Vocal “thickening”

[gagzus 26,638]

Has anyone else noticed this? How heavily people who notoriously CANNOT sing live rely on vocal thickening in their editing.

For people who don’t know; vocal thickening is when you record there same take over and over again for a song without changing the melody or affectation, it helps “thicken” vocals on tracks that are very weak or haven’t got enough power.

A give away for vocal thickening is when LEAD vocals are produced to be stereo instead of mono. For example Gaga’s lead vocals are almost always mono and barely ever need thickening. Thickening also helps hide auto tune and pitch correction.

So yeah, next time you listen to a song and you notice their lead vocals are stereo, they’re thickened. It’s usually a sign of hiding auto tune and pitch correction, so most likely if it happens A LOT in their music, they probably cannot sing it live. Also excessive reverb too.

But yeah, it’s just something I’ve noticed about a LOT of musicians from Madonna to Katy Perry and even modern artists like Addison Rae.

[Togekiss 3,195]

Are you telling me the lead vocal in most of Gaga’s songs is just playing in one ear??

I wear headphones all the time how have I not noticed?

Can you provide an example of Gaga songs with mono vs stereo lead vocals?

[Taumaturg0 1,443]

2 minutes ago, Togekiss said:

Are you telling me the lead vocal in most of Gaga’s songs is just playing in one ear??

I wear headphones all the time how have I not noticed?

They're centered

OT: singers who can sing do it too, no one has fully dry vocals 

Edited Sunday at 07:27 PM by Taumaturg0

[gagzus 26,638]

14 minutes ago, Togekiss said:

Are you telling me the lead vocal in most of Gaga’s songs is just playing in one ear??

I wear headphones all the time how have I not noticed?

Can you provide an example of Gaga songs with mono vs stereo lead vocals?

By mono I mean centre panned. But backing vocals are edited to come out of individual Left or Right sides. 

An example of what I mean is the Bad Romance’s chorus lead vocal versus Part of Me by Katy’s lead vocal.

Edited Sunday at 07:39 PM by gagzus

[gagzus 26,638]

8 minutes ago, Taumaturg0 said:

They're centered

OT: singers who can sing do it too, no one has fully dry vocals 

No, but their lead vocals arent drowned in reverb nor are they so heavily layered up.

Most songs have like 1-2 lead vocal layers and then the backing vocals have the most layers including adlibs. But some singers use multiple lead vocal layers. And when you split them up in the multitracks they’re BATHED in auto tune and pitch correction.

Also you can tell when someone has actually sang their background vocal layers and when they’re just melodyned to hell.

Edited Sunday at 07:35 PM by gagzus

[PartySick 175,416]

We love a thick voice

[Hadrian 2,861]

Isn't it to give it like a choral (like a church choir) effect?

Now that you mention it though, I guess producers probably lean into it "as a stylistick choiiiice" to hide chopped vocals lmao

[gagzus 26,638]

3 minutes ago, Hadrian said:

Isn't it to give it like a choral (like a church choir) effect?

Now that you mention it though, I guess producers probably lean into it "as a stylistick choiiiice" to hide chopped vocals lmao

That’s usually to do with the arrangement of backing vocals, but some singers have vocals thickened in the verses where you usually don’t use or need that.

[Helxig 45,891]

I like that in some of Gaga's songs the vocals are stereo audio and each ear is a very slightly different take   I noticed that while listening to stem leaks. If you split them into two mono tracks they are sliiightly different

Edited yesterday at 04:30 AM by Helxig