shelf singers with the tools we have.

2) ... once you/I faithfully enhance those sub-conscious vibes, apply basic vocal coaching, emulations of fav artists, production materials and techniques, etc..  (Of course, every voc has serious limitations in numerous genres and do excel in specific genre(s) (like Opera vs Rap, Country vs. Metal, Gospel vs. Gothic, etc.)

3) With sweet backing vocs I've created in the studio, I'd be scared to death to ruin my kids vocs (and my own) with 'formal teaching'.

4) 90% of Mark Baxter's paradigms of "The Rock and Roll Singer's Survival Guide" ... are actually detrimental to me now.  Just give me a sane vox from the highways or biways ... (mine or anyone elses) ... and I'll make it fresh and beautiful ... for the song at hand.

5) Interestingly, both art and music require no formal training to become top-shelf in chosen genres ... just passion, vibe, love, etc.

6) Its too easy to find grooves and producer-loops to enable songs and backing vocs to sprout.

Unfortunately:

1) It takes inordinant time (hours/days/weeks ...), to create a painterly vox on today's colored canvases. 

2) ... with the scale-theories, tools and/or techniques,  Even a 'virtuoso' vox or 'emotive' vox requires a lot of vibe(s), takes, layers, motivation, backing vocs, inspiration, harmony, etc. and in proportionate measures ... IMHO. 

3) And if the moon is full, things may go amiss for the producer, who is the real vox artist and singer --IMHO.  (Ah, goto luv those producer's chops!) 

4) My 8 y/o girl can't sing worth a lick (at home, church, etc. she sings like a clogged vacuum cleaner, or like a vacuum (no voice at all).  Yet, with a little coaching and yelling ... her vibe 'elevates', the dribble spews forth into the signal chain.  After much spliceing and production she sounds better than 10 thousand Shirley Temples.  Of course the vox samples are 'fixed' angelicly.

5) The 12 y/o boy is worse; he sings like he's a chesty bull.  After yelling at him (like a Marine Sargent) to sing/repeat a few 100 times 3 or 4 words in the head register, that adolescent chest-bull-crap wears off... This producer suddenly births an angel ... etc.

Consider:

TBH, I've never encountered a vox that I (the producer) couldn't create into magic, though I crave the blessings from God on each.

Without Melodyne, I'd give up producing vocs.

There are a lot of tricks to do multi-scale, multi-octave harmonies (also applying the formant/pitch ratio ... roughly 1/3 or 1/4 ... in Melodyne or Melodyne Editor.  Google the Melodyne videos and the Cher magic unfolds.

Screw'd vocs on the low end are an octave down (12 semitones) with about 4 formant equivalents (4 semitones) down.

An octave high (Alto Soprano) must be girly-adjusted with the formant (by ear)

That isn't enough.  To avoid phase issues, despite chorus redemptions with the formant, you/I really want to split each screw'd voc to another track and pan them widely ... the best voc being centered.

You/I might delay extreme pans by at least 32msecs (Haased) ... to solve all phase issues, period.  But if you/I forget, the phase issues may go undetected.

I myself have much better luck at 90-100% LT & RT, Haased, than to place the backing vocs nearer the center (reverbed).

Plate Reverb should be avoided when using Haas on backing vocs.  The 32 msec wide-panned delay is plenty of natural verb, for today's lush pop paradigms, methinks.

Just wanted to thank everyone for their input.

I'm very new to harmony and harmony theory but my wife (who can hit a note) and I played with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star last night and did the work of singing the melody (to a background piano track) then finding the notes we liked in a harmony, then singing that (to that new piano background track.) It was very basic but very enlightening and with a little VVocal as was suggested AFTER the two parts were sung it sounded OK.

Obviously lots of learning needed but the basic ground work seems to be in place. Thanks again for the help.

Larry, I think you're wise to start with something simple like you're doing. I started by singing the high parts on Sam and Dave tunes (back when they were current, sadly). I used to work with a guitar player (correction... that should be guitar owner) that could only sing lead. We were able to get him to sing harmony by teaching him a song that he wasn't familiar with, and teach him the harmony as if it were the melody. It worked great for several weeks until he actually heard the original recording, then all bets were off.