Vocal Overdub techniques?

So this more from a mixing stand point, I'm curious to how you would go about overdubs. Like what techniques do you guys use to make them sound clear and crisp. Personally Im not much of a fan of overdubs, I'm more a RAW vocal kinda of dude. I always feel overdubs can really muddy up what the singer/MC is saying but when the artist likes to do over dubs, I add a Low Pass filter so they don't clash with the main vocals frequency and do some panning to widen it up a bit. Any techniques methods that work for you guys?

When overdubbing vocals, you always have to distinquish the lead vocals from the rest. Lead should be up front and on top of the beat while the secondary vocals should be just underneath the lead so the volumes won't clash and both can be heard while the lead remains in the lead. Like when you hear an instrumental, the lead guitar is roaring up front while the rhythm guitar is laying in the cut, same thing. If both are lead like a duet then decipher their tones, one might have a deeper bass voice while the other has mid baritone voice, then eq them to their rightful properties. The one that voices louder should be a notch lower than the other. I don't know if you get me but listen closely to various music pieces with vocals and study them to see what I mean.

well recorded and delivered overdubs will almost never sound muddy, they will enhance the sound of certain words.

sloppy off time overdubs can sound muddy very easily.

dont be afraid to ask the artist to redo takes to help the artist get perfect overdubs. if they are just a little off time but the timbre of the vocal is good on some stuff, you might be better off keeping stuff like that and just nudging those parts after the fact.

i put a hpf on all of the vocal tracks i record, you dont need anything below 60 to 70 hz in a vocal take, all that is gonna be plosives and stuff thats gonna muddy up your mix. save the ultra lows for your kicks and basses. i sometimes even up high pass up to 100 hz on vocals. use your ears and see whats sounds best to you.

i wouldnt ever put a lpf on the overdubs unless for artistic sake, this will just make the vocal layer sound muffled.

most of all you need a good performance to get good overdubs.

if your going to be panning overdubs left and right, be sure that everything is recorded exactly on point with them. it will sound funny and distracting if an overdub on the left channel is a little earlier than the one on the right channel or vice versa.

play with how much your panning and find that sweet spot, there is no perfect place, but experiment around, just feel it out and youll find the place. make sure the panning is even too. for example, if you pan +20 on one side, be sure to pan -20 on the other side.
this can be a very good technique to use and it can give you vocals a really nice "big" effect, but i cant stress enough how you have to have pretty much perfect layers to pull it off well.

sometimes i do my vocal compression and stuff on the main vocals, then on the overdubs, i just line it up and dont do anything else, except maybe eq similar to the main vocal.... sometimes i dont even do that though, its all about lining up the dub with the vocal, after that get your levels and everything should fall into place.

hope this helps!

Try and start by doing two layers (pan one left and one right, to taste) blend them down.

Try doing just the end words... Just pretend you hyping the livest verse you ever heard/wrote live on stage.

Add delay/fx on the ODs

Just experiment. If time premits i like to get the talent or source to do multiple takes and all kind of extra over dubs and more importantly adlibs (yeahs, uhs, etc) just cause you record it doesnt mean it has to live in the mix. You can cut and nudge to taste in post.

Vocals are my favorite things to work on when I’m making a track. I think Ill-Green is absolutely right about tones. Multiple tracks of the same tone can make thing sound a bit muddy though, so watch out for that. Damian907 is right on about messing around with the panning. I also add delay as dopedee mentions. I like to start out with the slap delay preset in Pro Tools and mess around with the mix slider until it sounds like its got good body to it. When I do vocals, I look at it like any another instrument. Try recording multiple takes in different pitches and octaves to create some harmony! Build chords out of the vocals and experiment with it. Sometimes it comes out good, sometimes it comes out wack. Let your ears decide! Hope this helps.

-HM-

i tend to chop the shit out of dubs and move them to sit under the lead, once i have the compiled lead vocal in place, or picked my lead vocal.

its always dependent on the track, but i will mute the dubs while i mix the main vocal, once the main vocal is done, i mute the beat and mix the dubs to fit the main vocal and usually differentiate the two using some slight EQ'ing and some panning or widening.

As a rule i tend to bus the dubs and the vocal together with a group reverb or something like a delay to give them some kind of unity. If i have a really airy track i might give the dubs a longer delay / reverb and the main vocal a shorter one.

I know a guy who uses a tuner like waves tune to slightly improve the tone of the dubs, or slightly leave them out of tune to the main.


Id say theres no solid rule of thumb, its all about the dynamics of the track in my opinion.

Thanks guys!! Really good responses I will be using everything you guys said as reference. I got my own ways of doing it but I think hearing the way others do it allow me to expand my way of thinking. Good Stuff!

some vocal techniques you can start at:

male presence is usually around 5k-5.5k, try boosting and cutting around here to see how it sounds.

male boominess is usally around 500hz or as low as 300hz even, if your vocals are sounding unclear or muddy, maybe try cutting around these frequencies and see if that helps.

female presence is usually around 7k, so if you have a female vocal thats not really cutting through, see how it sounds to boost around there.

these are just guidelines, so dont forget to sweep through the frequency bandwitdth a bit. all vocals are different. it will take some time, but if you can find where the vocal really shines, try subtractive eq on the instruments around it so you carve out a niche for that certain frequency to sit at. this is alot harder to do, but it is supposed to work better than just boosting EQ in the sections you need.

as a rule of thumb, try and use a wider q as opposed to a really fine one, and dont boost more than 3 or 3.5 db, sometimes that all goes out the window though. and sometimes you have to get surgical with the tiny q to cut out certain annoying frequencies.

damien907 wrote:try subtractive eq on the instruments around it so you carve out a niche for that certain frequency to sit at.

Yes! Thats definitely a technique Im familiar with. Its a little difficult tho. A lot of people say that this can be achieved with just panning. It makes sense but I think it sounds so much better when you reduce a little bit of melody to allow the vocals to poke through a little more instead of boosting and still having the frequencies clash. Good stuff!

yeah, panning can work well if you have 2 frequencies clashing for space, but i usually do a mixture of panning and eq when trying to blend stuff thats clashing. like you said.

ie. i just worked on mixing a song that had 3 parts for the hook that were very similar frequencies, each started at 8khz and peaked in 3 similar spots from there.
i ended up finding where each instrument had the "most" of its sound, and cut each of the other two instruments from there, so in the end, there was still a well defined place for each of the 3 frequencies to sit, it was just one instrument that dominated each space though.
i made sure not to cut out the clashing frequencies in the other instruments all the way though, becasue afterwards i used a bit of panning to have them directed to their own space.
it seems to me that usually a vocal and main sample will be taking up the same space though, (ie both panned in the middle) so i def agree that subtracting a bit of the clashing frequency sounds like a better idea than boosting and still having a clash. im still working on utilizing this to its fullest potential myself though.

good luck with all the tips you have been getting in this thread, im sure youll start getting your overdubs and vocals sounding alot better with some practice!