how to get that big chorus vocal sounds?

stinis87

Member
Hi everyone!

I'm planning to do some vocal recording and mixing on an r&b track, but i am not sure how to go about creating those big harmonies usally located on the choruses.. You can see an example of what i am talkin about in this video:

YouTube - ‪Jackie Boyz - Lost Footage - Ep 4 "Da Studio"‬‏

Does anybody know how they did go about those vocals when it comes to panning,several recording takes, eq,compress. anything? :)

appreciate any reply!:)
 
Sounds like a few recordings, run through an eq and with some reverb and delay on it.

Its also got some subtle harmonies
 
i dont have any hardware,use only software, but i have the izotope nectar and cubase bundle plugins. i do belive i can get those kind of sounds with just plugins included in the daw and not need any hardware, am i right?
 
Try recording your unisons and harmonies in 4s. Hard pan 2 to each side. Lets say you have 1 unisons and 2 harmony notes. That gives you 12 tracks plus your lead. So that gives you 6 tracks on each side of the stereo field. Now for the left side, use a time adjustment plugin and delay them 100 milliseconds ahead and for the right side, time adjustment plugin and delay them 100 milliseconds behind. The takes have to be pretty tight and consistent for each note (unisons and haromony notes).

This should give you a pretty huge sounding stereo chorus.

You can also add in an low octave (from the singer) 4 tracks of it to layer underneath all of this to make it a bit richer, if the tone fits the song and desired chorus.

Peace
Illumination
 
Try recording your unisons and harmonies in 4s. Hard pan 2 to each side. Lets say you have 1 unisons and 2 harmony notes. That gives you 12 tracks plus your lead. So that gives you 6 tracks on each side of the stereo field. Now for the left side, use a time adjustment plugin and delay them 100 milliseconds ahead and for the right side, time adjustment plugin and delay them 100 milliseconds behind. The takes have to be pretty tight and consistent for each note (unisons and haromony notes).

This should give you a pretty huge sounding stereo chorus.

You can also add in an low octave (from the singer) 4 tracks of it to layer underneath all of this to make it a bit richer, if the tone fits the song and desired chorus.

Peace
Illumination


thanks for the advice man! but should all the tracks be panned hard left/hard right or some of them in between? i gues thats maybe a subjective thing though.. anyways thanks alot:)
 
Actually Andrew Dawson was just talking about this in an article that touched on choruses. He'd engineered a song with Usher where they have a Stereo chorus with hard panned vocals and no center vocal. He really enjoyed the sound of it for that particular record.

In your scenario, what I'm suggesting is a center lead and then have all your harmonies, unisons and octaves hard panned. Of course you can do the 75%, 50% pan thing, but I tend not to spend too much time on panning. I'm more of an LCR kind of guy and for these types of choruses it definitely works out great. On some level the minor details you're describing between positions get kind of lost in a big mix in my opinion and a big stereo chorus tends to be just that.

Volume to me is much more important that panning position and I'll explain why.

Imagine you have two mics to record an orchestra. Ok the recording is going to be stereo, so you split the hall into halves. Now each instrument is going to be at varying distances from the microphone, especially based on the way orchestras are laid out. So basically what you will get out of this (I'm sure Matt is somewhere ready to pounce on me for this) are vary textures based on amplitude versus texture via panning. So if the cello is closer on the left side and the flute is farther away on the left side, then the flute will most likely be quieter. However you can't really do much about what position the flute is in on the left side cuz you only have 1 mic. So the only way to create depth is via volume which naturally occurs in this situation due to the physical location of the instrument.

Well back to the RnB chorus. Really to my ears, depth with these big choruses is created more by the right blend of volumes between the voice than subtle panning differences.

I don't ever recall a gospel choir (that I saw in person) where I wished one guy or gal was only a few degrees more to the left. By the contrary, it was their volume within the entire unit (the choir) that made them blend right into the scheme of things, not just their position on stage.

So long story short, play with panning positions, you might find it rewarding but getting the volume right is way more important for harmonies and unisons. If one note of the harmony is too loud or two quiet, then the harmony falls apart. Regardless of its location in the stereo field.

Peace
Illumination
 
double, triple, or quadruple every part. Generally I pan everything LCR. So with a chorus I'll probably do everyting hard left and hard right and maybe I might put some of the lead melody in the center. If I'm tracking also and want a lead in the center I'll do an extra lead melody for the center (so instead of doubling, I'll triple, or instead of quadrupling, I'll add a fifth lead).

As far as EQ and compression, I pretty much always buss all the vox to a group. For the compression the individual tracks usually get some light compression (or just the tracking compression) and then the buss gets compression. For EQ, often every part will be EQd pretty much the same so I'll just stick it on the group buss and then if any parts need addition EQ (often a center lead, or high or low parts might need some different EQ) I'll go stick an EQ on that individual track and make the further adjustment (this means those tracks are getting EQd twice; once on the channel and then the additional one on the group). You could also just EQ each individual track; it's just more work, but I will do that if there's enough difference in how the different parts need to be EQd. But 'most' of the time for a pop/r&b track they will get EQd very very similarly. Depending on the song I might remove a center lead from the group and run it straight to the 2buss if I want it to sound slightly separate from the stacked chorus.
 
thank you very much for the suggestions! :) now i know where to start, so hopefully i can make it sound good when i get it done:)
 
double, triple, or quadruple every part. Generally I pan everything LCR. So with a chorus I'll probably do everyting hard left and hard right and maybe I might put some of the lead melody in the center. If I'm tracking also and want a lead in the center I'll do an extra lead melody for the center (so instead of doubling, I'll triple, or instead of quadrupling, I'll add a fifth lead).

As far as EQ and compression, I pretty much always buss all the vox to a group. For the compression the individual tracks usually get some light compression (or just the tracking compression) and then the buss gets compression. For EQ, often every part will be EQd pretty much the same so I'll just stick it on the group buss and then if any parts need addition EQ (often a center lead, or high or low parts might need some different EQ) I'll go stick an EQ on that individual track and make the further adjustment (this means those tracks are getting EQd twice; once on the channel and then the additional one on the group). You could also just EQ each individual track; it's just more work, but I will do that if there's enough difference in how the different parts need to be EQd. But 'most' of the time for a pop/r&b track they will get EQd very very similarly. Depending on the song I might remove a center lead from the group and run it straight to the 2buss if I want it to sound slightly separate from the stacked chorus.

+1000 What Chris said.

Peace
Illumination
 
Try recording your unisons and harmonies in 4s. Hard pan 2 to each side. Lets say you have 1 unisons and 2 harmony notes. That gives you 12 tracks plus your lead. So that gives you 6 tracks on each side of the stereo field. Now for the left side, use a time adjustment plugin and delay them 100 milliseconds ahead and for the right side, time adjustment plugin and delay them 100 milliseconds behind. The takes have to be pretty tight and consistent for each note (unisons and haromony notes).

Hi Illumination.

I'm new to the site and this is my first post. I cam across it when I did a search for 'producing a big chorus'.

You've shared some great advice here in this comment. One thing I wanted to ask is when you say delay 'after' and 'behind'. How do you do that? Please forgive my naivety, I'm new to the game!

Many thanks in advance.

Martin
Lexi Songs
 
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