Mixing questions for Octatonic

fastonebaz

Hi @octatonic ;

I wonder if you could share some insider pro tips on this one to help me out?

I'm mixing a song (it's actually a cover of Pretty Reckless - Miss Nothing) and I wondered, if you were mixing it, would you include multiple vocal tracks duplicates of he main vocal but each with varying pans and EQs for thickness or do you tend to stick to 1 main vocal, and then add in the harmonies?  Our singer is pretty good so doesn't need any auto tune type stuff generally.

I know it a bit variable, but wondered if you have a default go to approach.

cheers

octatonic

Hi,

Overdub multiple the vocals, don’t copy, especially if your singer can pitch well.
Ideally though I would work with other band members to create good BV parts to fill things up, so you can replicate live.
Vocal choirs work hard on something called ‘blending’, which are a bunch of techniques to thicken up and create interest.

If the band can’t do that then have the singer multitrack their parts.
Even if the different takes are unison lines it will sound much better.

If you have to copy one line then prepare to edit the hell out of the copies, introducing pitch and time stretch variations to the lines, create small delays. You can use Melodyne for that.

Straight copies almost always sound unnatural to me.

fastonebaz

Cool tips, thanks @octatonic .

octatonic

No worries.

Winny_Pooh

Great advice. I've also used DAW time editing and pitch correction to bring stray doubles in line with a "main" vocal before. It generally works well as the edited double is less obtrusive most of the time and you can pull down the volume slightly to reduce artifacts seeming obvious.