Teach 1 Tuesday
Teach 1 Tuesday
Harmonizing Brilliance: Perfecting Your Background Vocals for Studio-Quality Tracks
Ever wondered how to make your background vocals truly shine? This episode of Teach One Tuesday promises to equip you with the techniques and tools to perfect your vocal harmonies. I’ll be sharing my personal methods using Logic, Shure microphones, and even the Xbox Pro app to create high-quality recordings. Learn the secrets of panning, gain staging, and harmonizing your vocals so they blend seamlessly into your tracks.
Discover how to efficiently record soprano, alto, and tenor parts, and why doubling your takes can add that extra layer of richness. I'll guide you through my step-by-step process for recording, comping, and strategically using technology to enhance your sound without the hassle of multiple re-recordings. This episode is packed with practical insights and insider tips, perfect whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your existing skills. Join us and elevate your music production game to professional levels!
The Toolkit for musicianship mastery: http://bit.ly/3k5v9Vi
Youtube Channel: https://youtube.com/@thetonikingexperience7645
Rare Keys Production- https://rarekeysproduction.com
Toni King link: http://www.linktr.ee/toni.king
The Toni King Experience
Welcome back to another great episode of Teach One Tuesday podcast. I got a great subject for you today, but before we get into that, let's get into that theme music family. All right? All right, welcome back to another great episode of Teach One Tuesday podcast. Before I get into my subject for today, let me go through some links for you guys the Toolkit for Musicianship Mastery my classes for my musicians, up and coming and intermediate and professional of things you need to know to become a great musician. My channel, the Tony King Experience on YouTube. Go check it out. Great content, music content for my creatives, for my artists. Go check it out, like and subscribe, hit that bell, learn something new that will change your life. You're listening to the podcast. Do me a favor, go and tell other people about this great podcast, the Teach One Tuesday podcast. Do me a favor, go and tell other people about this great podcast, the Teach One Tuesday podcast, where we are empowering people every episode. All right, rarikis Production, my business. We are here for you, your music production needs. We are here to serve you. Don't hesitate to reach out. Email links are in the description and if you want to learn more about me, there's a link tree link for you. If you want to learn more about me, hear my music and what's coming up, go and check it out. I'll just tell you now. There's a new record coming out Kingdom Radio in June, so stay tuned for that. All right, let's get into this.
Speaker 1:Today, family, I want to talk about laying down background vocals, and there are certain there are. There's a way to do this. I'll just talk about what I do. Of course, there are different, different ways, different techniques, but I'll talk about what I do to lay down my background vocals. Again, I'll go just go through some specifics. I use Logic, my DAW, digital audio workstations, what I use. I have a sure mic. I also have an eyeball I'm just giving you everything. So you know what I use to get the sound that I get. Um, I have an eyeball that's around it, all right, and I use uh, what is it? I I always forget it xbox, xbox, xbox pro. It's an app that I put on there, so it's an app that has basically everything in one de-esser um, uh, eq, uh, compression, reverb, delay, um, tape saturation all in one. So this is what I use to get the sound that I need Also have, of course, I have headphones that's a given have headphones that I use. So I use all this stuff to get a good recording, all right, to make sure that I can hear, get a good level.
Speaker 1:I pan Also another thing. I pan instruments left and right to make sure everything is not dead center so I can hear, adjust volume, gain, stage. I do all this to get a good recording and so after all that, what I do is that I go to each. Actually, no, what I do is, if my background vocals are in harmony, what I do is that I just record it one time and then I just copy and paste is what I do. So I go through soprano, alto and tenor and for for the backgrounds I don't do a whole lot of takes. I do about two to five takes for the background vocals and then you know there it is and I'll go through and I'll comp, you know, for the background vocals to get the best takes. And then later on what I'll do is is that I will double each one soprano, alto, tenor. I will double each one to give it the thicker sound. And of course, when it's mixed, you know there'll be pan, won't be pan left, won't be pan right, push further back in the mix, but still there, but not more prominent than the lead vocal. Okay, and then I'll. And then, after that process, I would just copy and paste it. I won't record it all over again, all right, this is the power of you know, using technology. But also, if you are doing a unison line, you can do the same thing. If this you know, you just have unison and just have a strong unison, you can just, you know, record it, comp and then just copy and paste, all right. So this is the way that I do it.
