Famous Vocal Techniques

I'd really like to know how some famous vocalists get their unique sound. There was a great article discussing this, but I lost it. If you happen to know any secret tricks, please post them here (along with the vocalist who made it work). For example:

ROBERT PLANT (solo albums & Led Zeppelin's later years): 60ms delay and "compress the hell out of it."

I was thinking about compiling a cheat sheet so that when a client comes in and says "I want to sound like Ozzy on Paranoid", I don't have to figure it out every time. Thanks!

Since I don’t seem to be capable of producing vibrato my favorite trick is to shake my fist when I need vibrato to make my voice modulate. This also let’s you make the vibrato in perfect time with the beat when you get good at it.

^ Hey it really works! Also try this (if you don't mind looking like a total doofus): put your index finger under your adam's apple and wiggle it up & down a bit.

That reminds me of the BTO song "You Ain't Seen Nuthin Yet" where the singer couldn't hold out the note, so they told him to stutter it instead. "B-b-b-baby, you ain't seen nuthin yet" Classic.

LOL ! that is funny.. and the rest is history. Many songs lyrics sound completely lame if you just read them, it's the phrasing and style of the singer that makes them work, sound interesting, and fit with the music. For many singers words are just notes to them, you can have them sing a story from the newpaper and the melody is still there. Robert Plant for example didn't sing, he played his own voice like a guitar, if the words contained the phonics he needed to make the note fine, if they didn't he beat to fit and painted to match.

That gives me a good idea for a plugin. It would be cool if you could just talk or sing in a buch of words at middle C and then use a midi insturment to trigger and modulate them into a melody. The word samples could be manipulated by the plugin like tiny acid loops only far more tweekable. Could be lots of fun. Once you had a full database of phonics you could then just type in the words to the song and "play" them in any way you wanted.

reverse vocal, add some verb, reverse back.

ala whole lotta love.

Zep--

ORIGINAL: zepo1a

reverse vocal, add some verb, reverse back.

ala whole lotta love.

Zep--

Oh, dude.. I am so there.. I'm doing that this weekend !

ORIGINAL: zepo1a

reverse vocal, add some verb, reverse back.

ala whole lotta love.

Zep--

Revers, add verb and stay there.
Amazing!!!

I remember reading about a David Bowie session, I think with Tony Visconti producing, but I could be wrong.

They'd set up 3 mics in a large, good-sounding room. One mic was set up normally, like a U87-nine-inches-from-the-face kinda thing. Bowie sang through this all the time, the foundation for his sound, esp on softer passages.

They'd set up the 2nd mic a few feet away (under 10'), connected to a gate so that it was off until Bowie hit a certain level in his voice, at which point (on moderately loud notes) it would kick in.

The 3rd mic was very far back, with an even steeper gate on it, so that it only kicked in when Bowie was really belting. Lots of room sound on this one.

So as Bowie got used to it, he could learn to play the 3 mics, knowing to sing at a certain volume depending on which mics he wanted to hit.

I'm sure all 3 mics were in ideal spots in terms of both sweet spots and phasing issues.

Anyway, neat trick....

I have used the Bowie set up you describe in the past on certain singers and it has done tremendously well for them. I love the ability of having a natural delay (2nd mic) and a natural reverb (3rd mic). Usually I use the 1st as a main lead vocal, 2nd as a natural delay and put it gently under the 1st and use the 3rd lightly for some natural reverb - tweaking volume to taste. Beats any reverb plug in out there - just cant beat the real thing IMO.

ORIGINAL: zepo1a
reverse vocal, add some verb, reverse back.

I did that on one of my songs (Wandering) for a break at the end. I liked the backward sound so much, it sounded almost like a foreign language, so I put it in the beginning of the song as well. Very cool effect!

If you do get a singer in who sounds like Ozzy, shake his hand and say hello from me, it probably is him as I've never heard anyone who can carry off Ozzy. Probably one of the most underrated singers ever until you try to sing his songs. I read an article somewhere that said he used a series of short delays which were layered up. I've tried this but with no success so if anyone knows this technique and has had good results from it you might share it with us.

The SIR/impulse reverbs sound a cut above the others - to me.

ORIGINAL: mlockett

ORIGINAL: zepo1a
reverse vocal, add some verb, reverse back.

