Recently I was reading an interview with a mix engineer that disliked auto-tune on lead vocals, but would often use it in parallel as a doubler along with a stereo flanger or chorus. REAPER includes a realtime pitch correction plugin called ReaTune, and it works pretty well for this trick.
I used this trick on a recent mix where the chorus vocal needed a more ‘pop’ smoothness. ReaTune on automatic correction, plus Stillwell’s Oligarc Chorus to make it stereo. Blend a few dB lower than the lead to add thickness and width.
Samples
I bet you want to know how this sounds. Here are some example clips from that mix to demonstrate the technique.
Main vocal soloed
Doubler soloed
Vocal + Doubler soloed
Full mix without doubler
Full mix with doubler
Setup
- Insert new track after your main vocal, name this track “doubler”.
- Send post-fader from main vocal to doubler track.
- Insert ReaTune on doubler track. Activate Automatic Correction with a fast attack time of 50ms.
- Insert a stereo chorus or flanger.
- Adjust the chorus/flanger for a wide stereo spread with no dry signal.
- Adjust doubler track level to taste.
Comments
9 responses to “Vocal doubling trick with ReaTune”
Hi Jon, sounds insteresting. Although I’m not sure if I like the doubled vocals better in the mix than the solo vocals. In some situations this might however be great (for my taste even 😉 ).
Would be good to be able to listen to the solo track with the same chorus or flanger as used on the double, but without the double. I’m curious, how just adding chorus/flanger to the original vocals would come out (in the mix). Take care. 😉
The chorus alone didn’t really do it for me, it wasn’t different enough from the lead. Reatune adds some randomness.
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Very nice effect. I’ve been wanting to spend some time with the Reaper plugins and this is a great first introduction. I have to say I’ve not really dug into any of them, still sticking with the other lot of plugins I’ve been using.
the mix with the doubler definetly sounds better, but i think the “S” suffers from the phasing, resulting in a lack of clarity. maybe adding a de-esser to the doubler track fx chain would resolve this issue? (i’d try it myself but i don’t have access to solo vocal recordings let alone multitracks of rock songs)
Is the Oligarc Chorus the same as the Stillwell chorus_stereo that Reaper includes?
Updated Oligarc Chorus link:
http://www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/oligarc/
I don’t believe it is.
You can also use a free plugin like ADT (automated double tracking)! It gives more of a “Beatles” vocal sound, so it’s not exactly the same, but it might come in useful in the process of thickening
Sorry, it’s actually artificial double tracking. And the plugin is made by vacuumsound.