Every step of the songwriting process counts. Certainly, having the lyrics in place and having the orchestration be well thought-out counts. But what really carries a song are the vocals. Are you sure that you’ve put a lot of thought into how exactly you’ll record the vocals to your DAW? For instance, the difference between a vocal that seems to get lost in the mix and one that seems full-bodied, can come down to how many layers of vocals you record. A layered vocal with more than one recording one of top of the other, can make the voice track seem full and lively. It’s just a little part of the art of music mixing that gets forgotten sometimes.
What does it mean to layer a vocal? Does it mean that you need to copy and paste the same vocal recording twice, one of top of the other? Not quite. You need the thickening effect that two separate vocal recordings can bring. It’s kind of like doing a chorus by yourself. The best way to layer your vocal is to bring in the least amount of music mixing effects possible. That means that you are to record and layer all you vocals dry with no effects. You will probably want to monitor your recording over monitor speakers first. Headphones tend to separate the left and the right ears unnaturally. Watch Grimm Season 1 Episode 5 Speakers on the other hand will blend the layers in and make them sound the way they really are. What you are listening for is to see if both layers come together with no interference. If there were two singers singing together to put down the vocal, they wouldn’t be singing one after the other, now would they? You want to make sure that both vocals when you layer them, come together so that the words start and stop at the same time. The best way to make this happen is usually to sing the second layer, while listening to the first playing over your headphones. That way, the sync should be pretty near perfect.
Ad-libs happen to be the very life of of any vocal recording. Not every inflection can be thought out beforehand and sung in a planned way. When the singer actually lays down a vocal with the music playing and with his spirit soaring, that’s when off-the-cuff flourishes just occur. Now there are music mixing techniques that make these flourishes really stand out and become expressive.
