From: Jordan F. )

Hello -

People familiar with Seal's second album know that there is a
flange-type effect used on his voice throughtout the album, most
notably on "Bring it On." Can anyone tell me how that effect was
achieved? Or what effects box was used?


I'd love to know, too...

(Shorty Blackwell)

People familiar with Seal's second album know that there is a
flange-type effect used on his voice throughtout the album, most
notably on "Bring it On." Can anyone tell me how that effect was
achieved? Or what effects box was used?

Umm - I heard tell it was two mics side by side mixed and you're hearing
phase cancellation.


Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

"WillStG" wrote in message
...
(Shorty Blackwell)

People familiar with Seal's second album know that there is a
flange-type effect used on his voice throughtout the album, most
notably on "Bring it On." Can anyone tell me how that effect was
achieved? Or what effects box was used?

Umm - I heard tell it was two mics side by side mixed and you're
hearing
phase cancellation.


Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits


Seriously? That's interesting, I hadn't thought about ways beyond effects
boxes and good old timey reel flanging.

John L Rice

On 04 Dec 2003 23:08:58 GMT, ospam (WillStG) wrote:

(Shorty Blackwell)

People familiar with Seal's second album know that there is a
flange-type effect used on his voice throughtout the album, most
notably on "Bring it On." Can anyone tell me how that effect was
achieved? Or what effects box was used?

Umm - I heard tell it was two mics side by side mixed and you're hearing
phase cancellation.


He was playing with it while he sang? That would be cool, but it seems
unlikely. I think that you'd have to do some brutal things to mike #2
to let most of the original signal through. Back in the 70's two mikes
were used at big arenas to kill feedback - out of phase, just sing
into one of them. Cancellation with a pair is pretty thorough.

I'd give a vote that it may be simple doubling, mixed in lightly. He's
a good enough vocalist to pull that off as a distinct effect.



Kurt Riemann

"Kurt Riemann

Umm - I heard tell it was two mics side by side mixed and you're hearing
phase cancellation.

He was playing with it while he sang?

I heard somewhere that was how the effect was done, and it's easy enough
to automate faders... Haven't tried it myself though.


Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

Kurt Riemann wrote in message . ..
On 04 Dec 2003 23:08:58 GMT, ospam (WillStG) wrote:

(Shorty Blackwell)

People familiar with Seal's second album know that there is a
flange-type effect used on his voice throughtout the album, most
notably on "Bring it On." Can anyone tell me how that effect was
achieved? Or what effects box was used?

Umm - I heard tell it was two mics side by side mixed and you're hearing
phase cancellation.


He was playing with it while he sang? That would be cool, but it seems
unlikely. I think that you'd have to do some brutal things to mike #2
to let most of the original signal through. Back in the 70's two mikes
were used at big arenas to kill feedback - out of phase, just sing
into one of them. Cancellation with a pair is pretty thorough.

I'd give a vote that it may be simple doubling, mixed in lightly. He's
a good enough vocalist to pull that off as a distinct effect.



Kurt Riemann

WOW, that's REALLY interesting. I have this really old ELP video
(circa 1971) and Greg Lake has two mics on the stand for his vocal. I
had assumed one was for the audio feed to the video but then again I
noticed he mainly sang through one.

I have seen that same thing on other old clips of bands too.

I always assumed the second mic was for some kind of live taping, and
it didn't make sense they couldn't/didn't use splitters back then.

Analogeezer

(Analogeezer)

I have this really old ELP video
(circa 1971) and Greg Lake has two mics on the stand for his vocal. I
had assumed one was for the audio feed to the video but then again I
noticed he mainly sang through one.

Lot of photos of the Dead with the double mics setups too. But I didn't
hear that Seal had the mics out of phase for the effect, I assumed it was
normal phase cancellation between mics placed less than optimally.

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

IIRC, Jim Morrison used 2 mics when doing "Strange Days" (at least live).
One was clean, the other routed through effects.

(Analogeezer) writes:

WOW, that's REALLY interesting. I have this really old ELP video
(circa 1971) and Greg Lake has two mics on the stand for his vocal. I
had assumed one was for the audio feed to the video but then again I
noticed he mainly sang through one.

I have seen that same thing on other old clips of bands too.

I always assumed the second mic was for some kind of live taping, and
it didn't make sense they couldn't/didn't use splitters back then.

"Shorty Blackwell" wrote in message
om...
From: Jordan F. )

Hello -

People familiar with Seal's second album know that there is a
flange-type effect used on his voice throughtout the album, most
notably on "Bring it On." Can anyone tell me how that effect was
achieved? Or what effects box was used?


I'd love to know, too...

I read somewhere about the making of this album, and I'm reasonably sure it
was this track where the vocals were recorded in Seal's bathroom, and it was
just a scratch take they put down for the demo but they liked the
performance so much and couldn't get anything better on subsequenct vocal
sessions so they decided to keep it.

The reason that the vox are effected is that the audio wasn't particularly
clean and the vocal was distorted in places, so they had to process it a
little to make it sound a bit more unreal than they normally would, to
disguise the dodgy recording.

Great track though, and as ever I'm a fan of Mr Horn's production...

Ben Hall
www.benhall.co.uk

In article ,
WillStG wrote:
(Analogeezer)

I have this really old ELP video
(circa 1971) and Greg Lake has two mics on the stand for his vocal. I
had assumed one was for the audio feed to the video but then again I
noticed he mainly sang through one.

Lot of photos of the Dead with the double mics setups too. But I didn't
hear that Seal had the mics out of phase for the effect, I assumed it was
normal phase cancellation between mics placed less than optimally.

The Dead were doing that with the Wall of Sound, which was a huge speaker
array behind the stage which was supposed to produce a planar wave. This
being the case, dual microphones were used on stage so that sound from
directly in front of the microphone would be cancelled out. This resulted
in vocals that sounded like they were coming through a telephone, but the
better speaker response meant it was still an overall win (and at the time
all the instruments were running through various direct and stage box systems
so they were not affected).

This is no relation to all the systems back there that used two microphones,
one for recording and one for reinforcement, because splitters were rare
esoterica. Those were usually a lot sloppier looking...
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I have this really old ELP video
(circa 1971) and Greg Lake has two mics on the stand for his vocal. I
had assumed one was for the audio feed to the video but then again I
noticed he mainly sang through one.

I saw them back then, and, as I recall, that particular second mic went to a
vocoder.

stv

(Analogeezer) writes:
I have seen that same thing on other old clips of bands too.

Led Zepplins Robert Plant is using two mics in the new DVD set. I don't
remember witch bit it was in but I do remember seeing two mics in his hand.

TC Electronic 1210 Spatial Expander + Stereo Chorus/Flanger.

That's what I heard.


"Shorty Blackwell" wrote in message
om...
From: Jordan F. )

Hello -

People familiar with Seal's second album know that there is a
flange-type effect used on his voice throughtout the album, most
notably on "Bring it On." Can anyone tell me how that effect was
achieved? Or what effects box was used?


I'd love to know, too...