Does anyone know how to merge vocals in audacity?

[girlbrony 5]

Hi! 

Me and a few friends got together and did an english version of a song that required 9 voices, however when it came to putting them all together, it sounds awful on the parts where everyone sings (not at the fault of the singers XD), so I wondered if there was any way around this?

[SkullcandyPegasus 603]

"sounds awful" could imply allot of things, but I'll try to address the most common issues here:

 

Clipping: if all the voices play at maximum volume, the overall volume will be louder than maximum. Think of it this way: if a speaker could play at levels 1-10 and you played 9 speakers simultaneously at level 10, the overall volume would be greater than 10. On a non 32 bit recording (99% of recordings), this leads to clipping which is a type of distortion.

 

Equalization: if all voices resonate at similar frequencies, the resulting sound will be muddy. The solution is to reduce the volume of lower resonances on some voices, and reduce the volume of higher resonances on others.

 

Rhythm: I'm assuming pitch isn't the issue, but if the rhythms aren't aligned correctly, the resulting sound will be discordian (aka. chaotic). look at the transients (the loud peak caused by a consonant) and be sure they are at least approximately aligned. You may wish to look at multiple transients and approximate a time which best suits all chosen points.

 

As a last resort, remove one layer at a time until the recording is reasonably pleasant. Then, rerecord the voices you removed checking for quality after each recording.

 

Also, a touch of reverb (*very* light reverb) can brighten your recording. However, I don't believe reverb alone would solve this.

 

Best of luck! /)

Edited June 25, 2015 by SkullcandyPegasus

[girlbrony 5]

"sounds awful" could imply allot of things, but I'll try to address the most common issues here:

 

Clipping: if all the voices play at maximum volume, the overall volume will be louder than maximum. Think of it this way: if a speaker could play at levels 1-10 and you played 9 speakers simultaneously at level 10, the overall volume would be greater than 10. On a non 32 bit recording (99% of recordings), this leads to clipping which is a type of distortion.

 

Equalization: if all voices resonate at similar frequencies, the resulting sound will be muddy. The solution is to reduce the volume of lower resonances on some voices, and reduce the volume of higher resonances on others.

 

Rhythm: I'm assuming pitch isn't the issue, but if the rhythms aren't aligned correctly, the resulting sound will be discordian (aka. chaotic). look at the transients (the loud peak caused by a consonant) and be sure they are at least approximately aligned. You may wish to look at multiple transients and approximate a time which best suits all chosen points.

 

As a last resort, remove one layer at a time until the recording is reasonably pleasant. Then, rerecord the voices you removed checking for quality after each recording.

 

Also, a touch of reverb (*very* light reverb) can brighten your recording. However, I don't believe reverb alone would solve this.

 

Best of luck! /)

Thank you very much! As you might be able to tell, I don't really know what I'm doing, so this was a big help! (/

Edited June 25, 2015 by girlbrony