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00:00:08 Good morning children, today we are going
to bring the background to the foreground.
00:00:12 We're gonna look at good techniques
on how to handle those elusive
background vocal tracks.
00:00:17 Here we go!
Let's listen to the lay of the land.
00:00:21 My example today is a
track from Banda Magda
called 'El Pescador'.
00:00:25 And I have female background vocals,
male background vocals.
00:00:29 I left the lead in this session.
00:00:31 So we have an idea of
what this song is about.
00:00:33 Let's listen to it raw.
No plug-ins, nothing.
00:00:35 And then we will go from there.
00:02:18 Obviously, there's only the Lead Vocals,
the bass and the background vocals.
00:02:23 Otherwise this song would be 160 tracks.
00:02:25 And we wouldn't know what
to do with ourselves.
00:02:27 But that doesn't change anything
to the stuff I wanna show you now.
00:02:32 Whether you recorded them yourself,
or they've been handed on to you,
there's a strong chance that you will have
different kinds of distances between the vocalist
and the microphone.
00:02:40 If you listen to this track,
the lead is very close.
00:02:45 But if I listen to these guys...
00:02:51 They are far away.
00:02:53 Now if I listen to these other
background vocals here,
they are very close to the mic.
00:02:59 And these background vocals here...
00:03:07 They are kind of in between the two.
00:03:09 That distance between the vocalist
and the microphone is gonna change a lot
the stuff you do.
00:03:15 The problem with background
vocals, even if I solo
just this lead and these four backgrounds,
by the same singer, probably recorded
the same day, on the same microphone,
at the same distance,
with the same pre and compressor,
which is the worst thing
you could possibly do,
by me, nonetheless,
sounds like this.
00:03:34 That's five.
00:03:36 Lead and full backgrounds. Here's nine.
00:03:38 Lead and and eight backgrounds.
00:03:44 Each individual sound is great.
00:03:49 Dark but nice.
00:03:53 That's the lead, here's another background.
00:03:58 But, all eight backgrounds
plus the Lead create a problem.
00:04:05 There's a mask, there's a lot of energy in
that 'mmmm' space.
00:04:08 And that's a problem, specially since
towards the end of the song we have another
eight tracks of these,
plus a bunch of guys.
00:04:15 Which means it's gonna sound muddy.
00:04:17 The dreaded muddiness.
00:04:19 So, since you noticed
that we send all eight of these tracks
into a sub,
why don't just put an EQ on it?
Like this.
00:04:30 Say, this dude.
00:04:32 And find that problem
and remove it.
00:04:34 I'm going to mute the lead and
listen to just the background.
00:04:53 Without.
00:04:56 With.
00:05:00 It does get rid of that 'mmmm' thing.
00:05:02 But, does it sound good? No.
00:05:04 Let's add some high-end.
00:05:13 Now it's spitty. So that's not gonna work.
00:05:15 So we started here.
00:05:20 Now we're here.
00:05:24 I guess it's OK but it's not great.
00:05:26 The problem, which is prevalent with
background vocals,
that are recorded on the same microphone
by the same person
at the same time, with the same pre-amp
with the same mood,
is that the peaks of the room
and the peaks of the relationship
between the vocalist
and the microphone are
the same on every track.
00:05:39 So you multiply that by eight.
00:05:41 Which means the EQ you have to apply
at the sum of all that stuff is enormous
and ruins the sound.
00:05:47 A better way of working
although it seems tedious
is to function this way.
00:05:51 Get rid of this guy,
it serves no purpose.
00:05:54 Pick one guy that you're gonna use
on every single track.
00:05:58 We can use the same one,
let's be consistent here.
00:06:01 Here.
00:06:02 Listen to just that track.
00:06:06 You hear it, right?
That sound's nice.
00:06:26 Let's compare to the next one.
00:06:31 Kind of the same but not quite.
00:06:32 So you can copy this.
00:06:38 A little lower maybe.
00:06:41 Yes.
00:06:42 So now we're able to apply specific EQ
to each and every separate
background vocal.
