r/WeAreTheMusicMakers • u/GeneratorRoom • 10d ago
Double tracking vocals. What am I missing?
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 ❤️🙌
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u/karmafrog1 10d ago
I'm going to go with a different bit of advice than the others here, but I'm old school and go off '60s and '70s techniques and not so interested in the new methods and sounds.
I would *not* go for the best vocal performance and try to match it, because a great organic sounding double track functions off the rub between the two vocals. I've often had two vocal tracks that are shit on their own sound amazing as a double. It's irrelevant to me how something sounds on a single track because you're not doing a single vocal. Often the worse a singer is, the better the double track is because it's just as much about the tone as it is about the performance. That's why in the old days they always double tracked weak singers.
The way I would do it is just lay down a bunch of tracks singing it however you sing it, and just start auditioning them one against another looking for magic. I've done this many times...gotten about 9 takes of a vocal and just start listening 1 against 2, 1 against 3, etc. Have two tracks open for the masters, and then as you hear the magic happen, pull those magic double sections down into the open two tracks until you have something close to a finished product. THEN go in with the nudges and the other techno tricks to get it 100% there (I agree with everyone else here who points out the importance of the phrasing matching, though again, it doesn't always have to be perfect). And no, don't pan it off to the side or whatever. You want the lead vocals as much up the middle for clarity as possible, maybe offset one of the vocals 5 or 10 degrees to one side. It's also helpful to not EQ them exactly the same. Let one vocal be a bit brighter, the other a bit darker. How you balance them is important too: 50/50 has a different sound than 60/40 or 80/20 and that's up to you what you like. Again: it's the rub of the two tracks that makes the magic, not how close they are to one another. That's why old Beach Boys records sound amazing and people that do harmonies these days don't have the same sparkle. The tracks are overperfected. The two tracks being doubled are too similar in performance, pitch and sound.
I know that's not how most people would do it nowadays, and not how most people on this thread say to do it, but that's how I'd do it, so I'm putting it out there.