Today is Friday the 13th, so I guess it’s only fitting I’m writing Part 13 of these Waves plug-in reviews. I’m also guilty of distracted writing, because the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs have begun and I am hopelessly addicted to both playing and watching hockey. My Los Angeles Kings are definitely a long shot, but they won their first game on the road against the mighty Vancouver Canucks and are playing up there again tonight.
My Secret Weapon
When I started using the Waves Live bundle, one of my earliest and most pleasant discoveries was the Doubler plug-in. The pitch change algorithm I had been using until that time was doing an adequate job, but there was something missing in the performance that the Waves Doubler immediately provided. While I am creating additional voices with a two- or four-voice doubler, I don’t want them to sound artificial, sterile or robotic. The best attribute of the Waves Doubler is that it sounds totally human—harmonically rich, warm and natural. When these particular time and pitch displacement operations are being performed on vocals, it’s essential that the final output still sounds like the real deal, so that more of the effect can be used without the additional information becoming obvious in your mix.
The Waves Doubler is an effect I don’t want anyone to know that I’m using. More specifically, it is my artistic preference that the listeners should not actually hear it performing the extremely valuable task for which it is being employed. Vocal doubling is a very subtle effect, and its usefulness is most beneficial to a natural-sounding mix when employed in a most judicious and sparing manner.
How It Works
Modern vertical line arrays are often hung 25 to 32+ feet off the centerline, creating a space that’s 50 to 65 feet wide between the columns. The musical concept that makes vocal doubling effective is to spread center-panned vocals across this very wide stereo image by using short delays panned left and right while simultaneously pitch-shifting one side a few cents up and the other side a few cents down. The pitch shifting thickens the vocals and makes them stand out much more in the mix. These delays cause center-panned vocals to be more sonically defined and less isolated from the instruments by increasing their apparent width across the coverage area.
This paragraph from the user guide offers an explanation how the Waves plug-in differs from other digital devices that perform a similar function:
“The essential difference between the Doubler and other pitch modulation and delay effects is mostly related to the Doubler’s ability to detune while preserving audio duration. In phasers, flangers and such, the modulation changes the delay and duration of the processed sound, producing a shifting comb-filtered effect. In the Doubler, the sound is de-correlated by the initial detune and the tuning can be further modulated. The effect resembles that of a doubled take, rather than mixed with a modulated version of the source.”
Here, the designer’s goal was to emulate the sound of a second take being tracked rather than producing an unnatural effect. The Waves engineers have definitely succeeded in creating a device that lets me add a two-voice doubler to lead vocals and a four-voice doubler to background vocals in an almost imperceptible way that significantly enhances the depth and the texture of the presentation. Older-generation outboard harmonizing devices were often described as glitchy, artificial or zingy. The Waves unit displays none of those negative attributes. The engineers were obviously not trying to emulate the sound of some classic piece of studio gear. This is a unique and pleasing invention by software engineers who put their emphasis on extreme musicality.
Lead Vocals
The accompanying screenshots show the settings I’ve been using at FOH on the current James Taylor tour. Both the two-voice and the four-voice doublers have one-in/two-out routings, each set up with the input coming from a mono aux bus and the output routed to a stereo effects return module. On the lead vocal (Fig. 1), I pan the voice hard left and hard right. I detune the left side by -5 cents and the right side by +5 cents. It’s always been my observation that human ears are more forgiving toward negative detuning. For that reason, I give the negative side the longer, and therefore more readily apparent, of the two delay times I use on lead vocals. I dial in a 23-millisecond delay on the left side and a 17-ms delay on the right side, both with just a touch of added feedback (regeneration).
So where did I come up with these particular numbers? When I first went to work as a systems engineer for the Doobie Brothers in the late 1970s, Grey Ingram was the band’s FOH engineer, and he had two Eventide H 910 Harmonizers in his outboard rack. At that point in audio history, it was a common practice to use prime numbers for stereo delays. The theory was that whole numbers indivisible by any other whole number would make the audio output more pristine within the mix. This theory even produced a whole line of Lexicon digital delay devices developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s: Prime Time 93, Prime Time II 95 and Super Prime Time 97. Regardless of the veracity of the thinking, 17 and 23 milliseconds worked well way back when, and this creature of habit hasn’t changed them in over 30 years.
Background Vocals
For background vocals, the four-voice Doubler setup (Fig. 2) is modified to add a much more complex harmonic texture and density. I start with the same detuning and delay settings from the two-voice Doubler, and I add longer delays panned 65 percent left and 65 percent right and returned -6dB lower to enhance the depth of the background vocals. In addition, I use a little more feedback to add more thickness. With both the lead vocal and background vocal Doublers, I always route the outputs to the vocal reverbs via the appropriate aux bus to soften and blur the effect.
With James Taylor, we are blessed with four amazing singers who create the most beautiful and lush vocal enhancements to Mr. Taylor’s songs. There are many songs (“Shower the People,” “Walking Man,” “Shed a Little Light,” “That Lonesome Road,” etc.) that benefit from a choir-like treatment to produce the desired result. However, I still want people admiring the singers, not the effects. When I set the return levels of both Doublers, I push up the fader until I can hear the effect as loudly in the left and right as the centered dry vocals. Then I start turning the effect return level down until only the apparent width remains but no distinct additional vocals.
The Bottom Line
One of the greatest strengths of Waves plug-in designs is the user interface. The Doubler gives users the ability to manipulate plug-in parameters using either graphics or numerical entry boxes. I like to gently roll off the top end on each to further hide the effect’s footprint in the mix. The EQ graphic makes it easy to set and drag. And I very much appreciate the visual references for panning and detuning for double-checking my work.
The performance of the Waves Doubler has vastly exceeded my expectations and has become a primary go-to resource in my quest for more present and intelligible vocals.
