This is the first of a series of videos and written posts I’ll be making as Dr. Dog and I take apart and rebuild our recording studio. You know, for the kids.

Something may happen you didn’t intend but it’s inaccurate to listen to a recording and say something’s wrong. It’s not possible for a recording to be wrong. A recording just is. You wouldn’t look at a cloudy day and say: “the weather’s made a mistake,” or, “the weather’s wrong.” The weather just is.

Now, I love hearing mistakes in recordings but I have to realize the mistake I hear is only a deviation from some preconception my mind came up with for how the recording should go. I guess because I’ve heard a pattern in the song I expect it to continue. The reason I like hearing a mistake in a recording because it makes it sound human; it makes me feel connected to the musician. Humans playing music is beautifully imperfect & inconsistent.

Recently I was recording a bassist who often would listen to the playback and say: “No, that part’s wrong,” or, “no, that shouldn’t be there.” I think he was limiting his perspective to hearing the song only as he thought it should go, not being open to how it went.

“Honour thy error as a hidden intention,” -Oblique Strategies

A great performance by Johnny Cash & Bob Dylan that has no, autotune, tape echo, vocal doubling… just heartfelt playing and singing.

“Can you put some reverb on my voice and turn me down?” -Nearly every singer I’ve worked with

As a music listener I usually do not like doubled vocals. What’s a doubled vocal? It’s when a singer records a vocal part then records a second, identical vocal part with the intention of mixing them together so the listener hears both simultaneously.

Why I don’t like them… when I hear a doubled vocal I hear a singer that isn’t confident, fears their voice, is worried what people will think of their singing… and so they doubled it to make themselves sound unnatural and now their voice is okay since it’s no longer their natural voice. When I hear a doubled vocal I find it hard to connect with what the singer’s singing. I feel a disconnect from them.

When producing records I find singers that are reluctant to use just a single voice often change their mind when their vocal recording sounds amazing. If I can get a great vocal mix by affecting the dry recording with tasteful effects the singer tends to come to their own decision that the single vocal is better than the double. That taught me that, again, doubling vocals is usually done as a defense against a bad sound. Producers, get a singer’s voice to sound great and they’ll trust you and their voice.

Harmonies, group vocals, ad-libs, tape echo… all these are not the same as doubled vocals.

Let’s listen now to a beautifully recorded single vocal and appreciate the power in it…

Here’s an example of a beautiful song by the late songwriter Elliott Smith that, in my opinion, would have been even more intimate had Mr. Smith used a single vocal take…

If you’re singing in front of a band then you’re telling the audience you have something to say. Don’t make your singing purposefully obscured or intentionally difficult to hear. People want to hear what you’re singing. It’s fine to make vocals sound as reverbed, changed, and affected as you want if it comes from a genuine place of creativity like My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts but I often see artists using those techniques to obscure their singing out of fear. Trust yourself and your voice. Singing in tune, out of tune, out of key, warbly, scratchy, perfectly… this is all what is unique to your voice. Be fearless in your vocals and give the listener the gift of letting them hear you.

Exceptions! There are a two times I know of so far when I’ve preferred a doubled vocal to a single…

Cat Power’s song “Metal Heart”
I notice in this song it sounds like she recorded two very different vocal takes and mixed them together. It does not sound like she attempted to make the two takes identical. To me it feels even more intimate than if there were one vocal.

Drink Up Buttercup’s “Gods And Gentlemen”
The lead vocal is doubled and in mixing we decided it served the song better. The doubled vocal gave the song a quality of distance in time from the listener that we wanted.

Gods And Gentlemen – Drink Up Buttercup

Last: a new toy for singers that looks fun. Hopefully I’ll be picking one up soon…

More to come,

Bill