00:06:47 I can apply a little more EQ if I need to
to be able to get rid of the problem
without affecting everything else.
00:06:55 And, since she may have
moved a tiny bit, or
since she may be singing
a different note,
and frequency and pitch are related,
as you remember,
then I can change the frequency
of the EQ a tiny bit
and have some kind of overlap frequency
allowing for a fuller sound.
00:07:11 As opposed to just slapping an EQ
on the whole thing.
00:07:13 The two of them together sound like this.
00:07:19 This one, the third one, sounds like this.
00:07:22 She's a little closer to the mike
on number 3
so I'm gonna use the same as number one.
00:07:29 Number 4.
00:07:38 So we now have four EQs that are
sensible the same on four tracks.
00:07:43 It sounds like this.
00:07:47 We started here.
00:07:52 That's too thick.
00:07:54 But what we got is usable.
00:07:58 How would it sound might you
ask yourself,
if we just use that one EQ that we like
on the individual tracks
on the main track? It
would sound like this.
00:08:06 I'm gonna copy it,
mute these
and listen to this.
00:08:14 This is with one EQ
across all four.
00:08:17 Listen to the 'hummmfff' part when it's
like 'Luna'.
00:08:23 As opposed to this.
00:08:27 One is clean, the one that is discrete
on every track
and one is muddy.
00:08:30 That's the Gang one.
00:08:32 Multiply that by 50 tracks
of background vocals
and that's the difference between a
muddy background vocal track
and a clean background vocal track.
00:08:40 This of course doesn't mean
that I'm not gonna use that bus
to process all of them together.
00:08:44 I will, for several reasons.
00:08:46 A - To save DSP.
00:08:48 B - To save brain shart.
00:08:50 To avoid having to move
eight different plug-ins
or change 8 plug-ins every time
I wanna change something
on all eight tracks.
00:08:56 But, to fix mud problems
I do it individually on the tracks
if they bother me. If I want it super thick
and in your-face background vocal
then I don't touch anything.
00:09:04 But in this particular case it was
annoying me artistically
so I did it this way because I know
is the cleanest way
and I won't be tempted to EQ more
or compress or do anything like that later.
00:09:16 Let's listen to this guy.
00:09:21 Compared to this guy.
00:09:25 It's a little lower but I think this
EQ would work. Let's check it out.
00:09:33 A little too thin.
00:09:39 Maybe it was better before.
00:09:40 A little wider.
00:09:44 That's nice. Without.
00:09:48 With.
00:09:49 I'll decide, I may be a
little too shy on this.
00:09:51 I may adjust later.
00:09:54 That's much darker.
00:09:55 I'm gonna use the one that was
for darker stuff.
00:10:01 Too much.
00:10:06 You hear the peak coming in, right?
OK.
00:10:13 This guy.
00:10:16 Same as the first brown one.
00:10:17 And this one on the other side.
00:10:21 Same as this one. Cool.
00:10:27 All eight.
00:10:38 With just one EQ.
00:10:45 With all eight.
00:10:53 We are basically using
individual EQs on separate tracks
as a compressor of source,
to avoid that peak.
00:10:59 And now I'm ready to make sound.
00:11:00 I'm no longer fixing,
I'm gonna start mixing.
00:11:03 But before we get there
let's listen to BGVs that
have been recorded far away from the mic
like those guys over there.
00:11:16 Each pair has a direct mic
and a stereo mic.
00:11:23 The stereo mic is actually more present
than the mono mic.
00:11:26 Whatever that means.
00:11:32 We're pretty far away from this sound.
00:11:38 With a far away sound you're not gonna
have the bottom problem.
00:11:41 It's not gonna get as muddy.
00:11:42 Even if you put all of them together.
00:11:52 There's a little bit of
a mask in the bottom.
00:11:54 But it's not peaky.
00:11:55 I can remove it very easily.
00:11:58 With just one EQ.
00:12:00 When you have a whole
bunch of tracks like this
recorded with the open
microphone for backgrounds,
it's always a good idea to hi-pass.
