Double tracking lead vocals. Where to pan, L R or center?

[BobbyRay]

I have never double tracked lead vocals and would like to experiment. Where have you panned them with success? Both center or slightly left and right?

I will try all options just qurious as to what works for people.

[Bro Shark]

I generally like em up the middle. Sometimes it's cool to pan em wide L and R for certain words or phrases if you want to make them stand out as an effect.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

It's not a sound I use all that often but when I do it's usually panned center with the double a fair bit quieter than the lead.
I also like using a double as a reverb or delay send.

[ott0bot]

If the vocals are too similar and both dead center sometimes it creates some phase issues, which can sound cool or not depending on what you want it to sound like. The whole making it quiter or using it as a delay suggestion really alleviates this. Somtimes, I'll eq them so there is a boost on one and a cut in the other on the same frequencies to give them some space. I've found it to be neat when you compress the heck out of one of the tracks and leave the other more natural, or add a touch of overdrive.

If they are not similar enough and panned center, sometimes it sounds sloppy. It usually takes a well practiced, accurate singer to get a doubled take sounding really nice to me.

So mostly I pan them a little and automate the pan to go wide or narrow to accentuate certain phrases. I really only like doubled vocals occassionally, I usually go for a subtle harmony instead.

[BobbyRay]

Right, nice suggestions. I have to admit the thought came from an interview with the engineer who did the Nevermind album from one of those VH1 remastered series. He said "Lennon used this method due to him not liking the sound of his own voice" so he suggested it to Kurt Cobain.

So I figured I have to give it a try sometime. I like the idea of ducking it below the original. Like a parallel compression type thing.

[donny]

i like to keep them both together most of the time, both either center or hard right or left. sometimes it sounds cool to do a L/R split but this ends of sounding less chorus-y and more like ... "2 at the same time but sounds like 1"

[dave watkins]

i believe that the nevermind reference that calls on the the beatles reference is actually referring to artificial double tracking, where they would double the original vocal by dumping it to a different tape machine and back again (beatles aficionados please correct me if i'm wrong) there's some great info on it here:

http://blog.beatletracksband.com/2009/1 ... cking.aspx

i'm pretty sure that quote about Lennon was born out of them growing tired of doing everything twice. so they (Ken Townsend) came up with ADT

you can certainly achieve a usable effect with ADT (or approximating it with delay plugins or something) is definitely a tighter effect than just strait up doubling a take. i'd normally stick doubled vocals close to center with the slightly effected track turned down a bit... but really depending on the songs/mix i wouldn't be surprised that panning them hard left right would work well too. it's definitely commonplace for me to do faux ADT type effects in the box all the time on guitar tracks and pan them hard left and right. one thing i did recently that worked pretty well on a singer songwriter friend of mine was to setup a mid/side pair on his acoustic guitar and have him sing and play the song song live in one take, so there would be a bit of vocals on the guitars tracks which have a wide stereo field because of the mid/side setup. we then overdubbed a solo vocal take over everything... so the doubling is very subtle, but it sounds pretty swell and pretty wide.

this post inspired me to throw some Beatles on, i always forget how ridiculous the stereo mixes sound on nearfields, it's just bizarre and wonderful sometimes.

[vvv]

FWIW, I like the main vocal mebbe 2% left one side and the support mebbe 10% the other when that's the arrangement, level to taste.

If they are double leads, then I like 'em equal level and opposite pan, mebbe 10 to 25% to either side.

[kinger]

i believe that the nevermind reference that calls on the the beatles reference is actually referring to artificial double tracking, where they would double the original vocal by dumping it to a different tape machine and back again (beatles aficionados please correct me if i'm wrong) there's some great info on it here:

http://blog.beatletracksband.com/2009/1 ... cking.aspx

i'm pretty sure that quote about Lennon was born out of them growing tired of doing everything twice. so they (Ken Townsend) came up with ADT

you can certainly achieve a usable effect with ADT (or approximating it with delay plugins or something) is definitely a tighter effect than just strait up doubling a take. i'd normally stick doubled vocals close to center with the slightly effected track turned down a bit... but really depending on the songs/mix i wouldn't be surprised that panning them hard left right would work well too. it's definitely commonplace for me to do faux ADT type effects in the box all the time on guitar tracks and pan them hard left and right. one thing i did recently that worked pretty well on a singer songwriter friend of mine was to setup a mid/side pair on his acoustic guitar and have him sing and play the song song live in one take, so there would be a bit of vocals on the guitars tracks which have a wide stereo field because of the mid/side setup. we then overdubbed a solo vocal take over everything... so the doubling is very subtle, but it sounds pretty swell and pretty wide.

this post inspired me to throw some Beatles on, i always forget how ridiculous the stereo mixes sound on nearfields, it's just bizarre and wonderful sometimes.

