Rain Recording

Hear that big wide vocal sound and say, "Hey, how do I do that with my one vocal track? Don't I just pan it straight away center?"

You can give the vocalist their dire need to hear more of themselves (and give your mix a boost) by utilizing a vocal spread. This is particularly effective in choruses to give extra contrast following an intimate verse.

Here's the quickest, easiest way to do this:

• Copy your mono vocal track onto another mono track.
• Pan one track hard left the other hard right.
• Delay one side by 10-25 ms or so. This gives the middle some breathing room for additional elements for a wider pallet.

To really fill your stereo image with vocals:

• Keep the original center-panned track.
• Add a stereo delay on the track, and differ the delay on the two sides by say, 10-20 ms.
• You can even throw a little pitch differential between the two sides in addition to the usual vocal effects (compression, reverb, etc.), to create that modern sound without the clutter sometimes associated with doubling.