Knowing where to use vocal processing, could make or break your track. We take a look at where you might choose to add some electronic vocal colour
You may well be drawn to reading this feature based on the fact that you make a type of music that will benefit from one of these forms of vocal processing. The undeniable fact is that many of these processed elements have become intrinsically linked with certain styles of music.
While also encouraging creativity, knowing where to use these effects is fairly vital – though rules are there to be broken!
We are the robots
We all love vocoders! What’s not to like about changing the nature of your voice so that it sounds like some form of futuristic robot? The problem here is that the sound has become heavily linked with exactly that; anyone familiar with Battlestar Galactica will know the sound of the Cylons, and that isn’t doing vocoders any favours, musically speaking! German synth pioneers Kraftwerk have much to answer for, too; their track The Robots made extensive use of the vocoder for the song’s lead vocal.
In defence of the vocoder, the technology was also embraced by funk pioneers, with Herbie Hancock using one to disguise his own singing voice. But thanks to the vocoder’s closeness to the sound of a talkbox, they are back in fashion within certain segments of pop and R&B.
The big question is, do you use the vocoder to act as your lead line vocal, or do you employ it as a means of creating interesting countermelodies, or for supplying backing vocals? This latter idea is perfect for dipping your toe in the vocoder pool. It won’t be overpowering, and you can use an existing lead line vocal to act as the modulating signal, from within your DAW. In our example (below left), you can see where we have laced our backing vocal, using a vocoder plugin every other bar.
Clear, concise and overpronounced!
The benefits of using a lead vocal part, to act as the modulating element for your vocoder, does make life a little bit easier. It means that you do not have to create a second vocal pass, but it does mean that you are completely reliant on the quality of your lead vocal part. Why is this a problem? Many lead vocals may be incredibly lyrical, melodic and highly musical, particularly within certain styles such as R&B. This might sound fantastic in isolation, but for the purposes of vocoding, it might not be the best ploy.
Anyone familiar with Battlestar Galactica will know the sound of the Cylons, and that isn’t doing vocoders any favours
Vocoders generally react quite well to signals that have heavy transients, or to put it another way, tracks that are over-enunciated or overpr