Speaker 1:Also, I'll give you this tip about the lead vocal what you can do for the lead vocal. You record the main vocal, but then either you can record it four more times or you can just double it. You can use the same vocal, but this is what you're going to do with it. So imagine that you have the main vocal in the middle, you have one vocal that's going to be up an octave, another vocal that's going to be down an octave. It's all the same, all the same thing. But just, you have you have five of them, so he's going to do different things and then one, one vocal is going to be paying to the right. One vocal is going to be paying to the left, all right, and that and this gives it a bigger, thicker sounds Another thing that you can do gives it a bigger, thicker sound. It's another thing that you can do, all right. And so these are some of the things that I use to lay down my vocals.
Speaker 1:Now let me give you the other thing Feelings. Now, this is what you can do. If your chorus, if your chorus soprano, alto, tenor, it's just nothing but a unison line, of course have fill-ins, you have another vocal um to add feels around that you can sing certain words you can do runs around it. So just to fill in the spaces, especially if you have a just a unison line for your vocal um, you you should think about adding vocals or adding something around that. You can also use instruments that fill up the spaces as well, but today let's just stick with the vocal idea. You know, to fill in those spaces around that. Now, if your background vocals are in harmony, you can still have some vocal fill-ins around your vocal, around those backgrounds BGVs All right, you still have some fill-ins and a couple of ways you can do it.
Speaker 1:You can again, you cans all right, you still have some fill-ins and a couple of ways you can do it. You can, again, you can just take a lot. You can take a word from a phrase and just you know, and sing that, or you can create harmony on certain words, or you can just have, or you can sing, along with the lead vocal, a whole phrase. You know what I mean. A couple of, a couple of words out of a phrase. You know, um, that maybe after a song you fill in the spaces with some type of runs or some type of words, something like that that you can add. That will add interest around your vocal and and these things are very, very uh, important.
Speaker 1:Now, what you can do now if you are a musician, I'm going back to to the background vocals on now. If you are a musician, I'm going back to the background vocals on the chorus. If you are a musician, then you understand harmony, so you can do your harmonies easily or arrange them easily to know what you want. But if you are not a musician, there are plugins out there that you can use to add harmony. Right now, those, those plugins are escaping me, but there are apps that you can use. That will not automatically, but you had to put the. You know, put the plugin, bring the plugin up and when you sing through it, it adds harmony for you. This is another way that you can add your harmony, um, and and there's. There's another way, but that's escaping me as well. But these are two ways. You can just add it just the regular way, go through, add your harmony. Or you can use a plugin to add your harmony, and there are at least two or three plugins that you can use to do that. Um, you can also use a plugin to add those extra little, uh, vocal things around your verse and around your chorus as well.
Speaker 1:As I say, you do know how to lay down your vocals, but you know you still want to add some other things. Use those plugins to your advantage. You know to add that interest and to keep your listeners on their toes and to make it even more musical. These things are very, very important. Now, make sure, after you lay down all your stuff, that you go back and you comp. You know you comp all your vocals, background vocals, lead vocals, your fill-ins. You comp, pick the right words, pick, pick the right phrases.
Speaker 1:Make sure you pick everything that that you think sounds good and because you want a great recording, because if you give your engineer a great recording nine times out of ten, um, your, your mix is going to come out wonderful. It's going to come out great, all right. So make sure you you pay attention to detail as it pertains to you, know your vocals, your comping and all that. If you don't know what comping means, look it up on YouTube, you know. Um, I can do another episode to go more into depth as to what that is, and I can also do a video on my on my YouTube channel, the Tony King experience, to go into more in depth about that. But make sure you get the best product that you can with your equipment, your computer, your plugins, your, your doll, whatever you're using. Make sure you get the best product, because your engineer is just going to enhance whatever you send him or her.
Speaker 1:All right, uh, before we go, let me go through these links one more time. At the very top, my class, the toolkit for musicianship mastery for all my musicians. All right, my youtube channel, the tony king experience. Go like and subscribe. Learn from Musicianship Mastery for all my musicians. All right, my YouTube channel, the Tony King Experience. Go like and subscribe. Learn something new. You're listening to the podcast, but spread the word about the Teach One Tuesday podcast. My business, rare Keys Production and Music School. We're here to serve you creatives. Reach out to us if you want to learn more about me. There's a link that you can click that you can learn more about me, hear my music and stay tuned, because we have a brand new record coming out Kingdom Radio in June. Alright, I want to thank you so much for listening. I hope you're having a wonderful day and if you're not having a wonderful day, you can change that by your mindset. Thanks so much, tony King. Out now.