Lessons

Lesson Info

Issues "Stingray Affliction": Special Effects Pt 1

So I'm gonna go back I'm gonna touch on the main vocals one more time and talk about the main effects that we used throughout this album on all the courses well on all the singing vocals and it's really just there are songs on this album where I did put a double are on top of the double vocals most of this is just reverb so I just wanted to bring that up before I get too far into like the special effects give me one sec here and kind of go in tow how you can use vocal effects too create dynamics and create transitions and do things to just spice up the vocals kind ofyou need things that you can do to serve certain purposes on one of the main things that I do a lot and I'm actually looking to see if I did it on this song I don't think I haven't there's a lot of tracks in these sessions just making sure but I'm going to do this now anyways don't wait a cool way if you feel like you have a course and the rhythm isn't really locking into the music or there's like gaps in the vocals that yo...

u don't want to put locals in there but you kind of want to fill that space instead of making like his long haul reverb or doing stuff like that just lock let me see what my son is here to cool walk the vocals in by using a delay I'll show you how this works I already have don't already have a knox end to a delay on these that I'm automating in and out on all the vocals and I always have this set up and ready to go because you never know when you're going to need a little repeat or something going on so I always have this ready I was going to the automation window and island mute the send I keep it muted, right? I normally keep it muted and then I'll go on and on you send so that's what I'm doing now and I'll show you how delay can really walk in a vocal like a quarter note delay depending on tempo, quarter note delay or in a way that's too slow for this tempo so because he's seeing pretty fast so let's try and a note that was a quarter note let me play one more time and get him wait, you can hear it kind of makes the vocal sound more robotic and that's not what we wanted in this, but some songs you really want to just walk it down, tie the vocals in um what I did use the delay for in the song uh, let me put it back to how I had to take it off the lead vocal you always take a little high end off a delay so you don't hear that s repeating at the tea's repeating I just want to hear the rhythm you know that stuff actually screen part that got a lot cooler because we walked over them and with the way it's right here and we actually wrote this around the idea of the way which is cool so I play that one more time with the doorway of a little bit cool so you can kind of hear how it fills that space and makes that part really cool take it out what kind of boring vocal now like I said the vocal wasn't boring we wrote it around the idea of it repeating but you can use effects like that to write parts or if you did have something that just didn't really walk in rhythmically um throws a delay on it get it sitting just so that you still feel the vocals but they're not the lead vocal as they repeat don't say another cool effect we did here which is more along the lines of transitional stuff unless anyone has questions about delay talk about delayed for hours but it's pretty self explanatory at the same time so so cool thing you can do and this is something that actually did a bunch of effects combine to create one transitional effect I'll give it to the delay so you can really hear clearly yeah yeah so and it's not even that loud in the mix is just enoughto like that part amps up and then the space is filled and that's what's cool that's where I try to use vocal effects is I listen back to song and I'm not like oh it's just affect this and that it's like where what's missing and let's do something cool in all these spots where I don't feel like they're quite transition right? And so, like a spot like this I took the vocal I reversed it and I added a river then I reversed that river but I can show you how to do that just second that's a really cool is a simple effect that's super super awesome for awkward transitions so I did that and you can hear the reverb swell up because backwards and I manually cut it out what you can see right here I saw that you used the reverse reverb too for the main vocal going the chorus? Yeah, how like, how many times did you use that in a song or so before it gets a little redundant? Whatever it's necessary, andi, I'll go to that party and you'll hear it's actually like a totally different reverb it's a different effect there's no cut in it, but it just sometimes you need that swell, you know it's like it's the same questions like how many pinch harmonics do you add this song? It just has to do with the riff and the whole yeah for sometimes the answer is none a lot of times the answer is none but sometimes it's fifty uh it just depends so and then what I did with it I did like a tape stop effect after the vocal to fill that space because everything comes in on and I was like getting tired of that and feeling you know what I mean? Like I know there's like a gap and then there's a then there's vocal so I wanted to fill those gaps but not have vocal they're still have the same melody or catchy rhythm but I want those gaps filled so what? Weird stuff yeah, you know, just something that kind of like brings it down and takes it another really stuff like that's good wayto bring stuff and I'll go to the chorus reverse focal real quick you can hear it actually actually delay backwards so it's