If you want to play with this on the cheap and easy, here's a fun free plugin:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/3549.html

[wren]

i believe that the nevermind reference that calls on the the beatles reference is actually referring to artificial double tracking, where they would double the original vocal by dumping it to a different tape machine and back again (beatles aficionados please correct me if i'm wrong) there's some great info on it here:

http://blog.beatletracksband.com/2009/1 ... cking.aspx

i'm pretty sure that quote about Lennon was born out of them growing tired of doing everything twice. so they (Ken Townsend) came up with ADT

you can certainly achieve a usable effect with ADT (or approximating it with delay plugins or something) is definitely a tighter effect than just strait up doubling a take. i'd normally stick doubled vocals close to center with the slightly effected track turned down a bit... but really depending on the songs/mix i wouldn't be surprised that panning them hard left right would work well too. it's definitely commonplace for me to do faux ADT type effects in the box all the time on guitar tracks and pan them hard left and right. one thing i did recently that worked pretty well on a singer songwriter friend of mine was to setup a mid/side pair on his acoustic guitar and have him sing and play the song song live in one take, so there would be a bit of vocals on the guitars tracks which have a wide stereo field because of the mid/side setup. we then overdubbed a solo vocal take over everything... so the doubling is very subtle, but it sounds pretty swell and pretty wide.

this post inspired me to throw some Beatles on, i always forget how ridiculous the stereo mixes sound on nearfields, it's just bizarre and wonderful sometimes.

If you want to play with this on the cheap and easy, here's a fun free plugin:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/3549.html

Beat me to it. It's a great plugin.

[lionaudio]

If they are dead center I usually high cut one to keep the phasing under control. If I spread them out I leave them alone

[DorianListens]

I've always taken issue with doubles panned centre, as they tend to sound sloppy to me. I'm a fan of hard panning them either side for effect, of just doing a single lead vocal with harmonies on either side.

[jgimbel]

I've always taken issue with doubles panned centre, as they tend to sound sloppy to me. I'm a fan of hard panning them either side for effect, of just doing a single lead vocal with harmonies on either side.

That tends to be my feeling with it. I "found" hard-panned doubling first as an effect, and it wasn't til much later I realized people have done it straight down the center. I've never liked the sound, though that's just personal taste. When I started recording I thought it was AMAZING when I first heard acoustic guitar played almost exactly the same together, ie. natural chorus, but now I do a lot to make sure I'm NOT doing that (with my own music). I do think vocals sound cool when recorded as perfectly as possible and hard-panned, but I mostly like doubling when there is a lot of variation between the two, ala Elliot Smith. THAT'S the sound I think of when I talk about doubling that I like.

[losthighway]

I always hate when I record a singer who sounds fantastic as is and they want to double everything. But hey, that's the job. It's not really about me.

I, like others prefer one a bit quieter and both center. Usually.

I did do a song for a band once where the guy had these really stylized vocals that were more spoken than sung. He had a super low voice, it was a vibey kind of 80's thing, maybe Psychedelic Fursish but more tongue in cheek. I hard panned his doubled vocals left and right and it totally made the track. About as subtle as a Mack truck, but sometimes things need to be distinctive.

[Rakoro]

i believe that the nevermind reference that calls on the the beatles reference is actually referring to artificial double tracking, where they would double the original vocal by dumping it to a different tape machine and back again (beatles aficionados please correct me if i'm wrong) there's some great info on it here:

http://blog.beatletracksband.com/2009/1 ... cking.aspx

i'm pretty sure that quote about Lennon was born out of them growing tired of doing everything twice. so they (Ken Townsend) came up with ADT

you can certainly achieve a usable effect with ADT (or approximating it with delay plugins or something) is definitely a tighter effect than just strait up doubling a take. i'd normally stick doubled vocals close to center with the slightly effected track turned down a bit... but really depending on the songs/mix i wouldn't be surprised that panning them hard left right would work well too. it's definitely commonplace for me to do faux ADT type effects in the box all the time on guitar tracks and pan them hard left and right. one thing i did recently that worked pretty well on a singer songwriter friend of mine was to setup a mid/side pair on his acoustic guitar and have him sing and play the song song live in one take, so there would be a bit of vocals on the guitars tracks which have a wide stereo field because of the mid/side setup. we then overdubbed a solo vocal take over everything... so the doubling is very subtle, but it sounds pretty swell and pretty wide.

this post inspired me to throw some Beatles on, i always forget how ridiculous the stereo mixes sound on nearfields, it's just bizarre and wonderful sometimes.

If you want to play with this on the cheap and easy, here's a fun free plugin:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/3549.html

Beat me to it. It's a great plugin.

I was listening to the killers and was hearing something similar to that on the lead vocal,
here check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZTpLvsYYHw&fmt=18

Is that what that is?
I'm having trouble hearing it on these comp speakers because it's a really slight difference. But on the nearfields it came through a bit more obvious. It was also the cd version :/