00:12:07 But I don't have to tell you that because
you hi-pass everything, right?
Here we go.
00:12:16 Without.
00:12:21 With.
00:12:26 So that is very simple,
because there's no peaks and no dynamics
that are not compounding together to make
these big peaks on the sum,
you could just use one EQ on
everything and be happy.
00:12:36 The problems you might find with background
vocals that are recorded far away,
that will compensate for the fact that
you will not have the peak problems are:
A - They might sound a little roomy,
a little bit demoy
because they have that weird room,
unless you recorded at Abbey Road,
you may not have the best room sound.
00:12:52 So you might wanna try and hide that.
00:12:55 The second problem is that you find
them to be dark.
00:12:57 Let's compare with the lead vocal.
00:13:05 And then she comes in.
00:13:13 In this particular case
it's kind of nice to have this
bunch of fishermen
hanging out in the back while she's in the
front telling the story.
00:13:21 However this is a big difference.
00:13:25 You might wanna try opening up the top
across all tracks.
00:13:39 Without.
00:13:44 With.
00:13:49 Another advantage of doing this brightening
is that you will hear these
8 background vocals more
because you hear the highs
more in a crowded mix.
00:13:58 And if you hear them more
you can bring them down.
00:14:00 If you bring them down it leaves more room
for the rest of the track.
00:14:03 So if you wanna highlight parts
of the background vocals,
open the top a little bit.
00:14:09 They will come through
without raising the level
which means all the stuff that's at the
bottom of that track
will not mud the entire track up
like they would if you just tried to raise
the whole level.
00:14:18 Good trick.
00:14:20 Also, brightening all tracks across one EQ
gives a little bit of that together shine.
00:14:25 It kinds of melt together,
it's a little of a sauce.
00:14:27 It may be subjective but I kind of dig it.
00:14:29 The combination of those two benefits
makes it a good idea to check if you can
sneak in a little bit o high-end
without becoming sibilant
across your background Subs.
00:14:37 I'm gonna make a leap of good faith
and imagine that these are about the same.
00:14:46 So...
00:14:49 How do these sound?
Fierce.
00:14:59 These are actually closer to Magda's vocal
miking wise, but they don't have that
bump at the bunch. Check out.
00:15:09 I think that's a great recording,
I'm no touching it.
00:15:32 As a reminder we started here.
00:15:46 And with just these few EQs.
00:15:55 A little goes a long way.
00:15:56 We haven't looked at these.
00:15:59 They play here.
00:16:04 Same deal as the first four,
I'm gonna hope for the best
and copy the EQs.
00:16:12 There you go. And it will sound like this.
00:16:19 There's a little problem here.
00:16:28 That by itself sounds horrible.
00:16:30 However...
00:16:31 In the context of the song...
00:16:33 With all eight...
00:16:39 And with these...
00:16:44 See, if we didn't EQ these
it would sound so failed.
00:16:51 I can't use this on the record.
00:16:53 Not with a band.
00:16:55 But if you EQ it too thin
like this,
it will come above these guys.
00:17:12 Without mudding the whole track.
00:17:14 So listening to these
bunch of tracks in solo
and trying to make them sound the best
possible by themselves
is not necessarily a good idea.
00:17:21 You have to look at it in the context
of the musicality of the track.
00:17:24 What's their function.
00:17:25 Are they the body of the song?
Or are they and added
harmonics that you can just
neuter and just tuck it on top.
00:17:32 It's very crucial to analyze
the background vocals.
00:17:34 Otherwise you will never see the end of it.
00:17:36 Now, this is only EQ, I
think there's another one
yes, there's these guys here.
00:17:41 Which play here.
00:17:46 Remove the solos.
00:17:47 I think we have everybody happy.
00:18:07 All good.
00:18:09 Let's talk about compression.
00:18:10 The principles of compression
on background vocals, are the same
as the principals of EQ
on background vocals.
00:18:16 If you have an acute problem...
00:18:18 Multiply by eight.
00:18:20 You better off
compressing that
track by track.
