Sounds like they are useing voice modeling such as TC Helicon Voice Prizm Plus or Voice one or the plug in version

The vocals you're describing is pretty much Mutt's trademark. I'd love to know what he does with them. Any assistant engineers out there who witnessed Mutt's stuff?

Originally posted by franz130175:
Hi people,
hope this question is not off topic here. In case let me know.

I'm learning to mix trying to mix some Shania Twain like country-pop music and I'm trying to obtain some background vocals like the ones by Robert "Mutt" Lange.
The ones in "Hysteria" by Def Leppard or a song of your choice in Shania's "Up!" european version are good examples.

I managed to get near using:

1) Cut a lot of low frequancy
2) Boosting a lot of 15k
3) Singing every part many times (4 to 8)
4) Carefully pitching
5) Compressing heavily the whole thing

But I think I still miss something. That's why I ask: is Lange using something else, like Vocoders, Harmonizers or other tricky outboard I'm not aware of?

I would be very thankful to know your opinion on how these vocals has been recorded/mixed.

(Dead Link Removed)

Great thread, RecorderMan, thanks.
I couldn't ask more than having Mike Shipley speak about his direct experience.

It's interesting..... before Mike stated how they did those vocals, I would have sworn it was a Dolby A thing! I have and use one for this very reason, and everyone I've turned onto it is thrilled with what it does. Basically, as stated above, you encode on the way in, but do not decode on playback. It leaves these grainy, hi-end artifacts that sound pretty nice, especially stacked up. I know that Humberto Gatica has used them a lot in the past on the Celine thing and such. It's also really nice on certain acoustic guitar parts. They come and go and are not that expensive ($100-$300) Make sure that the unit comes with a CAT-22 card in it. Also, since it was made in either the late '60s or early '70s, make sure that you have a power cord available with it. It's like an old coffee pot AC cord. I think you could still get them from Dolby, but I don't know the process.

I've also heard that doing the same thing with Dolby SR on overheads is mind-blowing!

Originally posted by levihoward:
It's interesting..... before Mike stated how they did those vocals, I would have sworn it was a Dolby A thing! I have and use one for this very reason, and everyone I've turned onto it is thrilled with what it does. Basically, as stated above, you encode on the way in, but do not decode on playback. It leaves these grainy, hi-end artifacts that sound pretty nice, especially stacked up. I know that Humberto Gatica has used them a lot in the past on the Celine thing and such. It's also really nice on certain acoustic guitar parts. They come and go and are not that expensive ($100-$300) Make sure that the unit comes with a CAT-22 card in it. Also, since it was made in either the late '60s or early '70s, make sure that you have a power cord available with it. It's like an old coffee pot AC cord. I think you could still get them from Dolby, but I don't know the process.

I've also heard that doing the same thing with Dolby SR on overheads is mind-blowing!

Too do the dolby cat.22 "thing" ala Humberto, etc. You really should (if your picky...and what's engineering if not picky) have them modded. Where inthe lo and lo mid compression is bypassed. The cards Hum uses (used, etc) are like that. It's a juump of two resistors.