Give your tracks their own voice with our complete guide to creating effective stand-out vocals. No singer necessary!
The human voice has to be the greatest instrument of all time, and it’s certainly the most expressive. While many sounds in music may seem to ‘speak’ to us, speech and singing are the only ones to literally do so, forming an immediate emotional connection with the listener. That might bring to mind wailing divas and crooning frontmen, but we’re talking about all forms of vocal, not just the virtuosic or centre-stage varieties. Think booming deep house interjections, cut-up acapella samples, robot voices, singing synth effects, and so on. In fact, even the tiniest drop of vocal sauce sprinkled in the right places can give a po-faced track enough personality to bond with its intended audience.
Which is all well and good, but what if you don’t have access to a professional vocalist, or studio facilities in which to record them? Don’t throw down the mic in despair just yet – in fact, pick it up and plug it back in again, as you’re about to learn how to create impactful vocals using vocal samples, acapellas, and even your own voice!
We’ll kick off with a crash course in home vocal recording, showing you how to get your voice into the computer in maximum quality with minimum fuss. From there, you’ll learn how to manipulate vocal recordings – yours or anyone else’s – to create everything from gritty robot voices and computerised singing to speaker-shaking trailer voices and more. Did you know you can even generate vocals entirely within your computer, just by typing in lyrics and programming a MIDI tune? We’ll show you that too! Before you know it, your tracks will have transcended to a whole ’nother level of catchiness.
To cover your back on yet another level this issue, we’ve also delved deep into the archives to bring you a huge sample pack full of vocals. This massive conglomeration of lyrics and ad libs is full to the brim – not just with material from previous vocal giveaways, but with plenty of new stuff baked in. This whole lot’s royalty-free, and it’s available on this issue’s DVD for readers of the print edition, and as a download from
vault.computermusic.co.uk for everyone. Also in the Vault and on the DVD, you’ll find video versions of all the step-by-step tutorials, and files that’ll help you follow along so you can do it all yourself.
So, are you ready to find your voice? Flip the page and let’s do it!