00:18:23 If you just wanna shape the
entire level of all eight together
then you use the Sub.
00:18:28 In this case
we already took care of
the peaks with the EQ.
00:18:32 EQs can be the best compressor
in the universe if you use them properly.
00:18:36 So...
00:18:36 Let's just compress a little bit.
00:18:38 For level.
00:18:39 Check out this part here.
00:18:42 On the first...
00:18:43 Eight...
00:18:44 Well fourth, A section.
00:18:55 See there's a little bit of a sway here.
00:18:57 Really not that much.
00:18:59 I'm gonna use a compressor
that we all know and love.
00:19:05 There you go.
00:19:06 The peaks are wonderful,
they give me presence.
00:19:08 I'm gonna level it with
a fairly slow attack.
00:19:15 It works better when I turn it on.
00:19:28 Without.
00:19:35 With.
00:19:48 It's just a little bit of steadiness.
That's it.
00:19:51 Using a slow attack
allows the peaks of the background vocals
to peak through, hence the name, peak.
00:19:56 The idea here is the same as the brightness
on the background vocals.
00:19:59 If you let the peaks through,
they seem more present,
you can tuck them in a little bit,
you don't need as much of the body
and they still do their job and
you hear them well.
00:20:08 It's sounds like this with the lead.
00:20:19 Without the compressor.
00:20:27 Notice how it gets a little bit peaky
in the bottom in places
even tough it sounds fine on it's own
and the lead vocal sounds fine on its own,
the combination of the two
is creating problems.
00:20:35 If I add the compressor
I don't have that problem.
00:20:47 It works.
00:20:48 It's safe to assume that's
gonna be fine here too.
00:20:51 In this area.
00:20:57 Those are so much thinner
that they don't hit the compressor.
00:21:15 It's starting to take shape.
00:21:17 And the same thing can be said
of these other guys here.
00:21:21 The 'Gringos'.
00:21:23 Let's find a place where they speak more.
00:21:29 That's probably too much.
00:21:30 You want them to speak.
00:21:38 Without.
00:21:44 See that 'QUE' thing?
A little faster, will catch more of it.
00:21:57 Without.
00:22:03 That would be annoying
but with the compressor,
just right.
00:22:13 If I was not able to make this happen
exactly the way I want
on the Bus, I would go and compress
individual tracks until I'm happy with it.
00:22:23 Let's talk about panning
for background vocals.
00:22:26 How do you think about that?
Well, I think it depends on the function.
00:22:30 This first part here
is a stand-alone part.
00:22:39 It's a feature.
00:22:40 It's a kind of a lead made out
of a bunch of people.
00:22:43 So, let's try to recreate a space
in a room a bunch of fishermen
just hang out.
00:22:48 So...
00:22:49 I would try and give it a mass,
I wouldn't necessarily keep it
as wide as it is right now
so I could close it a little bit here.
00:22:59 On the stereo tracks.
00:23:02 Here, here, here, here.
00:23:05 And give more of an entity feel.
00:23:07 So for example if you have
a song where you have a lead
and than the background answer
and the BGV is a block of people,
then maybe you wanna
make it centered so it's more
tangible and physical in the middle.
00:23:18 Like this.
00:23:36 If you look here...
00:23:36 I have some tracks in the middle,
some tracks slightly on the side.
00:23:40 Some tracks more on the side.
00:23:42 There are no rules.
00:23:44 I've heard and I've read and I've
been told, many things like that.
00:23:46 'You have to pan this way',
'and pan this one this way'.
00:23:50 Just listen to it.
00:23:51 Does it feel good in the middle?
Does it feel good in mono?
Does it feel good slightly stereo?
Does it immerse you well
if it's all the way open?
That's the criteria.
00:24:00 There are no technical reasons
for one way or the other.
00:24:03 It's a question of taste.
00:24:04 Taste varies, greatly.
00:24:06 That's one consideration.
00:24:08 Now, for background vocals
that are more like this,
where you're actually supporting
a lead, this is my lead.
00:24:23 These background vocals are designed
to support the center vocal, right?
