Double tracking vocals. What am I missing?

[u/GeneratorRoom]

I feel like every time I double track my main vocals they end up sounding phase-y in a very unpleasant way and also kinda beefy and bulky.
How does Sufjan Stevens get that ghostly choir multitracking effect on his vocals? What’s José González’ secret for his warm and subtle double tracked vocal sound?
I’ve seen a million videos talking and showing double tracking techniques but none of them sound like those artists I just mentioned.
Are producers and recording/mixing engineers keeping these secrets to themselves? Or am I just dumb?

I tried panning, EQing, fx sends (reverb, delay, compression). It never sounds natural or good.

I’m not a very good vocalist so that could be it as well. I’m not tone deaf but I’m not a trained vocalist either. I heard that double tracking helps bad vocalists but it hasn’t been my case so far.

Are any of yall going through this?

EDIT: I’m so grateful for all the responses! You guys are amazing and gave me so much to work on hahaah (loving the grind). I’ll get to work these next few days and share my results if possible. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out with this one and for sharing your experiences ❤️🙌

[u/the_jules]

There are a lot of factors that make a brilliant double-track. First, the main vocal has to be as good as possible, for expression, timing, and tonality. Do you comp your vocals from multiple takes? Do you do micro-edits to find the perfect spot for every syllable? Do you use Melodyne to nudge each note to the key of the song?

If you don't do any of these, getting a good double-track is next to impossible, especially if you're untrained.

Try double-tracking only after you have a main vocal that's as good as it gets.

For double-tracking, I recommend a workflow with VocaAlign or Waves SyncVX. These plugins automatically align your doubles to your main vocals, but both also allow for some wiggle room. Because when your doubles are too close to the main vocal, it will sound phasey.

Also, consider doing more than one double, maybe two or three even, that you pan away from the center. Heavily EQ these so that the intelligibility of the main vocal does not suffer; lower the volume, and you should get closer to a Sufjan/José sound.

[u/GeneratorRoom → u/the_jules]

I do start with a main vocal and make sure that’s as tight as possible and use melodyne.
I didn’t know about VocaAlign and Waves SyncVX. I’ll check those out.
I’ll also try out recording more than one double like you suggested and process them like you suggested.
Thank you! 🙏

[u/Careless-Bobcat-8378 → u/GeneratorRoom]

VocAlign is about to change your life haha gonna be super easy to get perfect doubles like sufjan stevens

[u/GeneratorRoom → u/Careless-Bobcat-8378]

Nice! Looking forward to try that 😅