{"id":11175,"date":"2013-07-19T00:04:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T04:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/?p=11175"},"modified":"2013-07-19T00:04:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T04:04:22","slug":"recreating-portal-2s-want-you-gone-with-music-creator-6-touch-part-2-vocal-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/2013\/07\/19\/recreating-portal-2s-want-you-gone-with-music-creator-6-touch-part-2-vocal-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"RECREATING PORTAL 2\u2032S \u201cWANT YOU GONE\u201d WITH MUSIC CREATOR 6 TOUCH [PART 2: VOCAL TIPS]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Recently, Cakewalk worked with the great folks over at\u00a0Valve<\/a>\u00a0to make our\u00a0Music Creator 6 Touch<\/a>\u00a0software available to their community, and the onslaught of new \u201cmusic creators\u201d has been nothing short of amazing and inspiring.\u00a0 To kick off our promotion, we thought it would be a fun experience to recreate Jonathan Coulton\u2019s cult classic \u201cWant You Gone\u201d from Portal 2 all in Music Creator 6 Touch (MC6t) \u2013 but the kicker is that we had 24 hours to do it in order to make the deadline for launch.\u00a0 In this case, not only was collaboration creatively beneficial, but it was also essential.<\/p>\n

Getting the bed-tracks together was the first step, and you can read our previous blog<\/a> here on how this all came together.\u00a0 Cakewalk\u2019s Bill Jackson and Seth Kellogg spent time programming some great drum tracks, keyboards and guitars, and then I was able to easily embellish and add to the programming with loops, sounds and mixing.\u00a0 After the drums, bass, keys and guitars were in a good spot, it was time to figure out how we were going to capture the focal point of the song: THE VOCALS.\"\"<\/p>\n

I had just finished a record with a great singer by the name of Jodi Good<\/a> so she was my first logical phone call.\u00a0\u00a0 As timing and luck would have it, she had just finished her video shoot for her first single (Definitely Different) in NYC and she had a 2 hour window to help pitch in.\u00a0 There were two hurdles: 1.) she could not make it out to my studio, and 2.) I had to get clearance for name, likeness and sound from her and her legal team for usage – not a problem \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"Luckily for me, I have a trusty Roland Quad-capture<\/a> along with my iron-horse HP Elitebook<\/a> running an Intel Core i7, so I literally jumped a train across town to Ultrasound \u201crehearsal studios\u201d where Jodi does a lot of her practicing for live shows.\u00a0 I\u2019ve recorded A LOT of vocals in my day (I sound like an old man) and I love a challenge \u2013 and a challenge it was.\u00a0 I had been to this place a long time ago, and it\u2019s a great rehearsal spot, but recording vocals on a pretty soft electronic track\u2026 not so much. \u00a0I was glad I was at least working with a great vocalist, and glad that the Quad-capture has a built in ground switch on the back!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After walking around the room (actual room on left) and finding a good spot to have her sing, the first thing I did was engage the filter switch on my Audio Technica 4033a<\/a>.\u00a0 This helped to cut the low end off from the rumblings of the other bands practicing in other rooms.\u00a0 I normally don\u2019t use any filters when cutting vocals, I like to get that all sorted when mixing, but in this case it was necessary.<\/p>\n

[MC6t recording tip \u2013 Microphones: If you get into recording vocals \"\"with MC6, there are many affordable options available now.\u00a0 I suggest looking into condenser microphones.\u00a0 They will capture a lot more fidelity on the high end (treble) spectrum of vocals.\u00a0 It\u2019s always good to capture as full of a sound as possible because you can always pull back frequencies when mixing \u2013 it does not work like that the other way around.\u00a0 If you use a low-grade microphone and you boost frequencies when mixing that were captured on that microphone, you may be adding noise that will not help your final product.\u00a0 You have to be a lot more careful mixing when you use low-quality microphones, so I suggest researching and spending a few dollars on a condenser (even a cheap one.)]<\/p>\n

Tracking the vocals was interesting because we had the hurdles of time and location.\u00a0 I always use take lanes when tracking vocals, and this day was no different.\u00a0 However instead of working from 5 or 6 \u201ctakes,\u201d I kept it to 3 since we were on time constraints.\u00a0 This enabled me to go back to my studio and \u201ccompile\u201d a consistent lead vocal track out of the 3 takes on the take-lanes and also a \u201cvocal double.\u201d<\/p>\n