It's a good idea to wrap them round.
00:24:29 They're usually designed to make it wider
bigger than life, so then
open it completely.
00:24:34 This...
00:24:40 is more fun than this.
00:24:47 And we wanna have fun.
I'm gonna keep it opened.
00:24:50 You could consider doing
something like this
where you have two wide open,
and two kind of open,
like this.
00:24:57 And this is how it sounds.
00:25:04 As opposed to this.
00:25:13 You notice that if you open
a little bit less there's more
mass in the middle
which makes a lot of sense.
00:25:18 The question is you have enough room
to have more mass in the middle?
Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on the band
it depends on other background vocals,
it depends on.. there's
vocal double or not.
00:25:27 Again, it's a question of taste.
00:25:29 Here I have the room because
there's nothing else going on.
00:25:31 But if I had a full band with
the piano right here,
I probably wouldn't and I'd push
the BGs to the side.
00:25:36 Those are the rules.
00:25:38 As you may have noticed by now,
except for a few technical issues,
it's really a question of common sense.
00:25:43 If you have a super high BGV,
that's quadrupled,
and then a low part
that goes with that BGV that's quadrupled,
are you gonna put
all four low ones on the left,
and four high ones on the right?
If you're mixing for the Beatles, maybe.
00:25:57 But that was a long time ago.
00:25:59 Or if you're mixing a record that
wants to be like the Beatles,
which happens a lot.
00:26:03 But
if your'e mixing for Kate Perry
probably because you
want that blended sound
where everything is together.
00:26:08 So, it's a question of esthetic choice.
00:26:10 It's not a question of right or wrong.
00:26:12 Let's talk about effects.
00:26:14 Reverbs and delays are the same
kinds of reverbs and delays that you would
use on lead vocals.
00:26:19 Space. So you need a little bit of this,
probably less on background vocals
because you have so many more,
you have more room bleed
so you have more of a distance
than on the lead vocal.
00:26:29 However sometimes they
are recorded so close
that you still need to
add the depth back in.
00:26:33 Then you need the tail, with the plate
and then you need height
with a hall, if you're in that kind
of stuff and you have the room.
00:26:39 What we're gonna discuss now
is more specific
blending techniques.
00:26:43 So you can help
background vocals blend together more.
00:26:47 And to do so,
the way to do it
is to use
a pitch effect.
00:26:51 So I have a send here on the bus
of this eight background vocal.
00:26:55 It sounds like this, raw.
00:26:59 And then I'm gonna fabricate the effect
for you in realtime with this plug-in.
00:27:04 And then I'll show you a couple
pre-tuned effects.
00:27:06 So I'm gonna use Pitch 2
which is a standard Avid plug-in.
00:27:11 What I'm gonna do is
pitch the left side
a little bit differently
from the right side.
00:27:18 And I'm gonna make sure
that this is 100% wet.
00:27:22 Right?
Because I don't wanna
hear the direct sound,
I only wanna hear the wet sound.
00:27:41 This is a very standard practice.
00:27:43 People have been doing this forever.
00:27:45 They used to use hardware
machine from Eventide,
Harmonizers, the 910 and 949.
00:27:49 A little bit of pitch on the left,
a little bit of pitch on the right,
and then you set it in
and it sounds like this.
00:27:54 As a reminder, this is dry.
00:27:58 And this is with the effect.
00:28:05 You know that sound.
00:28:06 You don't have to use at that.
00:28:08 Obviously but, it's nice.
00:28:15 This is too much for my taste. But...
00:28:23 It's nice.
00:28:23 And in the context of
a whole bunch of stuff, and with the track,
and the bass and everything, it's cool.
00:28:38 Without.
00:28:45 Notice what it does?
It blurs the pitch a little bit.
00:28:48 It blurs the presence.
00:28:49 Because it adds a little bit of the pitch
off...
00:28:52 And it creates that coarsy kind of effect
that's not really a chorus
and let's you really
kind of blend
all those background vocals together
by adding some shadow
to the pitch.
00:29:01 That's the manual approach.
