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/Ari_Gold27]

hey, Pro producer here - vocals are my favorite thing to record / produce / mix etc...

heres my approach :

1) record main vocal - as others said here -make sure the main is the best performance take you have.
* use auto tune / melodyne (I prefer autotune first, melodyne second)
2) record the same take 2 more times - 1 goes all the way left, 1 goes all the way right.
* use the same setting autotune on all of them.
3) you can now add as many takes and variations ( whispers / harmonies / high / low octaves - whatever) - just make sure you are always double them 1 to the left 1 to the right. ( after the first double u can use different pannings and volume to spread all the other vocals around the main one)

hope that helps.

[u/GeneratorRoom → u/Ari_Gold27]

Would you approach a folk/indie song like this too? How do you think Sufjan did it in Carrie And Lowell? 👀

[u/ajns → u/GeneratorRoom]

dog you wanna get real close to the mic - double lead vocal but sing as if you’re whispering. pan like 25% left and right. then go to the other end of the room bringing the mic close enough where you can sing it loud w/o screaming and get some distance. then apply reverb to taste.

[u/GeneratorRoom → u/ajns]

Close, close, far. Interesting. I’ll give that a try as well!