going no, no, no and that creates a rhythm gets you into the chorus because the band isn't making a rhythm right there they're just going uh uh get you ready for that fast course so um, you know, use those type of effects wherever you need him if it sounds like too much and it's probably too much I could show you real quick, especially that actually will see any vocal here how to do a reverse reverb because it's easy and I'm not sure if everyone knows it's done see you I think this might be a cool part show it since it's very clear so the first thing you want to make a new track and I'm actually going toe actually I'm just going to the simple first make one to track down a drag my main vocal down actually gonna copy it and paste it right here I'm gonna make a wave I'm going to make the way form consolidated on this new track which no label traverse vocal verb consolidated shift command three pro tools option shift option three my apologies um and I kind of make sure that there's a about the same amount of time at the beginning than there is at the end I kind of like to see the vocal centered in fact let's get crazy with this really long reverb so re consolidate this so I have kind of a starting point going audio sweet anyway that you khun print stuff get out of vocal here actually skipped a step first thing you want to do because you want the beginning of the reverse vocal to be the pitch of the first word so if you just took a vocal, put a reverb on it and then reverse that the reverb swell you're going to hear is actually the end of the park, because you just turned it around. So if that's what you want, you can do it that way, but I normally want that swell, the swell, the note that is the first word, and I want to come right up, so I made this new track and I'm going to reverse it first and most all day he'd always have some kind of reverse plug in, and now the tracks backwards, you can hear who the hell we were crazy melody there now, I've got a river plug and open that was going to super long reverb, so you can hear this and I do mix one hundred percent because you already have the drive local there, so render that and I made a super long reverb tail just a normal super weird, which you could use that as an effect too. I've done that now we have that, but we want to swell, so go right back to reverse plugging and reverse it back to normal makes the river burst e I probably could have done that, but like you're saying, that was the point of songwriters like I've done that trick enough times, I don't need to do that again, and the parts speaks for itself, but there's two ways you can go about that too you can leave that whole line and get this cool like swelling effect that that's beyond reverse reverse don't you then it drops on I don't see nothing and it gets clean and that's a cool way to go about things you can also cut right at the first word and then you just get a swell but you write it or you could just get rid of the swell and make it very short swell here faded up a little bit yeah you could do anything you want ah e they get that big swell but you get like a cool accent on the on the vocal and even cool thing to do with that until but everyone at home just heard that you pan that back and forth you get this cool like swirling sound and that's a really cool way um that's something I like to do tow accents certain words of a word is like dreaming or something I'll always do that all reversal reverb on but I'll cut off the swell and I'll have this like river swell like this way you know what it is but you know that it sounds cool and then when you panic back and forth in the with automation in the mix you get this kind of dreamy feeling and and I think vogel effects one important thing about vocal effects is when you're doing them think about why you're doing it and what you're trying to accent and that's the kind of effect you want to use it and the more you do stuff the more you developed different techniques to different toe accent, different types of words or different types of feelings but that's kind of thing I do for stuff that's supposed to be sort of dreamy um another cool vocal effect unless you had a question on the swells no go down cool. Um another effect that you hear a lot is like a low fi type effect and that's something we used on the bridge here wait on. What I did you can hear is that instead of just having a normal delay like just delaying it which I thought was boring delayed lo fi effect kind of sounds like a telephone filling that space and again it's just every time I hear that is just kind of like what's missing, you know, it's the melodies complete but there's some space that's opening up that I don't like so you just throwing kind of subtle effects like that and this by itself teo looks to be you that's that's the effect there's a kind of funny because it looks like I used pot farm here teo get that effect but you know there's no, no tool is the wrong tool um you just you going to do it's, right? And that's? What worked for me? I remembered that part and going through a bunch of different effects and nothing worked pod form worked. We're never use it on guitars occasionally, same same effect there, and you can do that, you know, I can make that same kind of effect without the delay. I can't really take the delay off because it's all one thing, there we'll go through some other effects here already gone through that question. No, I'll keep going through the stuff you think of it, let me know, but a really easy way I'll show you a super easy way to make that that telephone effect without going through the trouble of