I also usually split up the songs when tracking and sometimes even work backwards.\u00a0 It all depends on the song, but a lot of the times the last chorus needs to be strong, and by the time you get there the singer is out of gas.\u00a0 To compensate for this, I actually track the last verse first to get the singer warmed up, and then I track the last chorus.\u00a0 This way the end of the song has the strongest performance (or at least that is the theory,) but you can always easily move clips around in MC6t and arrange the performances however you want in the song.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>[MC6t recording tip – Use take-lanes to get a better vocal performance (or any other instrument performance for that matter):\u00a0 By capturing multiple performances on different take lanes (click left for larger image), you can combine the best parts into one performance \u2013 this is known in the production world as \u201ccomping.\u201d After you record the performances in different take lanes, simply go back through and audition the phrases one at a time by using the solo and mute buttons in each take-lane.\u00a0 When you hear what you like, hold down SHIFT key (keeps it from moving horizontally) and highlight it with the Smart Tool selector and then drag it to a new track \u2013 your \u201cLead Vocal Comp.\u201d\u00a0 Once you have all the pieces on one track, solo it and listen to see if and where you need to add fades; this will make the track sound more natural with the singers breathes and such.\u00a0 Once a complete track is compiled, you can highlight all the clips and right-click to select \u201cBounce to Clip(s)\u201d in order to get one file (if needed).\u00a0 Another trick before bouncing-to-clips, especially if you have to send the track to someone for further editing, is to take the clip farthest to the left and drag it\u2019s edge to the \u201cZero\u201d spot on the timeline. \u00a0This ensures that all the vocals will line up when imported into someone else\u2019s system that has the same project file.]<\/p>\n

After getting 3 great takes completed for the length of the song, we literally had 15 minutes to cut any background vocals.\u00a0 I had previously imported the original song into the sequence, so I was able to quickly get my head around what harmonies we needed.\u00a0 We rapidly got a take and a double of each part in 15 minutes and I can\u2019t tell you how grateful I was at that moment that I was working with such an accomplished singer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>[MC6t recording tip \u2013 Recording backing vocals: If you have never tried adding backing vocals to a project there are a few things to keep in mind along with a few easy tricks.\u00a0 Backing vocals are meant to blend in with the other tracks, but making them sound different from the source lead vocals can be important as well.\u00a0 One thing I do if I am in limited space with limited gear is to simply track the backing vocals in another area of the room.\u00a0 I also move the singer off axis a bit from the mic and readjust my preamp.\u00a0 These two simple ideas can really get a backing vocal to work well in a mix. \u00a0\u00a0One other common technique is to double (or triple) all the backing vocals.\u00a0 Even if you think you don\u2019t need them, it\u2019s better to have more to work with.\u00a0 Sometimes I will have a stereo background vocal panned left and right (right image), but have one side very low for ambiance \u2013 which I will get into on the next part of this blog series \u2013 mixing.\u00a0 One last thing to think about is how to get the singer to \u201clock-in\u201d with the lead vocal.\u00a0 This one is tricky sometimes and you have to experiment.\u00a0 With Jodi<\/a>, I literally have just the drums and her lead vocal on playback with no other instruments.\u00a0 I have found this trick to be a life-saver on many occasions.\u00a0 Another trick is to have the singer take one side of the headphones off.\u00a0 Basically, experiment with anything that makes sense to make the lead singer feel comfortable and sing on point with the lead track \u2013 the goal is to have the vocals match up as much as possible when tracking so that you don\u2019t have to spend a lot of time editing percussive sounds such as \u201cT\u2019s\u201d and \u201cP\u2019s.\u201d]<\/p>\n

I got back onto a train and within a \u00bd hour I was in my studio putting together the lead vocal comp and the lead vocal double (I will explain this in the next \u201cpart 3 \u2013 mixing\u201d), along with the background vocals.\u00a0 Once I got the best parts and phrases of all the takes compiled into one track, I then bounced down to a single and complete .wav file.\u00a0 I then sent the lead vocal comp over to Bill Jackson who went to work robotizing Jodi in Melodyne.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bill Jackson – Cakewalk: \u201cSo, it’s a pretty simple trick in Melodyne. \u00a0Jimmy sent me the raw vocal track as a .wav. \u00a0 I opened that file in Melodyne Editor and typed CTRL+A to select all. \u00a0I grabbed the “Pitch Modulation Tool,” which is primarily used to manipulate vibrato. \u00a0I double-clicked the selection to eliminate all vibrato, creating flat lines. \u00a0This resulted in sudden robot voice. \u00a0Then, I carefully listened through and adjusted especially unnatural sounding words and phrases by selecting them explicitly and using the pitch modulation tool to click and drag up, introducing a subtle amount of vibrato back in.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Once Bill finished his work on manipulating the vocal track, I simply dragged his rendition into MC6t from my desktop.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great feature in MC6t that you can drag any audio tracks into a project and it will automatically create a new track for you \u2013 easy.\u00a0 Now that I had all the vocals completed the next logical step was for me to jump on a plane and mix this over the United States\u2026 \ud83d\ude09 \u00a0stay tuned for \u201cPart 3 \u2013 Mixing on the Fly – Literally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Music Creator 6 Touch is on sale now<\/a><\/p>\n

Download Music Creator 6 Touch on Steam<\/a><\/p>\n