Gotta love digital audio. Man, you can
do almost anything in this crackerjack
medium of sonic manipulation. But
you can also get lazy, or let a lessthan-
stellar band or artist off the
hook. If they can only manage to play
something once, you can copy and
paste that singular moment of artistic
expression anywhere you need it. If
you’ve constructed a colossal chorus
with “Bohemian Rhapsody”-inspired
vocal layers, you probably took the
best bits of each singer’s
performance, created one
humungous vocal chorale, and then
pasted that opus into every appearance
of the chorus. Genius.
But what you may have lost in
your copy-and-paste obsessed tinkering
is the old-school vibe of parts
building to a climax with more and
more intensity, or choruses sounding
a bit different each time you hear
them. In essence, you may have lost
the story-building journey of a song,
in deference to ensuring repeatable—
albeit potentially tedious—perfection.
Now, I have no illusions that many
listeners these days are likely dead to
the admittedly minute and mysterious
nature of evolving musical parts.
On the other hand, people did thrill
to, say, old Beatles, KC and the Sunshine
Band, B.B. King, and Led Zeppelin
tracks, so maybe the old
schoolers had something wonderful
going back then. The decision is
yours, of course, but if you want to
maintain your cut-and-paste methodology
and diminish any subliminal
triggering of “Hey, haven’t I heard this
part before?” from listeners, here are
a few ideas.
Don’t Create All Clones
As Equals
This may be obvious, but I’ve
witnessed too many engineers copy
entire layers exactly as rendered from
section to section. Hmmm. It’s so
easy to split up different elements
and EQ them differently, or change
the level and/or parameters of
effects, or adjust compression levels,
or even move the audio bits slightly
off the timing grid.
For vocals, I like to treat each layer
as totally different—using dedicated
processing for each part that is utilized
only for that particular part. It’s
a way of “pretending” several singers
came to the party, or that the same
singer was recorded on different days
after eating different meals. Of
course, these are subtle adjustments—
you can’t, for example, have several
delay times and feedback levels
bouncing around unless you want
your vocal layer to sound like the slot
hall at some Las Vegas casino—but
even minute adjustments can tweak a
listener’s ear into hearing something
different, even if they can’t identify
those differences.
Don’t Repeat Repeat
Even if you construct a layer with
diverse processing, you can blow it by
pasting that layer into every chorus or
verse section. Diversity is the key. Consider
leaving some elements out of the
mix. For example, the first chorus you
hear might have four stereo parts. Then,
add a couple more for the second chorus,
and then thicken up the final chorus
to produce a thrilling crescendo. You
can also mess with panning. Perhaps
the verse guitars are hard left and right
on the first verse, but then shift to 11
o’clock and 2 o’ clock for the next verse
if you wish to promote a chunkier and
more “claustrophobic” vibe on that section.
If you use your lyrics as a guideline
for cinematic production touches, the
sky is the limit.
Dump It
Here’s a crazy idea: Why have all sections
sound the same anyway? Maybe
the verses don’t need the same guitars
each time, and one verse would
sound hipper with the guitars muted.
Check it out. Maybe there’s one too
many chorus lines to a song, or perhaps
that double chorus is a bit much.
Just because you have the power to
clone perfect sections throughout
your song doesn’t mean that you have
to be a slave to repetition.