Breathy, H-Sound Vocal Effect Heard on Halsey and Ellie Goulding Songs

How to do this, that and the other. Share, learn, teach. How did X do that? How can I sound like Y?
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

At first, I thought these singers had bizarre voices, but I now recognize what I'm hearing in the following songs is processed:

Halsey (time stamp not working--she comes in at 1:14): Halsey: https://youtu.be/56WBK4ZK_cw?t=94

Ellie Goulding (6 seconds in): https://youtu.be/Rr7sv1amNbw?t=4

To me, it has a sound as if the singer is whispering at the back of her throat while singing, or maybe it's like an arabic H (like in Hassan, if you've ever heard it).

What technique/effect is used here? Many thanks for any information.
Doing nothing is only fun when you have something you are supposed to do.

Post

Howdy, here's a big wild guess.
Singer is singing into a decent condenser mic, vocal track processed with an exciter, and then Youtube encoding causing weird phasey artifacts on top of that!
For the non-youtube mucked up version [or just a different context] listen to anything by Mariah Carey for that well recorded vocal processed through an exciter/enhancer sound. She's the stereotype.

Post

Thank you. I hear the same effect when I hear the songs on the radio. Some other singers have had it, too. I'm mostly curious what it is.
Doing nothing is only fun when you have something you are supposed to do.

Post

Might be something like Blue Lab Air: https://bluelab-plugs.com/?product=air

"The Air plugin separates the harmonic content and the noise content of a sound and remixes them. The harmonic content consists in pure frequencies, which define for example the pitch of a sound. The noise content is for example the breath in a singing voice or the transients. The Air plugin can be used for example to extract and increase the air of a vocal sound."
Doing nothing is only fun when you have something you are supposed to do.

Post

Ellie has obvious modulation, likely a phase shifter at a very low mix rate. But the sound you are describing may just be the whisper track that is mixed in and synced to the original track (Revoice vst). Common to overdub a whisper track, can bring the vocals out without having to over process, it doesn't mess with the tone, but also adds some intimacy unless using a lot of reverb. Use like parallel compression, add just enough to add a presence to the vocal but not call attention to itself.

Post Reply

Return to “Production Techniques”