Vocal Production Techniques/Appreciation

doom

Public Housing
I've been buggin out over the vocal edits in 'Road Mixes' of Soca tunes of late, espesh from the Razorshop camp. Nothing overly 'new' or radical goin on, just quality, musical use of choppage, amp/ring mod, timestretching, reverse, pitch abuse (antares related and otherwise) etc. etc.

Pressure Boom by Ricky T has an ill Road Mix which has every trick in the book employed for maximum hype!
 

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member

It's good isn't it? Technically it seems quite straightforward: doubling, delay, reverb, self-harmonising, breathing as rhythm, telephone voice. My favourite song that year!

But the ingredients are genuis. The drugged-out cold voice that dominates the first part is awsome. Some of the harmonies are ever so slightly out of tune (less then a semi-tone) which gives an amazing ethereal quality.
 

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
Exactly, but it's a mechanical, rather than organic ethereality, unlike kate bush or liz fraser.

Oh yeah, totally. The vocals have a cold artificial quality to them, especially in the first half of the song. That's a large part of what makes it so outstanding. The other tracks on the Cassie album are much more conventionally soulful.

I think the vocals in the first part must have been recorded in a different session than the rest.

The voice in conjunction with the clave figure (E Maj7: Gsharp E Dsharp B Gsharp I think) works very well. The clave anchors the rhythm and creates tension that keeps the song danceable.
 
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Buick6

too punk to drunk
Good thread!!

I really, really, really love the vocals on all the mainstream RnB, Beyonces and Alicia Keys and Mary J Blige, their singing is awesome..All those mega-layers sexy/sublime harmonies, they blow my mind!

Vocals/singing is so damn important in pop music, and there are so many shit singers out there that pretend to 'sing' like Elton fucking John!

Droney singer like Dylan, Lou reed are OK as it fits the 'timbre' of their music, but the indie bands should go to the toilet. I especially hate those fucking indie singers with their ennui 'singing' they shouldn't sing it's as easy as that, bland, shit, suck a dick! Fiest, etc, all those waifs singing in their 'natural' voice proving they can't sing FUCK OFF! It's interesting how all the 'waif' singers sound like Cat Power, who is a real, real shit singer.

Amy Winehouse has a terrific voice, but Beyonce, oh her voice!
 

drilla

Well-known member
I have to vehemently disagree with that... Cat Power Chan's voice is very good. But since this is about production not about voice itself, I have to say that Chan is only good on her old stuff, early singles up to the first covers record. The production on the newer albums, especially "the greatest" her soul record, is horrendous.. sounds really compressed an blah, but see, these are not technical terms for i don't know much about this stuff, i just want to learn.
 

muser

Well-known member
imho good vocals shouldn't need much production on them at all. Allthough when its taken to the extremes it can be very interesting i.e eight frozen modules work on ragga vocals, square pusher on tried by twelve by east flatbush project, modeselektor on ninjaman etc.
 

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
imho good vocals shouldn't need much production on them at all.

Hmmm, from my experience with vocal production, I have to disagree with that. The way vocals are usually produced is to record the vox many times, cut the good bits together, edit the audio to remove all sorts of faults, use ReCycle to place audio bits at exactly the right places, and use heavy processing. Lot's of the sublime harmonies are artificial and probably not reliably reproducable without technology.

Vox are usually the most time-consuming part of the production, except maybe the composition itself.

Having said that, because heavy processing is pervasive, (relatively) unprocessed audio now has a distinct quality that can be appreciated as an artistic choice precisely because of the contrast.
 
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jahtao

Member
And there's a horrible mouth noise at about 2:45, guess it wasn't audible in the final mix. Just being a smart arse sorry
 

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
And there's a horrible mouth noise at about 2:45, guess it wasn't audible in the final mix.

It is in fact totally audible in the final mix as well. Ouch! But it's kind of in time, so it doesn't matter.

And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, shows why it might not always be a good idea to get too deeply into things you love, because you end up geeking-out over irrelevant details, rather than appreciating the art. ;)
 
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