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Does any one know what kind of effects they use for the backup vocals in songs such as Photograph by Def Leppard or any of those 80's songs?

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moonbaby Thu, 03/24/2005 - 10:53

Mutt Lange was a BIG vocals type of producer! He was
reported to use several pieces of DSP that are relatively
unknown in the States.
One was the AMS RMX and DMX boxes, which were kind of
like the Eventides of Europe. I have worked with these and
they can be WILD! I think they were 8-bit technology.
Another was the Publison "Infernal Machine", which was France's
answer to the Harmonizer. If you know anything about Peugot's
or Renault's, you'll know why you don't see Publison's around here.
Finally, the almighty Quantec Room Simulator, an ungodly reverb
generator that even Lexicon bowed to in the 80's. They now have a unit called the "Yardstick"...$$$$$$$$$$$$!
Try finding an Ursa Major...they sound awesome and are on E-Bay. Not very refined,but extremely rich and animated 'verb/delay. Used a LOT during their heyday (late 70's-80's).

moonbaby Fri, 03/25/2005 - 09:13

I need to clarify my first post on this. The units I referred to are probably not very accessible to you. No matter. Most DSP effects units that you can tweak will probably do the trick for you...Try this:
#1) Take an Aux send from your board. Send it to a delay, set at about 80-120 msec.That will thicken things up before you send THAT to a..
#2) Gated reverb. A "plate" with a fairly long tail works best. Play with the gate's attack and release times. Then, we go to a...
#3) Chorus program to churn things up a bit.Maybe the chorus is stereo, that really helps things "swim" around.
#4) Return that to another channel on your board,starting with NO Aux send levels (!) up. Just assign that channel to your stereo mix bus, just like another track. You can Eq it, spank it, whatever. THEN, using a gentle hand on the Aux Send for that channel, push the effects' chain return BACK to the chain's INPUT...dig? This can and will produce horrific feedback if you are not careful, but in small degrees it will build and intensify the effect. Play with fader levels and pre/post switching of the sends. Have fun!!

anonymous Sun, 04/17/2005 - 12:52

Hi moonbaby!

very informative what you've written. Since I'm not a professionnal...Is it possible for you to explain me how I could work my way with cubase SX2 and achieve what you explain in your last post. Thanks in advance!

By the way MErker, have you tried moonbaby's advices?? I'd really enjoy to listen

Joss

moonbaby Tue, 04/19/2005 - 07:24

Guys:
Hate to break it to ya, but I don't know squat about Cubase.My exposure to DAWs has been through my partner, who is an old Sonic Solutions guy now on Pro Tools. I used to have analog multitracks, now have a pair of 24-track Tascams. No complaints here!
Basically, though, you want to delay your send (if you can "double it" through a pitch shifter, even better); then take that into a gated reverb plug-in (got one of those?); then churn things up with a chorus/flange type of effect. I think that on a DAW this might be a tricky deal unless you have a decent control surface, because of all the fader moves you tend to do while this is going on...keeping things dynamic (jumping!). And remember that the gating on the 'verb has to be in time to the music, as do the delays in the send/doubling portion. It may take you some tweaking and patience. Experiment and good luck!