Using Technology Creatively For Better Vocals - Page 4

Of course, that may not be enough. Mike Talanca says, "If we find that we've already tripled the background vocals, and it still isn't big and lush enough, even after you tripled them, then we know it's not in the vocals. Now we've got to add some instrumentation to make it wide, or thicken the part more." In other words, it's time to call in the synthesizers.

In the old days, synthesizer patches designed to simulate a choir or chorus of vocals sounded too obviously like...a synthesizer. In contrast, today's chorus patches (not to be confused with the chorus effects we discussed above) can sound amazingly realistic. For a song that needs a lush background of "oohs" and/or "ahhs" behind a lead vocal, they may be all that's necessary.

Call In Max Headroom!

One drawback to sampled choruses is that they can sound increasingly mechanical or repetitive each time a particular part is replayed. But it's easy to add a human element to them by mixing in some real voices, either your own, or by using loops or SoundFonts. (Or both!)

Sony's series of loop CDs for Acid (which are also playable in recording programs from other manufacturers) include three discs with vocals on them. These titles are the two disc Ilona/Universal Female Vocal Toolkit, and the Hip-Hop/R&B Vocals CD-ROM, as well as World Pop, which includes a few exotic-sounding vocals amongst a variety of world instruments.

The Ilona and Hip-Hop R&B Vocal CDs offer a blend of "oohs and ahhs" for choruses of background vocals, as well as a variety of scat singing and stock vocal phrases (such as "I love you", "I need you"). For a musician working alone, these CDs can do much to open up a song, and offer a world of possibilities: choruses of background vocals, Jimmy Page/Robert Plant-style instrument/vocal call and responses, James Brown-style shouts at the climax of instrumental solos, and even whole verses sung by a different singer. (Assuming you can work the stock phrases into a meaningful sounding verse). Tracks along the lines of Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig In the Sky", which features verses of nothing but scat-singing by female vocalists over an instrumental bed, become child's play--just a matter of lining up the loops.

After using them for a while, it's easy to think of the looped vocals as just another vocalist. It's possible to modify the melodies of the Acid Loop vocalists through a combination of careful editing and pitch changing. The resulting phrase could be used before or after its stock version, to create a vocal phrase and its response.

Users of SoundFonts aren't left out in the cold either, when it comes to vocals. Sonic Implants' Female Jazz Vocals patch is based around the scat and harmony singing of Patrice Williamson, an award-winning jazz vocalist. Sonic Implants recorded her singing sustained tones, as well as some nifty sounding scat phrases, and choral pads. These samples can easily be manipulated via a MIDI keyboard and/or a sequencer such as Propellerhead's Reason.

Article Author: Ed Driscoll

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