Sometimes I can hear the voices in the middle, and sometimes you can hear them on opposite sides at the same time. I tried to duplicate a single track and pan one to the left and other to the right. But it still sounds like it's from middle. How do I make sound like it's coming from both sides?

 

Go easy on him guys... lol

 

So what you telling me is that I have to wax my DAW. Ok duh, now that makes sense. I'm so stupid. :P

 

with all that voice hearing, please consider seeing a psychiatrist.
Many things things can cause that, and it's a serious problem.
Seek Help!.
I cannot help you any further. Sorry

 

LOL...ya'll are so evil...

if u duplicate the take, it'll all sound like it's coming from the middle because...it's the exact same take!

it's just physical properties. won't get into it on a scientific level.

don't feel bad; i used to do the same thing & not understand it...until i understood it.

pitch-shift one of them to give it a different texture/feel.

OR do a new take of the same verse and pan one/both of them.

others may give different advice, just a disclaimer.

good luck

 

This is how I used to do it:

send the mono vox to a return with waves center on it, with all of the center pulled out of it. Then to cla vocals with all the modules turned off except for the last one. Use the spreader setting on the emulation. It micro-pitch/time shifts both the sides differently, emulating a mysterious piece of cla's custom gear supposedly. Im guessing Eventide, but who knows, If you believe the hype that is.
side vox on an aux fader.
season to taste

I dont do it like this anymore but this is probably the sound youre looking for.

 

Last edited: Nov 17, 2016

If you want to stereoize your Vox, thetre was a thread here not 2 long ago https://audiosex.pro/threads/how-to...ide-s-of-your-mix-or-image.26967/#post-216802

 

Localization of sound is possible by inter-aural time difference as well as inter-aural level difference. In other words: sound is perceived to be coming from a particular direction based upon the very short delay it takes for a sound to hit the 2nd ear after the sound hits the 1st ear. Also, the intensity of the sound is a factor as a mono source panned right is simply louder in the right channel than the left, although otherwise the same.

If the difference in time is small enough ("small" is relative to spectral content/complexity of signal) then it will be perceived as a phase difference and not a duplicate signal, such as an echo. Phase is a good place to start messing around if you want the listener to perceive the sound is located in a certain space relative to their head.

Other factors involve attenuation of high frequencies and amount of pure signal to reverberated signal. The point is, panned mono isn't stereo. Panning only adjusts volume, and there's much more to spatial perception than volume.

 

Last edited: Nov 17, 2016

This is an area of particular experience for me... I've been doubling up vocals since I was 13.

There are a lot of ways to do this. In my opinion, the best way do do it (granted you have a vocal performer who is able to nail the same rhythm consistently) is to just layer multiple takes together and pan some of them. Main take center, two takes at lesser volume panned left and right. Personally I like to pan them about 50-70 instead of 100. Sounds thicker when you leave some in the middle. This is more labor intensive, but IMO sounds best as long as your vocalist is on point. Not all that labor intensive though, since I record in lots of takes anyway. I usually just record into one or two tracks with 5-10 takes and then duplicate it a few times and select different takes. EQ the backups differently, usually I want the backups to be focused in the mids to avoid extra sibilance or mud. Easy peasy.

If you just want to spread one vocal you can always use plugins like StereoSavage or Microshift. To say nothing of Soundtoys, I prefer the former. Just make sure the vocals are on a stereo track, since you'll most likely be recording them in mono.

You could also just duplicate the main vocal, pan one hard left and one hard right, and either detune them apart or offset the timing for a Haas effect, or both.

Another thing I do if I'm lazy or just not satisfied with my backup takes is put the vocals through a harmonizer set to unison. I send the vocals through Nectar's harmony module on a bus, mute the direct signal since it'll already be there on the original track, set the pitch to unison and then -- and this is a nice little feature of Nectar -- set the amount of timing and pitch variation I want the backup vocals to have. I can tell Nectar I want the doubles to have 10% variance in timing and 10% variance in pitch. Makes for some pretty convincingly organic doubles.

I've also recently used the add harmony function in Cubase and pan the doubles. Gets a nice dischordant effect on rap vocals since they have no particular melody. Of course if your vocalist is actually singing it's just gonna sound like harmony.

 

The cheapest voice-to-stereo effect you can get is a simple stereo-chorus. That's how it was done 20-30 years ago. Nowadays it's preferred to do exactly what Cav described: Recording several takes of the singer and pan them.

Basically, if you can live with a more artificial sound, you can get away with every effect that alters the original source. If heading for a more natural sound, several takes of the singer(s) is the only way.

 

To define it: To make what we hear as a sound in the middle of a sound field in a stereo signal is actually two exactly the same sounds on both the left and right channels. In order to differentiate those two that sound just like one you, must change the timing of one of them, heard as either sooner or later than the other, and then you can pan them against each other and now to finally free them up to manipulate in the stereo field. As previously mentioned, there are plug-ins to to this or you can manually create a clone of the original and move it incrementally forward or backward in time relative to the other.

 

Micro shifts in time and pitch

 

Yes, there's the time domain and the frequency domain. You can get a stereo effect in both of them.

 

@Cav Emp when you use nectar to create a double in unison mode does it just make one mono Harmony out of it? If I wanted to do it in the left and the right, would I have to use two instances of it or can I make 2 in the plug in? This is the kind of work I use re voice for but if I can do it all in the daw live without jumping to an external app that would be nice

 

Nah, it's actually super handy. You can set I think up to four voices, and use little nodes on an XY pad to determine each of their amplitude and position in the stereo field. Then they have sort of macro sliders for gain & pan scaling that apply to all voices.

 

you sound like a rapist

 

Double-track with a good/talented/tight vocalist. Counter-pan (to taste). Done.

I'm coming from where Cav Emp is coming from.

 

I have used the BOZ/Joey Sturgis Sidewidener on vocals also when I only recorded one take. I really like the sound of it. But it's true, the widest most natural sound is an actual 2nd take from the vocalist.

 

Buy better drugs