Sam Smith’s song, “Stay With Me,” is a huge hit in 2014. We were just watching a segment about him on CBS Sunday Morning and heard something fascinating. In the chorus of the song, the harmony makes it sound like Sam is being backed up by a full choir.
But it’s no choir! Sam actually recorded himself 40 times!
This Is Why I Learned Audio Recording
I talk about this kind of thing all the time. That’s because the ability to sing harmony with myself is why I got into audio recording in the first place. And it is easier than ever before for anyone to do it on their computer through a process called “overdubbing.”
You can do this with any software that allows you to do multi-track recording, even the free program, Audacity. In fact, the below video – an excerpt from our tutorial course, The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 1: The Basics With Audacity – shows you how to do overdubbing to sing harmony with yourself, even with no budget for gear (maybe $5.00 for a PC microphone to get started):
That demo was just 4 versions of you. If you want to do what Sam Smith did, it isn’t very hard at all. Just sing like him and sell millions of recordings;-). Oh, the harmony thing. Yes. All you need to do is to follow the instructions in the video…multiplied by 10!
In the interview, Sam said a lot of people think he hired a gospel choir to sing backup on the song. He said that actually upsets him a bit. “I want the credit,” he said with a smile.
[UPDATE]: Since I wrote this article, I have created an entire course dedicated to singing harmony with yourself – or other people too (if you must :)). the course is: Harmony Recording Awesomeness.
So now you, too, can go forth and overdub yourself into a choir.
For more information on singing harmony with yourself, see our page: Sing Harmony With Yourself – Learn How to Record Your Voice on Your PC and Sing Along With It!
And if you’d like some free videos from our course, Harmony Recording Awesomeness…
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