remember, yeah, go for it, I can come back, so I've noticed that you use very minimally queuing. I don't know if you haven't gotten to that yet, do does that have to do with the fact that you know you are using a lot nicer gear, so you're not having to compensate for queuing and doing that kind of stuff like high pass filters? I'm you know, like mike says, you know what kind of yeah I can I can go into that, I guess I just kind of got off on a tangent about effects, but but total yeah I'm not doing that much accu because I've already queued and it does have to do with the quality of equipment I mean I I choose certain things and not always quality but just the choice is made to make sure the queue for the vocal is right but no, I'm not I don't use a lot of plug ins on vocals as yu can hear I'm actually just got a just have a little you going here a little bit of top and low mid boost you eighty eighty eight r s plug in and I'm also using it to drop the game down a little bit because my next plug in is actually another hardware compressor it's it's not it's a hardware insert it's not plugged in but I actually my vocals always run through this at the end which is a hardware limiter on going get more into that tomorrow with the hardware but uh stayed where you please shirt take all that stuff off over us and stayed where you played shared making you can hear that it's still pretty cute it's not that far from vinyl goto the chorus I don't wanna beat up on what I make sure that they make but just a little bit a little bit of top boost little more limiting to bring out that excitement slight amount of the s ng on then I actually have a little morning q here um this pole technique you was pretty cool the boost just a little bit of high meds. I was like a little bit of five k to kind of stick out on the vocals. No, I don't wanna be tough of what I make so I can actually go through and show you each one of the time. My first cue. No, I don't wanna be tough without no, I don't want teo a little weird because I have the volume drops, so no, I don't want teo that different. A little booth at the limiting that's kind of where things changed the most. No, I don't want to be tough of what I make sure they could see me crash showing that without you I don't want to beat up her book, not a solid no, I don't want to be tough and then just this last one was paul take huges has a little more presents. No, I don't wanna be tough when I make sure they could see me crash showing that that's that's, my normal vocal chain not going super crazy more the effects are happening in the stuff I talked about before in the layering of the vocals and whatnot, the thing that I haven't really touched on that is totally a huge part of making sure vocal sound awesome courses sound awesome is just composition in general making sure you have the right harmony's the right counter melodies and the right accent and that's something we kind of showed you today like how how to make the vocal pop but it's not something and that I really dove into but composition is a huge huge thing and making sure vocal sound awesome um in the melody and in the harmonies on go back to effects here I I would touch on the mixing old more but honestly there's just not that much going on with the ewing and stuff I'm gonna touch on some different vocal effects that are kind of cool not stuff I necessarily used in this song but cool tricks that allow you to achieve the same type of excitement or space filling stuff just, uh, ways tto make things more interesting so showed you the reason reverse river for effect I'll show you how to do that classic telephone effect with stock plug ins they make like telephone modeling, plug ins and stuff and they're cool and honestly, sometimes I'll just run it out to a telephone good get out of the box and I'll kind of touched on that stuff tomorrow or like old radio that khun sound really cool too is totally different, but if if you're in a hurry or you don't have the resources, I'll show you what the basic idea behind the telephone effective I'm just gonna call it a low five broke one although I already have one five okay, teo, now man cause deep now you know, it sucks to be you so that's just the dry vocal kind of the backbone of that effect of the telephone effect is just band passing basically getting rid of all the highs and the lows which you can kind of tell by listening but I'm not sure if everyone knows exactly how to get there immediately, so I'm going to use this mk dia's people again it's just a really easy band passed to use there's a bunch of different ones and basically it's a high pass in a low pass at the same time I'm sure if you've ever used in the queue scene button called hp or control called h p which stands for high pass which means that's letting all the high frequencies passed through low past let's all the low frequencies pass through so a band pass is a combination of both and you focus on what frequency stay and what are completely gone and you can control the amount of that's rolled off from the frequency point now man cause deep now you know it sucks to be you now man cause deep now you know it sucks alone in that way not man because now you know it sucks to be you and I'm just trying to think about what an old radio sounds like a telephone. And I'm getting rid of everything above six k now, man, because deep down, you know, it sucks to be. You want to sound more muffled underwater. Take that down like one kid now, man, now, you know, you can not tell you that, so you get the basic idea. So on top of that, though, to make effect sound really cool, you can layer it.