splitting and separating a track - my favorite trick

Post by jb » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:09 am

Got a question + a tip.

A while back I was trying to figure out how pro recordings make their vocals sound like they're coming from *everywhere*. Mine were sounding like they're just stuck in the middle of the track, kind of lifeless. This technique is what I came up with.

Take a track and duplicate it.
Zoom in on the second track pretty far.
Nudge it slightly to the right. Just slightly, not so far that you hear a real delay. I usually just do this with my mouse.
Pan the first track completely left.
Pan the second completely right.
Hit "Play" and adjust. You might have nudged too far or not enough. You're looking for a nicely separated sound.

I do this all the time. Like on this demo I just made: http://johnorama.com/songs/guy_n_guitar/whatever.mp3

The guitar is split like this (and EQ'ed badly I know). The vocal is also, but only panned a little.

Now for the question:

What the hell am I doing? If I were going to do this with a plugin, what plugin would do it and what settings would I use? Not that I'm going to start using a plugin, 'cause this is a really low-CPU-cost (just about zero) way of getting a nice effect. But there must be a "standard" way that pros do this sort of thing, and maybe there's something I can do better.

I've tried the Waves plugin "Doubler" but it doesn't do the same thing, it seems. It messes with the pitch of the doubled track, and I wind up not with separation but more like some kind of phase effect thing that I often don't like.

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:16 am

That's an awesome trick, and one that I use all the time...but not just for vocals or guitar..... it works for any sound you'd like to give a gentle stereo spread on. What you're doing is creating a micro-delay and hard panning the two tracks gives the illusion of "everywhere" without any noticeable delay. By moving a track by the smallest unit of measure your recording software can do, (in Cubase it's individual samples I belive)...the timing doesn't change in relation to the song's tempo..but it adds audio "interest" to the track.

I've used a zillion plugs, never found one that did just this, although I'd bet it's a part of some of those fancier delay/modulation/stereo enhancer type multi-plugs that are available.

Post by jb » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:29 am

I've found that moving it the *smallest* amount doesn't always work for me. I'm not sure what amount is right, but there's a threshold between too much and not enough. I know way too little about numbers when it comes to recording. I love just mashing things around until they sound good, often with my mouse and whatever graphical display I'm looking at.

I like fingerpainting too.

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:56 am

yeah, I meant in increments of the smallest unit of measure...not just 1.

You're right, it doesn't do much to move only one.

Steve Durand · Post by **Steve Durand** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 10:16 am

Thanks for that tip jb. I'll try it on my song this week.

Steve

Billy's Little Trip · Sun Mar 25, 2007 11:26 am

I thought about this JB, I'll have to give it a try. I've been trying to fatten up my lead vocal with out sounding like a double vocal.
I've been trying plug ins, but I haven't liked the sound of any I've tried so far. My last two entries, I just sang it twice and pulled the second one down lower than the first one and add a delay to both. Not great, but better than one voice. Plus, as you said, less CPU is a good thing, and a must for me right now because I've been freezing my computer lately towards the end of my final mix down.

By the way, great voice and guitar song, John. I love that riff. And you're right, it has a very full sound using that method.

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:24 pm

what you're probably doing technically is shifting the phase of the one channel with respect to the other. since the phase is the information that our ears use to figure out where a sound is coming from, that part of your brain is getting confused by the weird shift.

-craig

Märk · Post by **Märk** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:05 pm

JB, I believe that's just a simple stereo delay. Try a basic stereo delay plugin, and set it to Left to Right (or vice versa) and 5ms or so delay.

I've done exactly what you described too, if you nudge it to the exact right spot, it will make a weird phasing effect.

Steve Durand · Post by **Steve Durand** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:33 pm

Come to think of it, I have used this technique before on string patches to make them sound more full.

It also seems to me like a way to achieve the Haas effect (look it up)

I think that there are a number of stereo plugins that can do Haas effect modeling.

Steve

c hack · Post by **c hack** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 5:55 pm

Sven wrote:JB, I believe that's just a simple stereo delay. Try a basic stereo delay plugin, and set it to Left to Right (or vice versa) and 5ms or so delay.

I've done exactly what you described too, if you nudge it to the exact right spot, it will make a weird phasing effect.

Yeah, the one I use came with Pro Tools and is called "short delay." That's how I did the guitar on my Gray Rainbow track. Vocals in mono, guitar in mono split to stereo with the delay plugin with a 7ms delay on the right speaker. It's fun to slide it back and forth while the track is playing and hear them spread apart. I'd be cool if you could automate increasing the delay like that. Maybe you can do it in Logic or something.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:30 pm

c hack wrote:
Sven wrote:Maybe you can do it in Logic or something.

I believe you can and now it's on the list of cool things to do when I get a new Logic key. Meanwhile it looks like I'll be working on Acid. I mean in Acid.

Calfborg · Post by **Calfborg** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:14 pm

I believe you can automate plug-in parameters in Acid. It uses envelopes and such, I think.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:14 am

Yes, you can. The location vertically of the specific values is distributed evenly over the whole range, so it's a bit of a pain if all the values you want to automate are in the same area, but it can be edited by typing numbers too.
-bill

jeff robertson · Post by **jeff robertson** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:14 am

I've never done this with vocals but I almost always do something like this for guitar solos.

I also usually EQ the left and right slightly differently, and maybe a tiny pitch shift (1 percent or less) which is almost getting into chorus-pedal territory.

The trademark "fuzz" sound that is usually the only thing that gets positive reviews in my songs, comes mainly from applying some combination of full-wave or half-wave rectification to the two tracks in different ways. Kinda like: