From the course: Real Recording School Weekly

How to support long vocal notes - Pro Tools Tutorial

From the course: Real Recording School Weekly

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How to support long vocal notes

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- [Instructor] This is a simple trick that I developed while working with a singer who had a knack for phrasing her lines quite differently every take. When we tried doubling long vocal notes, she would always end the double phrase too late or too soon, making for an awkward and distracting vocal double. What I did was had her sing the note much longer than needed, and then simply edited the notes in to match with the fade out. (rock music) ♪ Just say ♪ - [Instructor] Let me start one more time. ♪ Just say, say your lines ♪ - [Instructor] So you can hear how the note carries over the original note, you can visibly see it her with the vocal double in green. Now what I'll do, in a case like this, is then just go in and cut the note off where I see the top one ending, which is the original, of course, Give it kind of a nice fade, similar to what we see up above. And then put it in like this. ♪ Just say, say your ♪ - [Instructor] It's important also to tell the singer not to worry about T's or S's or anything. In this song it doesn't matter because the last part of the word is the Y of say, but if there's a sharp consonant or something, say don't worry about singing that part, just carry the note through. Now the other thing you can do with this to make it sound even cooler is to sneak in the beginning of it. If you solo the double, you get this sound. ♪ Say ♪ - [Instructor] Well let's take that S off of there. And then let's hear how that works in the mix. ♪ Just say, say your ♪ - [Instructor] Sneaking the double in like that actually makes it sound less like a doubled vocal or two singers, and supports the notes better in a lot of cases. This seems like a really obvious way to help a singer out, but it's one that's important to remember. I pull this out all the time. Put this to use when you hear a singer struggling to match their own phrasing, and you'll have a much better recording.

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