One of the main reasons I got into recording audio was frustration that none of my friends seemed to know what harmonies were – even if they could sing quite well. So I decided the only way to sing cool harmonies was to do it with myself. I had an old cassette tape recorder with a tiny crappy mic on it. And my brother had a boom-box that could play cassette tapes. This was long before the days of portable CD players, and certainly long, LONG before the advent of mp3 players.
So I sand the melody of This Boy, by the Beatles, onto my tape recorder. Then I ejected the tape and put it into my brother’s boom box, placing a new cassette tape into my tape recorder. Then I played back the part I just sang from the boom box, recording it onto my recorder while singing George’s harmony. Then I took THAT tape out of my recorder, stuck it into the boom box, and put the other tape back into the recorder and pressed “play” on the boom box while recording it onto my recorder and singing Paul’s part. Voila! 3-part harmony with myself. It was like magic – pure, hissy (boy was there a lot of tape hiss noise!) vocal harmony magic.
Well, I messed with all the technology through the years and in 2013, we have wonderfully quiet, high-quality recording tech at our fingertips for just a few bucks. I’ve been doing harmony with that tech on this site. Below are some of the examples of what you can do now.
Our courses – The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 1: The Basics With Audacity, and The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 2: Pro Recording With Reaper, both show you step-by-step how to sing harmony with yourself. Also, see the article whose link is at the bottom of the page with one of the first articles we ever published – Sing Harmony With Yourself – Learn How to Record Your Voice on Your PC and Sing Along With It!
I have been having a very hard time getting my vocal harmonies correct. Most especially Wayward Son. I need to sing either the 1/5 above the melody or lower. We do the song in A#.
Could you post the parts in Wayward son separately so that I could use them as a guide? We are a group of semi retired people who have been together, in one incarnation or the other since 1968! I am one of the newet members, although I have been around them off and on for all that time. This is supposed to be for fun, but this song is becoming no fun, fast. I would so appreciate it if you could. Tx
Denise,
I will do that. But I’m going to be super busy with my new album for the next few weeks at least. So it might be a few weeks. But I will get to it. If I don’t, ping me with a reminder.
Cheers,
Ken
Excellent work, Ken. You have done what I’ve been looking for – record separate tracks for harmonies. If I can hear it, I can eventually sing it. I’m like a myna bird. Please continue with your endeavors here, there’s a lot of people who appreciate it and are learning from it.
Thanks! I appreciate that! and I fully intend to continue on. Lots of exciting things coming soon:).