double-tracking vocals?

is double-tracking vocals (without changing the pitch of the second voice i.e. no harmonising) a worthwhile practice or are you just opening yourself to phasing problems and consonant cluttering? Sometimes I wonder if a soft singing voice can be enriched this way, but I'm never sure if it's a good idea or not.

Would it not be easy enough to record a second vocal track and then not use it if you didn't like the results? I find it works for some of my songs but not others, it's always just been a case of experimenting.

It's worthwhile - though it can take some practise if you do it manually, you have to sing both tracks almost exactly the same if you don't want it to be obvious you're double-tracking a single voice/pitch. Or you can use automatic double tracking which probably works better than it did when it was first developed decades ago.

Well it's more that my co-singer has quite a soft voice and sometimes it's a bit wispy, so it's tempting to beef it up with a second track.

I'll take double-tracking over Auto-Tune anyday.

You get phasing problems only if you're super-accurate at duplicating your vocal line phrasing.

so how do you sound the same but not exactly the same? Might it be better if two people sing the same lines rather than the same person?

That can work too - I've even had fourpeople sing the same note, but usually it's almost impossible to replicate your vocal perforance so closely a second time that the phasing cancels the two vocal tracks out and you hear momentary silence.

Supposedly, Paul McCartney was so exacting in his vocal takes circa 1964-66 that the vocal parts sometimes cancelled each other out, particularly on the mono versions. I've listened closely for that and haven't noticed it myself though. Contrast that to '60s Beach Boys recordings where the double-tracking is often incredibly sloppy, with vocals coming in or dropping out at two different places, or getting the lyrics slightly different on the two overlapped takes. Post-'60s recordings seem to rely much more on ADT rather than manual double-tracking, but I still like the old way better.

what do you mean by "cancelled each other out" ?
I always double-track. il ike the effect as it makes the vocals more powerful and I also like the fact that sometimes you can hear the 2 different tracks... I've always had a DIY/sloppy approach to music !

I've found in the past that if I try double tracking my vox by singing the same thing twice it can create a phasing effect on some phrases and so I've since gone down the route of trying to work out harmonies that'll complement each other. This is quite a process however and I don't always want a harmonic effect.

It's kind of like why they say not to position your speakers exactly halfway between the floor and the ceiling - the sound waves bounce off the two surfaces and cancel each other out when they meet again in the middle because they're 180 degrees out of phase or something.

Always double track, but ride the fader on the second track so it's never fully audible, it's just there to sharpen consonants

yeah, the 2nd track is always like a backing track.
regarding the beatles, it's funny how their double-tracking was VERY sloppy sometimes (same exemples as for the beach boys : different lyrics, out of synch...).
I mean, they were the biggest band on the planet with the most time and money to record... and still they left these "mistakes".
I love that !

Paul was exacting, John was sloppy and despised having to sing everything twice (which was why he successfully cajoled Ken Townsend at Abbey Road to invent ADT).

is double tracking still big (via ADT or not) ?
do big pop hits all use it ?

I suppose in hip hop, there's no no double tracking, for instance.

xp - It's one in a large bag of tricks of modern electronic vocal enhancements, but not sure how often it's used. Manual double-tracking seems to have become rare, except for singers/bands angling for a retro sound.

It is my experience that 99% of the vocal music you hear in the pop/rock/R&B/hip-hop/country realm has double tracking on it.

yeah, it seems that when I listen to a big RnB or pop hit, I don't hear the 2 voices like in the old days...
but I suppose they still record many takes to be able to take the best parts and work on them with the electronic programs.
like, I don't think singers make one take and then leave the studia, sinatra style, nowadays !

xpost

really ? but a kind of double tracking in which you don't hear the 2 tracks, then.

*manual* double tracking (overdubing a second nearly-identical vocal track) seems rare to me in modern recordings

ADT very common, but with all the autotuning and effect common nowadays it's harder for me to pick out where ADT is used

I would bet large sums of money that the chorus to every big radio hit you've heard has a double-tracked chorus

hum. now that you say it, it's true that there might be several vocal tracks (not talking about the harmonies) on those choruses.
it simply doesn't sound like the old manual double tracking.

it couldn't be easier these days, you just copy & paste the vocal onto another track and nudge the placement and panning so it sounds thicker. repeat as necessary.

i feel like that's a different effect than double-tracking though, that's more like a controlled echo/delay. double-tracking depends on the subtle differences in the takes.

i mean technically it's "double-tracking" but it's going to sound different than actually recording multiple takes

you're totally right, but it does happen a lot. i feel like i don't hear that much manual double-tracking in big pop songs these days, but i do still hear it a lot in rap?

Every single pop song you've ever heard is cleverly double-tracked, and manually

really ? rappers double track ? it seems very weird to me (I don't know why though !).
as for the concept of double tracking, I don't know how ADT works but to me, the point of double tracking is to have two different takes with subtle differences, as said upthread, not to use the same take with some delay or else.

double-tracking is used all over the place in hip-hop

I don't know why but I feel it must be VERY difficult to make the same take several times with rap.
maybe cos I can't rap !

in rap the double-tracked vocals often come in and out for emphasis, like on the ends of the phrases.

think of those big eminem records, his whole is based on lots of multi-tracking.

Can I be a total idiot and ask how adt works?

it sounds like exactly what i was talking about above (i.e. the exact same performance with a slight delay), except using a tape machine instead of a computer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_double_tracking

I double track a lot, cos I also like layering a lot of vocal harmonies. I find I have no trouble re-singing the same line with the same pacing/melody, as long as I've not been drinking haha.

I love to double track vocals, it gives things an edge. I did a recording for this metal band a couple months back and I ended up double tracking the screamy vocals and thought it sounded pretty cool and made it a bit crazier sounding.

i like it a lot under certain circumstances but i get a bit narky at vocalists who do it out of habit. it often sounds completely daft on more stripped back songs

Yeah in a case like that I could see it seeming a bit much.