getting lush vox

[sammyg]

Hey all,

There's a question regarding vox that I've had for a while. I remember the first time i listened
to Def Leppard's Hysteria, particulary the song "animal". I remember thinking "wow, these vox(in the chorus) are lush", almost with a great sense of airyness to them, they almost sound synthy in a way. Anyone know how this was achieved, or "is" achieved. I heard they tracked a whole bunch of "whisper" vox as well as full voice vox. Well, dont know if thats true or not!
(also, i understand that there would have been a $*^t load of processing once the vox were done, but besides that!)

Cheers,

Sammyg

 

[Davedog]

Well, it was Mutt....so anything and everything is possible. My rumour-mill addition to this is, I have read that tracking this record took over a year and Mutt would bring them in to do one note in a passage and it would take as long as it possibly could! This could be why there are NO notes out of place on this and actually all the Def Leppards recordings.

 

[coysoundnyc]

honestly I don't know the track and it's impossible for anyone to tell what was used but for the way you describe it reminds me of a dolby type A (not expensive but not easy to find either) you encode in the way in and do not decode on the way out and than you blend it with the original track.

 

[sammyg]

davedog,

yeah Mutt is the answer!

 

[coysoundnyc]

came on guys give the kid a chance. I'll go buy the record today and I am sure that kind of production cannot be imitated in a project studio by an average engineer (no offense) but he can still get some lush vocals can't he?

 

[ckevperry]

You have to lay down a LOT of bgv tracks. As many as 10 per part per side(stereo)...sung TIGHT in sync with every other part.

 

[UncleBob58]

Leaving the processing issues aside, you need GREAT vocalists who have rock steady timing and perfect pitch. No amount of FX will make a crappy performance sound good.

:

 

[sammyg]

Thanks guys for your help,

hey uncle Bob,

in regards to "no amount of fx can make a crappy performance sound good", maybe we should push software developers to make a talent plug in!

sammyg

 

[Doc@BeefyTreats.com]

Some of us believe Autotune is the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. David

 

[ships]

Hello........well to get the vocals on Animal and other songs
we tracked each harmony about 20 times.the bounced them down to a stereo pair.eq'in along the way....then continued with each harmony,.....usually a 3 part......but we would rebounce the stero pairs to get rid of the bottom end and honk build up......but we would make sure that the intonation was great on each pass..this kind of sound can really only be gotten by having just 2 people sing all the harmonies......some times we would to 20 tracks of one harmony.bounce them down to 1 track..do 20 tracks.....bounce down to 1 track to get the stereo pair...actually now i remember .this was mostly the case....there was a lot of re-bouncing to get the sound we wanted .eq'ing each time..but you cant get tat kind of sound on digital.it just doesnt work
Peace shipley

 

[ships]

BTW.I forgot to add that Mutt would kind of exagerate the enunciation of the words.in an almost animated way...so as to get real character into the parts.and after alot of tracking.......it would sound very different than just singing the part and moving on...you should have seen some of the faces they would make to get certain words to sound a different way!!!!!!.I gotta say tho.that it was a lot of fun to do....
Peace.shipley

 

[RecorderMan]

Very cool of you to give us an answer straight from the horses mouth (so to speak).

Thanks Mike.

 

[Peter Lancaster]

I almost fell off my chair when I saw Mike Shipley's post.

I moved to Sheffield in 1981 aged 13 and became a big fan of local band Def Leppard. I had the honour of being at the front when they played at Sheffield City Hall on the first Hysteria tour. It was the first time they'd played live in Sheffield since Rick Allen's accident. It was a very, very special occasion. I even managed to get one of Rick Savage's plectrums.

Thanks for your post Mike. I always thought it sounded like the lads put a lot of effort into their recordings. You've confirmed that.

Pete.

 

[Hack]

I have read Walter Afanasieff's method for bgvs. He would have say 4 singers around a mic. Then do passes with all 4 singing the same part, stack that a few times, and repeat this for all the parts. He says this gets different tones out of each singer cause they are in and out of natural and falseto voices to be able to sing each others parts. He quotes the end title song to the movie Hurricane as an example. He says its 4 singers doing all the parts. Its worth checking out, there really is something to this method.

 

[nugget]

Apparently those big ABBA harmony vox were tracked at different speeds. i.e one pass at A=440 , one pass maybe a quater tone up etc.
something that may be a bit difficult these digital days. :

 

[sammyg]

Hey all,

Thanks for all the help. I've been a fan of that record and its production my whole life so this has helped a lot!

Mike:

Mate, thanks a lot, sounds like a lot of hard work was done, paid off I guess!

HACK: that sound cool, I'll try it!

Peter Lancaster:

Mate....I have footage of that gig! unfortunately I never had the chance to see def leppard in concert, Australia only gets a bunch of decent bands touring once every F*&kn blue moon. It sucks. States and Europe are lucky.

thanks again all,

cheers,

sammyg

 

[Davedog]

Great deal having you in to answer this Mike...Its great when true pros stop in to our modest little site. You do really good work Ships...always one of my personal favorites.and working with Mutt has to truly be an incredible experience. Thanx again for showing up and you're welcome any time!

 

[ships]

Firstly.......thanks for the welcome.I will stop by here often.it's great to have found this board and I look forward to giving my 2 cents worth .....and learning from people here also......btw.SammyG.....I am also from Melbourne.where do you live in melbourne?
I left and went to England straight after high school.....though I do go back often to see my family
Yes working with Mutt Lange for the past 28 years has been truly amazing....he always wants his records to have a unique sound and achieving that has been an interesting journey......we've had to come up with techniques that were not tried before.....we certainly were not purists .....he would give me so much time to experiment..to create a different sound......any way..thanks again for the welcome
Mike Shipley

 

[RecorderMan]

Originally posted by ships:
Firstly.......thanks for the welcome.I will stop by here often.it's great to have found this board and I look forward to giving my 2 cents worth .....and learning from people here also......btw.SammyG.....I am also from Melbourne.where do you live in melbourne?
I left and went to England straight after high school.....though I do go back often to see my family
Yes working with Mutt Lange for the past 28 years has been truly amazing....he always wants his records to have a unique sound and achieving that has been an interesting journey......we've had to come up with techniques that were not tried before.....we certainly were not purists .....he would give me so much time to experiment..to create a different sound......any way..thanks again for the welcome
Mike Shipley

That is awesome Mike.
Your defintely in the Top of the tops.

 

[sammyg]

Happy new year all,

drink up!

cheers,

sammyg