From Pop and Rock to R&B and Rap, vocals are a core component of music as we know it today. This is nothing new, but historically, vocal production techniques were relatively limited due to technological restrictions. Over time though, vocal production has evolved significantly thanks to the music production tools we have at our disposal.
Today, the extent to which you produce your vocals is limited only by your imagination. With almost unlimited track counts and huge processing power, even the most basic laptop has the power to transform your vocals with just a few clicks. We’ve researched the most innovative vocal production techniques in contemporary productions and highlighted some of them below.
Charli XCX - 365
Call and response with vocal pitch and depth
Unless you’ve been living off-grid all summer, you’ll be aware of Charli XCX’s hit album Brat, which has reached household name status since its release in June. The album is an unapologetic crossover between Pop and Electronic music, and encompasses key characteristics of both genres. So it’s no surprise that innovative vocal production techniques are strewn throughout the project.
One such technique can be found throughout the album’s final track, 365. In it, Charli XCX employs a call-and-response technique whereby each line is responded to with the soundbite “I’m bumpin’ that”. While many examples of the technique involve the call element coming from one vocalist and the response coming from another, the response in 365 is a sample from another of her tracks from the same album, 360.
In 365, the vocal sample is pitched up and mixed to sound further away than the lead vocal. This not only emphasises the effect of the call-and-response, but helps to create a sense of depth in the track too.
Billie Eilish - Therefore I Am
Layering quiet vocals to make them sound larger-than-life
Next up is a technique from Billie Eilish and her brother and producer, Finneas. You’ll find this approach to vocal production on many of Eilish’s tracks, but it is perhaps most effective on her 2021 track, Therefore I Am.
Eilish is known for her unique vocals which she practically whispers into the microphone. While this creates a real sense of intimacy in her music, a considerable amount of production goes into giving her vocals the immersion and impact required to compete with other contemporary pop productions.
In the video above, Finneas details how they used hard-panned vocal doubles and up to six layers of harmonisation to create the unique vocal heard in the final track. When layering multiple vocal recordings, each take’s volume, pitch, timing and timbre vary greatly. This gives the vocal more of a human feel, and when combined with hard panning, really immerses the listener.
Finneas also explains that Billie delivered her vocal directly into a Neumann microphone she was holding. Holding a microphone is many recording engineers’ worst nightmare due to picking up mouth and hand noises, and their Logic session shows the extent to which Finneas has had to chop and edit vocal takes to tackle these issues. While this unconventional recording method undoubtedly leads to more production work, ensuring your vocalist is comfortable can help to capture more natural and emotive recordings.
Disclosure - Higher Than Ever Before
Adjusting the vocal formant to reflect lyrical content
From one sibling duo to another, we’ll next look at Dislosure’s track Higher Than Ever Before from their 2023 album, Alchemy. Since their wildly successful 2013 album, entitled Latch, the pair have remained at the forefront of modern Pop and Electronic music. It’s clear they’ve developed their sound in that time, and are keen to incorporate new and interesting techniques in their vocal production.
In their second appearance on the Tape Notes podcast, Guy demonstrates how he uses a pitch-shifting plugin to tie the production to the lyrical content. He does this by automating the Formant control in Soundtoys’ Little AlterBoy plugin, decreasing the formant value for negative vocals and increasing it for positive vocals.
While this might go unnoticed by many listeners, the effect sounds interesting in its own right, and arguably makes the overall production feel more cohesive when you consider the lyrical content. This concept could be applied to a range of effects beyond pitch formant, such as filters, reverb, distortion or a combination of the above.
Overmono - Walk Thru Water
Destructive vocal processing to add character and texture
The third and final pair of siblings we’ll be addressing in this article is the Welsh duo Overmono. More specifically, their 2023 track Walk Thru Water Feat. St Panther. Like the Eilishes’ microphone handling technique, many of the vocal production techniques used in this track could be considered unorthodox.
Generally speaking, many artists opt to put lead vocals at the front and centre of a mix, giving them complete clarity so that the lyrics are intelligible. In Walk Thru Water, the vocals are heavily processed to the point of being incomprehensible at times.
Pitch shifting, distortion, reverb, equalisation and volume automation are among the effects being applied. The result is that the vocals communicate their meaning through melody and texture as opposed to through their lyrical content alone. In that sense, this technique is comparable to Disclosure’s pitch formant automation technique discussed in the previous section.
Ariana Grande - Breathin
Using reversed vocals to hide secret messages
American Pop-sensation Ariana Grande has enjoyed global success thanks to her brand of highly accessible Pop music, which frequently crosses over into other territories including RnB and EDM. While her natural singing voice and vocal control need very little production to be considered radio-ready, Grande and her producers still regularly employ innovative production techniques in her work.
During the intro of her track Breathin, there’s a very faint but deep male voice saying something that can’t be interpreted. To the casual listener, the vocal is nothing more than a sample used for sonic effect, but die-hard Ariana fans quickly realised that reversing the introduction reveals a hidden message.
Although the vocal is still faint and relatively difficult to comprehend, when reversed, it supposedly reads “Tonight is your special night, do something magical.” Although this hasn’t been confirmed by Grande herself, we’ve checked it in our DAW and to our ears, it stacks up. Like some of the other examples in this article, the intelligibility of the vocal isn’t important. Instead, the vocal’s deeper meaning and context is what matters when deciding to use it in the composition.
A. G. Cook - Serenade
Turning vocal breaths into a rhythmic texture with delay
The final technique we’re discussing today comes courtesy of British artist and producer A. G. Cook, who also happened to co-produce the first track we discussed in this article, along with much of Charli XCX’s album Brat.
Traditionally, music producers and engineers try to remove particularly distracting breath sounds from vocals in order to make them sound more pleasing. In his solo appearance on the Tape Note podcast, A. G. Cook demonstrates how he goes against the grain by repurposing and even emphasising his breath sounds.
First, he uses Logic Pro to isolate the breaths onto a dedicated track, adding some stereo delay to give them a greater sense of width. Then in the second verse, he applies a synced delay to the breaths so that they complement the rhythm and density of the track’s drums. The result is that the second verse is made to feel more energetic and dense in a natural and subtle way.
Applying These Vocal Processing Techniques Yourself
If you’re a vocalist or mix engineer, some of these unique vocal production tricks have hopefully provided some inspiration for your next recording session. Or perhaps you’re more producer than vocalist, and you’re looking for high-quality acapellas of your favourite music. In which case, you can use a stem-splitting tool like LALAL.AI to extract each part of a track, including vocals, ready to sample in your next project.