I did that on one of my songs (Wandering) for a break at the end. I liked the backward sound so much, it sounded almost like a foreign language, so I put it in the beginning of the song as well. Very cool effect!

hey mike is that a 4033 on your WANDERING soundclick avatar (pic) ??
Just curious...
BTW ...Wandering have a nice chord progression... (edible!!!! mmm....like it )
the chorus its catchy...
Greets
Rolo.

ORIGINAL: rolo95
hey mike is that a 4033 on your WANDERING soundclick avatar (pic) ??
Just curious...
BTW ...Wandering have a nice chord progression... (edible!!!! mmm....like it )
the chorus its catchy...

No, that's a Studio Projects C1 which I seldom use anymore.

Thanks for the compliments on the song. It's something I'm still playing with, but I like the overall feel to it. My wife thinks it's crazy.

hey mike...

please email me at
audioalfa AT yahoo DOT com

TXS
ROlo.

to the OZZY comment - i actually would have to disagree and say he's way overrated. He uses an Eventide Ultraharmonizer to essentially triple his voice. Original lead is left panned middle, delayed and detuned down copy panned hard left and delayed and tuned-up copy panned right. You get an ultra-wide, delayed, triple take of his voice that is perfectly on time. Scott Weiland does the same now as well. That's why it is so hard to sing to it. Have you heard Ozzy sing without the effects? Horrid...Weiland can sing though for sure. Hear him on acoustic performances and his voice is stellar already. He uses the ultraharmonizer as an effect mainly - not a crutch.

ORIGINAL: ohhey

Since I don’t seem to be capable of producing vibrato my favorite trick is to shake my fist when I need vibrato to make my voice modulate. This also let’s you make the vibrato in perfect time with the beat when you get good at it.

Frank,
I had the same problem. But then I got my TC-Helicon Voice Prism Plus. It adds whatever kind of vibrato I want to my own voice; it's like having a "digital effects unit" except it's for vocals. Also, it sings perfect 4 part harmony with me, in four different voices, actually generated by the machine, and they can sing on key better than I can. Cakewalk lets me tell it what key to sing the chord in on any specific note I want, and exactly when to come in, and when to shut up. the machine stays right on pitch with the chord I tell it to use.

I'm so in love with this machine, I may marry it.

No No No!!!!! I won't hear a word against Ozzy. I know all professional singers use some effects and enhancements but they will be useless unless there is something decent there first and I can't believe someone could be at the top of their profession for over 30 years without being able to sing. However I am interested in the Ultraharmoniser effect. Is there a plugin that does a similar thing. I have been after this kind of sound for vocals by doubling up, detuning etc but not with much success.

Tank believe me, I love Ozzy too but I am taking an unbiased approach to telling you this information. If you see Ozzy do a live acoustic performance or a performance on the radio live in a studio where the vocals are dry it sounds pretty bad. I love Ozzy as much as the next metal head but I have to honest and say the effects he uses are not for effect alone - they are necessity. Yes every vocalist uses effects but not as a crutch. I have tons of rock albums where the vocalists barely even use any reverb - they are that good to begin with. Perfect example if you listen to any albums by the band Cold. He sounds good with all that reverb...take it away and see Cold live and you will see he's not all that great. Ozzy is lucky that you can use harmonizers in a live setting very easy because everyone has come to know that as "his sound". I mean think of it this way...he didn't just come into the studio with Black Sabbath and say "I want to use an Ultra-Harmonizer on my voice" - A producer or studio engineer made that decision (most likely cause his voice wasn't good enough alone) and the decision became Ozzy's sound we associate with him now.

To help you out Ultra Harmonizers delay two copies of the original take and pan the two copies opposite. One is detuned and one is uptuned. Essentially all you have to do in Sonar to achieve this is the following...

1. Copy the vocal to 2 new individual tracks

2. Slide both forward in time just enough so that the vocal sounds doubled and full

3. Pan poth copies hard opposite (it should sound like a loud, double vocal only and not really have any stereo spread to it yet)

4. Put the pitchshifter plugin on both copied tracks and detune one to taste and uptune the other to taste and you will get the huge stereo spread vocal ozzy gets. If you play around with the spacing of the two copies in relation to the original you can widen the spread or narrow it to taste as well. Pretty cool. Hope this helps ya out.

ORIGINAL: ohhey

That gives me a good idea for a plugin. It would be cool if you could just talk or sing in a buch of words at middle C and then use a midi insturment to trigger and modulate them into a melody. The word samples could be manipulated by the plugin like tiny acid loops only far more tweekable. Could be lots of fun. Once you had a full database of phonics you could then just type in the words to the song and "play" them in any way you wanted.

