Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Depending on the software you use, there should be a "nudge" feature. It will allow you to shift the copied second track to be delayed by (x)ms to give it a more natural sound. Just adjust the "nudge" amount until you like the sound.

Adding effects (reverb, compression, phase, etc.) to the second track can also help.

If your software allows you to adjust pitch (as most do) you could duplicated your original vocal track and then pitch it up or down to create harmonies.

You can certainly "thicken" the tone, either with a real voice mult (sing it again, trying to sing exactly the same way - which won't happen, yielding a close doubling) or by adding a tiny amount of delay to the copy - along with any other adjustments (EQ, panning, etc.) or effects you want to try adding to it. It will give you a stronger lead vocal in spots that need it, but in general, try not to over-use it as it can get annoying to listen to for a whole tune.

Being in that exact same situation (alone, with a pretty lousy singing voice and can't sing harmony that doesn't scare children and old people) I tried pitching stuff up to create harmonies once with Audacity and the result was a backup group composed of The Terminator (lower parts) and The Chipmunks (higher parts). I finally let modern technology do the job, originally with a TC Helicon "Harmony G" stompbox and I recently upgraded to their "Voice Live" stomp box. These gizmos are pretty amazing. They aren't cheap, but made a tremendous difference in my recordings and they're pretty easy to get the hang of. If you're stuck recording vocals by yourself, they're really neat tools to have.

Harmony G samples:
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/M ... amples.mp3
First effort with the new Voice Live:
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/M ... See-er.mp3

tmossman wrote: Adding effects (reverb, compression, phase, etc.) to the second track can also help.

+1 - Reverb is your friend... a judicious use of reverb on a second vocal track will really spice things up, particularly if you pan the tracks a little off centre (one right, the other left). If you are already using a reasonable amount of reverb on the main track, lower the reverb on the second track and/or tweak the parameters a little and you'll be amazed at the affect.

if you have some kind of auto tune effect (bear with me), you could use it on the second vocal track and mix it in lower than the original to give a "double tracked" effect due to slight variations in pitch between the 2 tracks and it won't sound too artificial. This is assuming of course that you have not used autotune already and/or your natural pitching is 100% spot on 100% of the time!

JM82 wrote:if you have some kind of auto tune effect (bear with me), you could use it on the second vocal track and mix it in lower than the original to give a "double tracked" effect due to slight variations in pitch between the 2 tracks and it won't sound too artificial. This is assuming of course that you have not used autotune already and/or your natural pitching is 100% spot on 100% of the time!

What he said.