Authoring Harmonies
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So I’ve finally started making headway with charting vocals by ear and not just with a midi. With the help of GreenPanda, I feel like I’m getting even better at checking and listening for the right pitch. Harmoines themselves however, are still the biggest pain. Do people have some ways to help make them stand out more to be able to chart them easier?
I always look up the key of the song, or find it using notes you know the main part sings and putting them into this website:
Then you have basically all the notes that the song should be in if the artist stays in key. The reaper piano roll has a great function at the bottom to make it so you can only input notes of a certain key. Then try moving the note up and down in common intervals: thirds, fourths, fifths, and octaves. It does take a little bit of musical knowledge but with the piano roll key feature, it shouldn’t be that difficult.
Make sure you know the key of the song. Without stems or sheets (which for vocals will not be always accurate anyways) it’s really hard to be perfect. Thus, use some music theory to keep yourself where you should be.
At most you should have 3 voices (at least what Rock Band allows), so always try to think of 1sts, 3rds, 5ths, and rarely octaves. I highly advise turning on Reapers Scale option at the bottom as the other person suggested! I’m going to give a very brief* summation with examples of some music theory here.
Let’s use D as an example. The scale for D Major is:
D E F# G A B C# D
When I was talking about 1st, 3rds, 5ths, and octaves… I’m basically picturing a standard chord using the root note you are on, the 3rd note above it, and the 5th (with the root counting as the 1st. Thus, a standard D chord would be D F# A (1, 3, 5). What this means for vocals now…
Let’s say the main singer is singing a D and there are harmonies around it. Most likely****, the other notes will fall on either the 3 (F#) or the 5 (A). Also possibly the 1st (D), while rarely but possibly a whole octave (so whatever D you were on you’d go to either the next D above or below). From here, you need to use your ear to try and figure it out. Pick out if the harmonies are higher or lower, and then which note it might be. If the root was a D and there’s a higher harmony….. test (using the built-in toner) if the F# works for the Harm2 part. If not, try the A. One of those should* sound right. If not, try the octave, and then if not I would just pick the one that sounds closest.
Same works for lower. Say the Harm3 is singing a lower note. Using the main root of D… try the lower A first, and then the lower F#.
This works for any root in that chord. Say the singer is now singing a G. The 3rd and 5th for that would be B and D. The root of F# would have A and C. Only substantially tricky part is that they can be in any inversion. The chord might go D F# A… it might be F# A D… it might be A D F#.
This will never be prefect. Many chords exist that include the 2nds, 7ths, and anything basically. There are key changes, and lots of other variables. This should be a really helpful starting point… however. Good Luck!
Practice. It will get easier. The nice thing about harmonies usually is that they tend to repeat throughout the song. So find the part of the song where they are the clearest and then apply those notes to the rest of the song as a good place to start.
Another thing to always try is to use the vocal remover in Audacity. Sometimes it will leave behind the harmonies. Other filters and settings help too.
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