I’d like to hear a scientific explanation of this!
[Example song](https://youtu.be/C7HP9Xkim9o)
I have a few questions about this.
I was once told that it’s because multiple vocals of this era were done live through a single mic (rather than overdubbed one at a time), and the layers of harmonies disturb the hair in such a way that it causes this quality. Is this the case? If it is, what exactly is the “disturbance”? Are there other factors, such as the equipment used, the mix of the recording, added reverb, etc?
EDIT: uhhhh well I didn’t expect this to blow up like it did. Thanks for everyone who commented, and thanks for the gold!
In: Physics
Some of it is the mixing/mastering. [this “Twenty Thousand Hertz” episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/twenty-thousand-hertz/id1171270672?i=1000450841062) and the following episode covers the differences in modern mixing/mastering, versus mixing/mastering in previous decades.
Some of it is that songs used to be recorded in a single session in a big group, yeah. There are differences in the way they were recorded, and the ways that it’s been mastered make a big difference. Same with the size and acoustics of the studio in which it was recorded.
I think it is just a style of harmonizing. These things go in and out of fashion over the years. It just so happens that CSN and S&G were active at the same time.
I’m sure there are modern groups that sing this way from time to time.
They loved doubling up vocals back then, as in you have the same vocal track repeated a fraction of a second later. John Lennon is doubled up on nearly all of his songs. They’d do this with harmonies as well – each vocal onto a single track and then doubled up. That’s a lot of vocal going on at once, with sounds overlapping and interfering with each other, giving it that swirling shimmery sound.
What I also notice about the example you posted is that every vocal harmony is at a similar level, as if you’re listening to a group of singers in a room. Modern music tends to go with the lead vocalist pushed to front, and backing singers for the harmonies, pushed further back in the mix.
Any kind of commercial music is competing in a kind of arms race of sound, attempting to stand out. Producers come up with a trick that makes their song sound bigger, then pretty soon everyone’s doing it. Vocal doubling was one of those tricks. As we move into the 80s, the backing track becomes more of a focus. There’s only so much you can do with vocals, but instruments and production techniques are changing all the time.
A lot of harmonies today are auto-tuned and represent only 1 – 3 voices. I sing in a church choir of 20 voices and we still sound like your “old fashioned” example. I think it is the fact that different singers’ voices have different timbre – different tone and a different mix of overtones / undertones – and that a larger number of voices has a more full and interesting mix of harmonics.
Overdubbing was common even in this era; in fact, the effect here is produced by multitracking, a form of overdubbing in which multiple takes of the same part by the same vocalist(s) are overlaid and bounced to a new track. What you were told about acoustic disturbance isn’t totally inaccurate, as the perceived effect itself comes from the constructive & destructive interference of the overlaid waveforms, but this doesn’t require that they interact in the air, which you can test for yourself just by graphing any two simple waveforms and then graphing their sum. The same waveform summed with itself will produce the same waveform but with twice the amplitude/volume (1+1=2 (constructive)), while a waveform summed with its inverse will produce silence (-1+1=0 (destructive)). Where no two takes of a part will ever be identical, the multiple waveforms interact with one another in such a way as to create a complex pattern of interference, reinforcing & attenuating certain frequencies in a non-fixed way, which we perceive as this ‘airy’ quality you describe, and which cannot be produced quite the same just by processing the signal with a unison or chorus effect as is common today.
Check out a documentary called The Harmony Game. In it, the producer of many Simon and Garfunkel classics details his vocal recording and mixing style which basically amounts to having each vocal recorded and doubled individually and then both vocals on one mic giving the mixer several tracks to pan and balance.
Do you really want airy music from Pitbull?
Part of it might have to do with the loudness war and songs being mastered for shitty audio gear now days. The loudness war is artist wanting their music to be mastered louder and louder, which results in less fidelity in the song because its all kinda jammed up there rather than using the full spectrum.
Modern compression and limiting techniques also tend to kill any sense of natural ambience in music.
If we REALLY want a deep dive into this, the proliferation of digital effects has reshaped sound quality as well. As good as digital reverbs can be, IMO they are still no match for dedicated reverb rooms and huge, real, plate reverbs.
Dude. Seriously. These people don’t know what they are talking about. CSN sounds incredible, not because of any recording tricks, it’s because they are incredible together. That’s how and why they got together.
Latest Answers