00:29:04 You can use plug-ins from
some manufactures
that actually do that for you.
00:29:08 And add a little bit of randomness
a little bit of color to it
like for example the amazing
Microshift from
Soundtoys.
00:29:16 You have three different kind.
00:29:17 Make sure you are on all wet. OK?
Type 2.
00:29:30 Super silky, right?
Type 3.
00:29:39 Compared with the handmade one.
00:29:40 This is the pitch one.
00:29:48 And this is Microshift.
00:29:55 The Microshift is a more achieved effect
because somebody smart spend a lot of time
tweaking the parameters so
they sound just right.
00:30:01 However, the pitch one,
you can make it do things
and you can tweak it to your liking.
00:30:06 So it's a give and take.
00:30:07 Here's another one I dig and I use
quite often, it's from Waves
and it's called Doubler.
00:30:13 The Doubler 4 is nice.
00:30:15 Because instead of having 2 voices,
like pitch, it has 4 voices.
00:30:18 Hence the name, Doubler 4.
00:30:21 And I'll use the
Doubler 4 preset.
00:30:24 You have to be careful with Doubler,
to remove the direct sound.
00:30:28 The cool thing about doubler
is that you can change the pan.
00:30:31 So I can take some of this stuff
put it in the middle like here.
00:30:35 That's nice.
00:30:43 Compared to the Microshift.
00:30:48 Doubler.
00:30:52 Kind of the same family, right?
Makes you think that
maybe Little Microshift has
four voices,
maybe not.
00:30:57 We have to ask Ken.
00:30:59 Another cool feature of Doubler
is that you can actually
make the pitch change.
00:31:03 So you can have four pitches
that kind of like do this all the time
to create more of a real feel
or more of kind of a weird feel.
00:31:10 So you have the 'depth' amount here,
and that will, I'm gonna exaggerate
so you can see it.
It sounds like this.
00:31:26 Make them all crazy.
00:31:36 Super useful.
00:31:37 But...
00:31:38 if you actually
put a little bit of sway,
a little bit like this,
maybe at different speeds,
you'll notice that's it's gonna thicken
the whole thing.
00:32:00 As opposed to Microshift
which will be more discrete now.
00:32:08 Doubler.
00:32:15 That's pretty awesome.
00:32:16 You can do crazy things with this.
00:32:18 And thicken background vocals
a lot
using this kind of stuff.
00:32:22 I'm gonna go back to Little Microshift
and I'm gonna add a little bit of that
to most of the background vocals
to give them
blend.
00:32:30 And to give them depth.
00:32:32 How much am I adding?
I'm pulling the number out of my hat.
00:32:36 Go.
00:32:37 Let's see how it sounds towards the end.
00:32:39 When everybody is singing.
00:33:05 It adds a nice shine.
00:33:07 And a nice plane.
00:33:08 It makes it more unified, which is cool.
00:33:10 This sounds very dry
I'm gonna slap a quick plate on it.
00:33:13 Which is what I use mostly
for background vocals.
00:33:16 Some sort of an EMT Plate
because that's the sound
we've been listening to
for decades.
00:33:21 Specially on the main one.
00:33:24 Here.
00:33:42 The lead is a little loud.
00:33:58 We're starting to notice that
a lot of the sound of the background vocals
is based on the effects you put on them.
00:34:03 Why?
Because background vocals
are supposed to add a supernatural
dimension to your track.
00:34:09 Right?
Either they are answering the lead
or they are enhancing the lead
or they are trying to make it bigger.
00:34:14 The bigger and the more
supernatural that they
sound, without being insane,
gives you kind of a
aw feel, which is what you're looking for.
00:34:22 Let's add a little bit of a EQ.
00:34:24 This techniques are super standard.
00:34:26 You just gotta remember to use them.
00:34:28 There you go.
00:35:33 And you'll notice
that with the effects,
the little pitch sway,
the delay and the reverb,
those slightly questionable pitchy
things here and there
no longer bother anyone.
