One of the fastest ways to make your vocals or guitars sound big in your mix is to double them. It’s so classic that I included it as one of my 8 tips to make better recordings now. And by double, I mean you actually record a second pass of the same thing, pan them left and right, and let your ears bask in the bliss of doubling. But what do you do if you forgot to record a doubled part and the guitar player or singer has left for the day? You create an instant double people! And here is how…
Really interesting, I sometimes clone a track and make the clone start a few milliseconds late. It gives a bit of natural chorus effect also.
Anyways, great work, regards
Paul
Paul, thanks for the comment. Yep I’ve done that before!
As always great tutorial.
I have a question about phase issues – sometimes when you play doubled parts in mono it sounds thin. How to deal with this problem?
Pawel, with a legitimate double (even the ones we do in this video) you won’t have phase issues. It is simply a second performance at the same time. It’s when you have a digital copy of the exact same thing and move it slightly that you can run into phase issues.
Glad to see someone else doing this. I discovered this technique on my own, while recording and mixing vocals. I copied and pasted vocals from a chorus part that came later in the song to create a double track…..at least for the chorus section as the lyrics were the same. =) Immediately a little flag went up and I realized that I could do this with guitars as well. I don’t always do this, but I have been known to take guitars from ……say for example, the first verse and chorus and 2nd verse and chorus….create a new track and swap them out so guitar track 2 has #2 verse/ chorus first and then #1 verse / chorus. It does effectively create a double track. The possibilities are endless. Usually I only concentrate on doubling vocals and guitars? Sometimes an octave or harmony on strings or organ, but should I be doubling other instruments such as bass guitar or drums? Thanks, I really enjoy the info. I find on Recording Revolution. Your common sense approach is reassuring and thought prevoking. =)