VOCAL PRODUCTION; DEFINED
The presentation of your vocals in your songs becomes part of “your sound”. It’s like your artistic signature. Considering this is one of the most important parts of your music production, do you know how to communicate what you want your “signature sound” to be to your producer and engineers? Have you given any thought to what you would want your signature sound to be?
Don’t worry if the answer is “no”. And don’t worry if any mixing talk like “EQ and compression” makes your eyes roll back into your head. This is not at all going to be a super techy mixing discussion. We’re going to do some listening to songs by other artists who, with their production team, have made choices about the presentation of their vocals and discuss it in a non-technical way. Then I will challenge you to find another song with this particular feature.
Sounds fun, right?!
We're going to go on a VOCAL PRODUCTION SCAVENGER HUNT!
Be sure to comment what you find!
There’s actually so much to cover that we are going to break this Vocal Production Series into 3 parts.
Defining Vocal Production and the Related Terms
Backing Vocals Deep Dive
Where the Rubber Meets the Road (Prep, Pre Production and Recording)
SECTION 1: DEFINING VOCAL PRODUCTION AND THE RELATED TERMS
I’m not going to give you some engineering textbook definition. I’m making up my own definition that I think non-techy, artistic people will really understand. How’s this;
Vocal Production is approaching the recording, arranging and processing of recorded vocals in a way that is unique for a particular artist and/or a particular song.
First of all, there are some basic “processing” words we’ll be throwing around that you’ll need to understand. If you haven’t heard all of these terms before, don’t worry...you will. Be sure to bookmark this blog so you can come back to it if you forget what something means.
Comping - short for “compiling” the best vocal takes at a recording session.
There’s no sample to listen to for this because it’s something that happens in the post production process for pretty much every recording made on the planet (not just vocals but all instrumentalists are usually “comped”). I could refer you to some recordings of comping that wasn’t done very well where you can hear the edit spots...but I won’t ;-)
EQ - we are not going to get technical here but this is short for “equalizer” or “equalization”. The simplest way of understanding this is, think of the treble-mid-bass knobs on your car stereo. A mixing engineer has access to the complete frequency range of your voice and every other instrument in the song and can boost, cut and shape the frequencies in whatever way you want.
I’ll give you a couple of examples of more “obvious” use of EQ, though this is just “extreme” use of EQ. Every instrument in your song has a frequency spectrum and the mix engineer/producer will most likely be applying some amount of EQ (boosting, cutting, etc.) to everything in your song, from the snare drum, the synthesizer to your vocals.
I couldn’t think of a more recent song with this effect because I think it’s a little out of style at the moment ;-) But her speaking stuff in the intro sounds like it’s through a megaphone or telephone by cutting the low to mid frequencies in her voice.
This next example of a Halsey song, you’ll hear during the intro and throughout the song there is what sounds like an altered Halsey vocal that sounds muffled. That effect is accomplished by cutting a lot of the high frequencies out of her voice.
What can you find that you think might be an extreme use of EQ?
Compression - Compression is a tool that, in its simplest terms, makes the louds softer and the softs louder, essentially evening out the sound. We can compress aggressively or gently or do something in between, all with very different results.
It can take time to really hear compression but once you hear it, you will hear it everywhere. A perfect example of a lead vocal with pretty intense compression on it is Billie Eilish “Bad Guy”. You could pull up almost any of her songs and hear this same effect. That is on purpose. It’s her “signature sound”. Notice how you can hear her breaths just as clearly as her barely-uttered singing.
I won’t send you out to find a compressed vocal because in todays music, every vocal has some amount of compression.
Time-align - Even the best singers may have accidentally come in a hair late on their best take. Sometimes, we don’t catch these things in tracking. Sometimes we do but it’s so easy to fix that we’ll say “I’ll fix it in the mix” haha. We can grab a syllable and tweak it to line it up to the exact spot we want it.
Again, this is a post-mix processing that you won’t hear unless it’s not done well, so no examples. However, take a listen to the perfection of the syllables on the Billie Eilish song above. Do you think she sang every syllable perfectly in time or do you think there may have been a syllable here or there that needed to be moved in order to line up perfectly? We may never know...
Tuning - I hate to break everyone’s heart but pretty much evvvvery artist you are listening to these days has some amount of tuning on their voice. If not their lead vocals, certainly the backing vocals. Our ears have become accustomed to hearing tuning so much that it actually has become an effect in and of itself (in my opinion). I’ve noticed that the general online audience has made it their mission to call out any sort of tuning they “think” they hear which has made artists afraid of it...until they learn that it is part of creating a polished, modern sounding vocal. It will not make a bad singer sound like a good singer. But not using it will give the vocal production a more “loose” sound, no matter how good of a singer you are. Part of your “sound” is going to be how hard or relaxed that tuning “dial” is on.
Here’s an example of loose tuning which you better believe is on purpose:
Artists such as Post Malone, Halsey and many others have super tight tuning as part of their signature sound. Does that mean they can’t sing? Not necessarily. This is just the sound they wanted to go for.
Now go find one of your favorite artists and see if you can hear whether or not the tuning is “loose” or “tight”.
Reverb - short for “reverberation”. This is essentially “echoes” but happening so fast that it creates more of a blanket of sound than a Grand Canyon type of echo (that’s called delay - see below). It’s like when you walk into the bathroom and there’s a “crazy cool echo” that makes you want to sing (singers love reverb). Reverb gives the vocal a sense of space. There are a gazillion different types of reverb and ways to tweak it and modify it. How much reverb is usually discussed in terms of how “wet” or how “dry” the vocal is which basically means how much reverb are we allowing into the signal. The more reverb in the vocal signal (the wetter the vocal), the farther away it sounds. The less reverb (the drier), the more up close and intimate it sounds.