00:35:46 For background vocals
once you fix the problems
as we saw at the beginning,
so that you don't have to hear
peaks and valleys when
you're trying to be creative,
the name of the game is contrast.
00:35:56 Managing contrast.
00:35:58 Do you want it to blend together,
lead and backgrounds?
Do you want it to be separated?
Give it a sense of depth.
00:36:04 You can play with
dry or wet,
vocals, and reverbs and no reverbs.
00:36:10 Tail or no tail,
hall and no hall, delay and no delay.
00:36:13 Or the pitch that gives you that stereo
kind of feel thing going.
00:36:17 Using those tricks
you can manage your
backgrounds vocals being
front or back of the mix
very easily.
00:36:24
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Fab Dupont is a award-winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has received many accolades around the world, including wins at the Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards, US independent music awards. He also has received Latin Grammy nominations and has worked on many Latin Grammy and Grammy-nominated albums.
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WOW, this video was so good. I learned so many things in such a short amount of time and it was so clear. You are helping me think about concepts I can apply to other tracks that are not BGVS as well. You helped me learn about how to make something sound closer or further in the mix, how to give space to something, and how to have that amazing chorus feel. AWESOME!
IsraelWoo
2019 Dec 18
Hi，mr Fab ，thanks for this video，but here I Get a question, in the conclusion you say its easy to make backvocal front and back, to make separate from lead, to make depth...... I don’t really get the method ..... what’s the exact step that concern about the depth ? Is that the send amount of micro shift, or the send amount of delay? Since you have said the plate reverb is concern about the tail ...... this question is really important to me ....... and plus, is the depth method general to apply to all the other instrument? ........... need ur help so much .................
Kbmusiq
2019 Dec 10
Awesome! Enjoyed this video on how to make your background vocals sound excellent!
Aledes
2016 Dec 25
this tutorial is awesome!!! thaks!!!!
viccieleaks
2016 Dec 11
super helpful!
soundspace2001
2016 Dec 05
I liked the tricks with the Doubler - very cool and helpful!
cjperez
2016 Nov 27
Awesome info as usual.. Thanks Fab..
dagovitsj
2016 Aug 01
Hi! Thanks for very valuable info. I really like that you teach us the thinking behind your descisions and not just the plugin settings. And I also like that we get access to listen to this wonderful music and not just background vocals from pop recordings.
However it seems like the quality of the screen recording is not HD, it's very hard to read some of the settings on the plugins, really wish you could fix this (as it's also a problem with other videos). Tip: At the end of the video, Fab uses EchoBoy (Soundtoys), it should be listed in the plugins overview at the end of this page ;)
shahtahir808@gmail.com
2016 Feb 29
Great video but streaming slow on my comp
peace
st808
David Einer
2016 Feb 11
Muy bueno, demasiado interesante, lo que hacía falta, saludos...
Fabulous Fab
2016 Jan 31
@69bluesman: i do have a bricasti and i do use it but i will always go for a plugin first, for simplicity and failsafe recall. when i cannot find the tone i want in the box then ill reach for the bricasti (the chambers are really nice), thr pcm70, the bx20 or the bx10
69bluesman
2015 Dec 04
Thanks Fab, great stuff here!
Question... I see the Bricasti M7 in your rack. Would you substitute that for one of your plates or halls plugins? Or add it to the list of available FX for your mix?
The M7 has been a recent new toy in my setup...I would love to hear how you employ it within your projects.
reddirt
2015 Nov 28
fFab,I've not seen anyone do Tutorials to this standard before; my hat's off to you . A lot requires developed listening skills but that is what is needed if we want to be very good at what we do,
Cheers, Ross
Iannis
2015 Nov 27
Hello Fab,
nice tutorial and very helpful...as usual. Just a quick question:
In cases like this that you have many Background Vocals, do you compress the Reverb so it does not spread very much?
Best,
Iannis
Manvince
2015 Nov 10
Very helpful. Much appreciated. Thanks Fab
Midolf
2015 Nov 07
Fab, since all of your tut's are great helpful and awesome I have only two words to say today: Thank you.
