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Reel adt9/10/2023 If Real Doubles Are Best, Why Fake It?Įven if the performer is consistent enough to record really tight doubles, and not everyone is, the decision to double a part can happen during the mix stage, long after the performer has left. You might think that adding a fourth or fifth part would make things sound bigger still but my experience is that the opposite can happen, and considering how laborious recording these extra takes can be, the sweet spot for me is triple-tracking. Adding a third part makes this vanishingly unlikely and the third part adds yet more thickness. If the double is very accurate indeed is it possible for things to start to interfere destructively, not by much but it can still happen. My top tip for getting the best from this technique is not to double-track but to triple-track. The important thing here is that the variations are both in pitch and in timing and are irregular. If the double is too loose compared to the original part then the attractive thickening quickly becomes a confusing and amateurish mess! The issue here is that those differences have to be tiny. Play the two parts back and the tiny differences between the two takes create a very attractive thickening effect. How to do it couldn’t be simpler, record your part, create a new track and do it again. If tracking something twice is so simple and so effective, why was Automatic Double Tracking invented in the first place? And why do plugins which recreate this effect which was first achieved using a second tape machine and a varispeed control still so popular? At least some of the answer probably lies in the fact that recording doubles is laborious and, depending on the part, sometimes difficult. The layered harmonies of Mary Ford’s vocals on the records she released with her husband Les Paul back in the 50s still sound striking today! It’s difficult for us to appreciate just how revolutionary the sound of someone being able to sing along with themselves was when multi track recording first made it possible. The fact that the simplest of tricks can add so much to a performance has been know ever since double tracking was possible. Double tracking is one of those things I know I’ll never get tired of.
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