Naturally WIDE Vocals (Pearl Jam, Jimi Hendrix etc..)

[KNM]

I'm ok at getting the eq right.
Compression seems pretty good too.

But, if you listen to (say) Pearl Jam's 'Rear View Mirror' (Versus album?) or Jimi Hendrix's 'All Along the Watchtower' the vocals sound wide and big. Of course the gear was great, but we know gear isn't everything. So, how did the engineers achieve such a wide vocal sound? Did they use multiple tracks of the same vocal track and spread them accross the mix? What other tricks did they use?

Listen to the Beatles 'And Your Bird Can Sing' the vocal sounds wide there too. I am pretty sure this was achieved by panning 2 vocal tracks - one hard left and the other far right. The LHS vocal is much softer than the RHS vocal. Plus, the RHS vocal is pushed forward (around 30 miliseconds). This gives an illusion of the vocal being bigger. It's a great trick - try it!

I'm now after a more natural sounding wider vocal sound. But, I just need a few suggestions.

Thanks PT bros (and sisters!).

[The Dougfather]

In Hendrix theres definitely a doubling delay effect, you need to concentrate with your cans on to really here it.

To get that wide sound create a stereo aux track on a bus and adjust the send fader to taste from your vocal track to the bus, experiment with reverbs, delays and other effects till you find what you want. Really important to use a send and not put the plugs on your vocal tracks as inserts.

I'm a big fan of delay in to reverb, but hey....that's just me.

[deltasigma]

Here is an old, but good article on stereo widening techniques.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct0.../stereomix.htm

D

[KNM]

That seems like a great article. I will give it a try.. KNM