Here’s an example of a very “dry” vocal but then notice at 1:38 how you can hear the reverb softly and subtly come in and then disappear again? So cool! It gives the sensation of his vocal floating away.
Jeremy is pretty much always presenting his vocals as dry. Up close and personal in order to get a very intimate sound.
Ok, this is a great example of an extreme use of EQ and something called a reverb throw (or just “throw”). Listen to the hook at 1:25.
Ok, one more. Reverb is just so much fun and such a HUGE part of establishing “your” sound. The band LANY has a very signature sound. Part of that is because of the fact that they often have a double lead vocal (we are going to go over this in Section 2; Backing Vocals Deep Dive). But notice that their vocals are pretty wet.
Your turn! Find a song that is super dry, super wet OR that has dramatic changes from wet to dry using reverb. Bonus if you find a verb throw!
Delay - Echoes that have a bit more space in between each repeat. Delays can still be really quick but also really slow. We’ll find a couple of different types in our hunt.
Here’s an example of a really fast delay, called a “slap back” delay. It’s actually more commonly heard in a country song but a lot of artists experiment with using it sparingly.
Here’s an example of a delay on the lead vocal that is more spaced out in beat with the music.
One more slap back delay example, so you can hear a more subtle use of it on the lead vocal (in combination with what sounds like a double lead vocal).
Go find a song that has some kind of delay and share it in the comments!
Distortion - Ooo I love this one because most people don’t hear it unless it’s a sound you are familiar with. It can bring an edge to a vocal that might be too delicate or….boring. Distortion sounds like when you play your music too loud through that beat up little speaker and it makes all that crackling noise. Why would we ever want to hear that sound on a lead vocal?? Haha, well, when done right it can be super magical.
Here’s an example of distortion happening on the lead vocal throughout the verses, even the harmony that comes in verse two. It sounds like there’s still some amount of distortion happening in the chorus, too. I imagine they were going for layers of grit because all of the sounds in the song have static or distortion in it. Isn’t that crazy that it’s so subtle that you don’t really notice it?
Here’s another example of distortion in the lead vocal during the verses, adding to that retro sound.
Here’s an example of distortion just on the chorus gang vocals (we’ll talk about gang vocals in Section 3) which you can hear most clearly at 2:38 when the rest of the music stops and all you can hear is the vocals. Also, notice the slap back delay on the lead?
See if you can find a vocal with some distortion on it! It’s not always throughout the whole song or even an entire section. It could be just a phrase. But it’s everywhere!
Modulation/Chorus - This one is very subtle too, but can give your vocal a sparkle and a fullness. The modulator splits your vocal into micro-notes, giving it a shimmer.
Here’s an example of it on pretty heavily:
In this Tori Kelly song, you can really hear the sparkle of this micro shifting effect. Did you notice the altered echoes? (see next one!)
This modulation effect might be hard to hear for a while until you can hear it added to your own vocal. And just like reverb, it can be very subtle with just a hint or added in heavy. I chose these examples with it on pretty heavily so that you’d be sure to hear it. Post examples of songs where you think you hear it!
Altered - You’ve all heard it. Artists have gone from using it sparingly to altering the entire lead vocal through the whole song. A common use is by adding an octave drop to the lead vocal or creating harmonies or counter melodies.
Here’s an example of an octave drop coming in at about :29 and then goes on through the chorus.
Here’s one of my favorite examples of an altered vocal because the pitch doesn’t change but the formant drops, which makes it sound as if the pitch is dropping…but it’s not. Starting at about :18 until :25 ish. Such a COOL effect!
Another great example of a unique use of an altered vocal is in this Twenty One Pilots song. In the chorus there is an octave drop as well as a pitched lead vocal droning the tonic an octave up to act as a harmony. Then that tonic drone continues through the verses. Imagine how different this harmony would have sounded had he just sung that note. It would have had a much different feel to it. Such a cool sound!
One more! This Tate McRae song has harmony throughout that could have been created by altering the lead vocal but also could have been a vocoder that we’ll discuss next (or a combination of both?). Hear that delay on occasional end notes? Hear the octave drop in the bridge? Hear the distorted EQ’d vocal echo toward the end? Wow, so much going on!
Now it’s your turn! Share a song with me that has an altered vocal somewhere.
Vocoder - It was cool in the 90’s and it’s become cool again! I credit Imogen Heap (my idol) for bringing it back with this very popular song from 2008 (later sampled in a Jason Derulo song):
The vocoder is sometimes called a harmonizer because that’s what it does. You input chord data into it and then it will split the vocals into the harmonies dictated by that chord. I’ll show you a couple of examples of a vocoder hardware version and then an example of it being used in a much more “delicate” (haha) way in today's music. Then you get to find one and share it with me!
Here’s an example of the old school vocoder in one of the songs by one of my absolutely favorite bands Blackstreet (of “No Diggidy” fame)
Here’s an example of Bruno Mars going for the entire 90’s sound all around, including the vocoder:
Here’s an example of T. Swift making use of a modern vocoder sound.
Did you notice the “delicate” altered echo at 1:11?
Vocoder is sometimes hidden and not as obvious. Can you find an example of a vocoder being used?
Be sure to check out Section 2 of this Vocal Production Series; “Where the Rubber Meets the Road (Prep, Pre Production and Recording)” which will cover techniques and strategies while recording to help create your signature sound.
