Vocal effect

ijonty

What are they doing with the vocal on this track at the 5m44s mark:



Just loads of reverb and shouting, or something more?

Legionreturns

Which track? 

ijonty

Sorry, think the vid was missing. It's up there now I think.

ijonty

For some reason the vid won't link to the right bit, but it's 5m44 as an example

Legionreturns

Not sure I've got the right bit, but it sounds like reverb, a bit of distortion and possibly thickened / doubled. Its possible they've used delay instead of verb

ijonty

Thanks, you've probably got the right bit I reckon. Is thickened the same as doubling?

Legionreturns

ijonty said:

Thanks, you've probably got the right bit I reckon. Is thickened the same as doubling?

It's essentially the same sort of effect. Doubling just adds the same voice again with no time difference, thickening I think of as adding the same voice again but with a tiny nano second of delay in to "widen" the sound. That's probably not accurate, but that's how I think of it. 

ijonty

Ah, ok. That makes sense. Only just realised it's you that sold me the vocal pedal! Think it's great, but only just scratching the surface of what it can do.

Legionreturns

How's the mic working? Any better than the one you had? 

ijonty

Miles better, thanks.

Grunfeld

Delay for sure, rather a lot!
And the trails could be filtered too.
There are also two vocals, one main and another a lot lower in pitch, almost spoken.  I don't think it's the same one pitch shifted an octave down.

That's what I think I'm hearing.
Great track.  I've never heard of this band, I like them. 
Hawkwind... Hawkworm... Hookworms
I've no idea if that's how it happened but the influence seems strong.

ijonty

Grunfeld said:

Delay for sure, rather a lot!
And the trails could be filtered too.
There are also two vocals, one main and another a lot lower in pitch, almost spoken.  I don't think it's the same one pitch shifted an octave down.

That's what I think I'm hearing.
Great track.  I've never heard of this band, I like them. 
Hawkwind... Hawkworm... Hookworms
I've no idea if that's how it happened but the influence seems strong.

Cheers @Grunfeld! I've not really heard much of them but have tickets to see them so listening to their back catalogue. Quite an interesting sound. They've just released a new album.

Is the lower pitch vocal specifically at 5m44s, or do you mean throughout the song? And what does it mean to filter trails? I recently bought a TC Helicon Voicelive Play and trying to mess around with the settings.

Grunfeld

ijonty said:

Is the lower pitch vocal specifically at 5m44s, or do you mean throughout the song? And what does it mean to filter trails? I recently bought a TC Helicon Voicelive Play and trying to mess around with the settings.

Ta for the info on the band.
The lower pitched vocal (just listened again) I'm pretty sure now is either another singer or another take.
Yes to both:  it's on the verses and it's there at 5:44.  There's a ton of delay on everything so it's not obvious but I'm sure it's there.  And it's a common enough technique, so why not.

Filtering trails.  Basically you've got your original note and the delay pedal/ program will add repeats.  These are the trails -- repeats/ trails = same thing.  So... apply a filter(s) to those repeats.  Could be any sort of filter, e.g. high/low/notch/etc. or a filter with a LFO to shift the filtering.  Many pedals/ programs will have presets which add some form of filtering.  It's absolutely not a new thing these days but I can't recall when it started happening. On this track it sounds (possibly) like high pass filtering. 

I've been trying to find a "classic track" example from my memory banks but haven't managed it. 
I did this track and there's bucketloads on the vocal -- not subtle at all so at least you can hear the effect.

ijonty

Grunfeld said:

I've been trying to find a "classic track" example from my memory banks but haven't managed it. 
I did this track and there's bucketloads on the vocal -- not subtle at all so at least you can hear the effect.

Thanks! Sounds good too.

Stuckfast

Sounds to me like he's singing into a Space Echo or some similar lo-fi delay. When he suddenly starts yelling the delay starts to distort and becomes more noticeable in the mix. So I don't think there is a specific effect that is happening at that point, it's just more obvious because the vocal is triggering more of it.

I don't hear a second vocal or a double.

This is a lot more Krautrocky than the other stuff of theirs I've heard, is it on the album?

ijonty

Stuckfast said:

This is a lot more Krautrocky than the other stuff of theirs I've heard, is it on the album?

Thanks @Stuckfast - it's off their first album Pearl Mystic, which is quite different to the latest one they released recently.

Stuckfast

Ah, hadn't realised they released an earlier album. Didn't rate the new one but I like that track.

pmg

Legionreturns said:

Not sure I've got the right bit, but it sounds like reverb, a bit of distortion and possibly thickened / doubled. Its possible they've used delay instead of verb

I agree

notonlybutalso

Throwing my hat in, although i don't know if you are still looking for answers on this.

There is the main vocal line, under that there is a second take, doesn't sound like a direct copy as there are slight fluctuations in timing and pitch, this is driven harder into some kind of mic pre as when he goes for it and the signal gets hotter it distorts further so i would say its set to just on the edge of breakup at input stage.

Next is what seems to be a digital style delay at dotted eights against the track tempo, i say digital because the repeats do not progressively darken as they go on, but they are a little dark across the board compared to the source so either the top end is filtered off or the bit depth is slightly lower. The repeats are set quite high too as they go on for a while. This delay is applied to both vocal parts as i can hear the distorted lines in the repeats too.

Washed over all this is either quite a long plate or decently bright hall. Although with everything going on it's all a little hard to pick out! Hope this helps

ijonty

Thanks @notonlybutalso , really helpful ta.