Is that what "Vocal Miriam" does?

That gives me a good idea for a plugin. It would be cool if you could just talk or sing in a buch of words at middle C and then use a midi insturment to trigger and modulate them into a melody. The word samples could be manipulated by the plugin like tiny acid loops only far more tweekable. Could be lots of fun. Once you had a full database of phonics you could then just type in the words to the song and "play" them in any way you wanted.

Vocoder plus sampler, plus voice synthesis program...could be done. Don't know about the typing in the words part, that would be the trick, integrating one of those voice synthesis programs with the sampler, so you could use your own consonants,vowels and whatever.

I'd like to hear that.

R

well not that were totally off topic.....but to do with the ozzy voice,just tripel the vocal track (live)....ie sing it over 3 times and just mix it .....works for me for my own music or trying to get the ozzy fx...and for the on topic vocal techniques.....practice talking over your song to find the right vocal patarn (then record you talking ) that vocal patern .....once you got it ...sing it and delete the talking part

ORIGINAL: ohhey

Since I don’t seem to be capable of producing vibrato my favorite trick is to shake my fist when I need vibrato to make my voice modulate. This also let’s you make the vibrato in perfect time with the beat when you get good at it.

we need to do something for you ...what a great tip..and all this time i was...

Here's a trick I like to do sometimes that sounds great on vocal parts that aren't doubled or tripled:

Keep your scratch vocal track for mixdown (assumming it's halfway decent). On the final mix, keep the lead vocal dry. Then, send the scratch vocal to your reverb aux, while keeping it out of the main bus. The result is your lead vocal with the reverb from the scratch track. It's a pure single vocal tone, with a rich space around it. I've heard this technique referred to as "ghosting."

Hi, Spaceduck (and others!),

I know a guy who actually had the good fortune to get to engineer a session with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page at one point. He said that Plant actually knew the delay and EQ settings that he wanted on his voice (and it was more like 147ms, as I recall), and that Plant also eschewed all other mike options (Neumans, etc.) in favor of a good ol' SM-57.

He also said that Page was nearly deaf. Finally, everyone with Plant & Page insisted that there was only one "Jimmy" in the studio that day, so my acquaintance (whose name is also Jimmy) had to go by "James."

This guy's story of that session was one of the coolest anecdotes I've ever heard -- at least it was interesting to me.

M

ORIGINAL: ohhey

Since I don’t seem to be capable of producing vibrato my favorite trick is to shake my fist when I need vibrato to make my voice modulate. This also let’s you make the vibrato in perfect time with the beat when you get good at it.

Nice trick, that works pretty well.

Try whispering the song through once bef singing to get as open as possible. Also there are some nice presets on the free VST plug in - Lunonix, from KVR.

ORIGINAL: charles kasler

Try whispering the song through once bef singing to get as open as possible. Also there are some nice presets on the free VST plug in - Lunonix, from KVR.

Hey ! I can think of a way to use that whisper track, run it through a plate reverb at 100% wet and blend back in spots with the volume envelope where you need to make a splash.

This is awesome info! Ozzy, Bowie & Plant (thanks for setting me straight, M) have always eluded me with their distinct sounds. I'm definitely going to try the Oz-triplication just for laughs. Now if someone could just tell me how Queen did their backup vox...??
Whisper track is also a cool idea if not done too cheezily. On a related note, how bout the Peter Gabriel trick of having lead vocals doubled an octave lower VERY quietly and with medium plate reverb--sort of like the "ghosting" mentioned by kennyd03 above.

Here's a pretty good article on SCREAMING TECHNIQUE

And here's a pretty cool way to minimize the effect of a poor room - sing into a closet.

Singing into the closet is a good one - in a desperate situation once, I put a mattress against the wall and had the singer face it. I recommend using a "clean" one to avoid grossing out the artist.

-KD03

Actually, while this certainly works, you might want to try standing inside the area in which you are now placing the mic and sing out towards the mic; face the mic towards the closet, or just inside. In short, reverse the current setup. This will, for the most part, attenuate any of those "nasty" reflections, but maintain enough of a live/reflective sound without the bad reflections. This is assuming you are using a cardioid setting on your mic. I've done both. Try it.

Donny

This is the way I set up my mics for most vocal sessions. It is easy to do and takes very little time to adjust.

niceeeeeeeeeeeee

Chaz,

Is that a CAD Equitek E-300 I see?


Michael