Last night, Colorado Creative Music welcomed Denver hip-hop crew, Real Soundz, into the studio for the first time. Recording vocals for their track, Knights In White Satin, these guys killed it. As for the tracking style, we did a lot of vocal stacking, especially on the chorus, to really thicken up the sound (3-6 tracks per vox line). To get them to stack on the exact same syncopation, a live chorus effect, we used a method of bouncing back and forth between 2 vox tracks to get them tighter through repetition. Once you run through a few takes you can hear the vocals sitting together more closely to finally have a 3rd, back-up, track. Now, add 3 parts spot-on EQin’, 1 cup of reverb and a dollop of vocal-bused compression and soon it will make you say, “booyakasha”! Or whatever it is you say for that kind of excitement. Point being, stacking tracks is a very useful technique for almost any vocal recording. Multi-track is your friend. Anyways, Real Soundz killed it at CCM, so check them out, and don’t be afraid to stack your vocal tracks, even if it doesn’t sound “right” the first few go ’rounds… You just haven’t figured it out yet.
— Mike
