Episode 4.5: Fat Vocals, Overdriven Piano, and My New Favorite Song
Here’s another “in between” episode. I share a couple of nerdy engineer tricks. (1) How to fatten a vocal sound (one method), that I learned from the mixing engineer of InsideOut, and (2) Overdrive, on a piano. Also, my new favorite song, well, at least a catchy one I was listening to the other day–a remix of Umbrella, a song by Marie Digby. Enjoy!
–Clayton
5 responses so far
Your fellow nerds appreciate the tech tips. I recently applied the fattening trick to bass guitar track and was amazed at the fullness.
Good deal. Did you use a plug-in or how did you do it? I used mda detune.
First of all, long time no see! It’s cool to see what you’ve been up to.
I’ve written a few songs lately, and I’ve been trying to put them together in Cubase SX3. You mentioned a couple of things I’m highly interested in: 1) free plug-ins to fatten and expand vocals, and 2) a good, cheap piano plug-in. I’d appreciate any more info you can throw my way. I hate to post my email address, so shoot me a message of Facebook, if you don’t mind.
BTW, I especially liked the part about overdriving the piano. In one of my songs, I’m actually using an overdriven Rhodes suitcase EP, and it adds a very cool sound.
Thanks in advance, and I look forward to hearing back from you!
~Tim
For the benefit of others I’ll answer your questions here (and probably get to you on Facebook or whatever–hey Tim!).
1) Plug-in I used for fattening vocals was ‘mda detune’ (you have to feed it a stereo source–route vocals to a stereo group track if necessary). Alternatively you can copy the tracks, select the audio in the “arrangement” window, and in the info bar at the top set fine tune as I described, mix those tracks in with the originals…
2) The free piano plug-in is ‘mda piano’. Not the richest instrument you’ve ever heard but man, it’s free, and it does sound kind of like a piano.
That’s a good article about Make your own fat bar. Thanks for the info.