How does bon iver record vocals

The combination of disorientating sonic weirdness, gorgeous melodies and crazy song titles proved enormously successful, both critically and commercially. Getting even weirder risked severing their connection with popular culture, while a more straight-up album might be considered a retreat. The follow-up album, I,I , released in August, provides the answer.

In many ways it is a return to more traditional songwriting, with longer tracks and more traditional song structures. With the novelty of the extreme production experimentation gone, reviews of I,I were slightly more mixed, while remaining overwhelmingly positive.

We simply went back into the studio after 22, A Million was released, and started messing around. We realised there was an opportunity for Justin to say something much more clearly than he has in the past, and to speak less abstractly. Those were conscious decisions. There are still places where his voice is messed up, but the effects are not as front and centre as before.

This resulted in a lot of musical soul-searching that continued during three years of sessions at April Base, his studio in Eau Claire. With I,I things were very different, recalls Messina. There was more focus on confidence with the new album.

That showed throughout the entire process of making I,I. We were very focused, and everything just made sense for the most part. It was always about the emotional impact. The next record could be even weirder than 22, A Million , or it could be Justin and a guitar. There are no rules, we simply go for what comes together and works. He first met Vernon when he worked for a live sound company called Eight Day Sound, based in Cleveland, and was a sound engineer for a Bon Iver tour.

The two became friends. The two studios and their live rooms ended up being totally tied together. Currently, the entire studio has been emptied for renovation; in anticipation of the renovations, we sold the Trident during the making of I,I and emptied the control room of Studio A. All the outboard from that studio started piling up in Studio B; it was totally nuts! Members of the live band regularly came in, as well as violinist and arranger Rob Moose — who also did the arrangements for the Worm Crew, a five-piece horn band plus harmonica player.

More than 30 other musicians are listed in the credits for I,I including luminaries like James Blake and Bruce Hornsby. The various musicians, engineers and producers present at April Base played their instruments and messed with the enormous amount of gear there.

Justin Vernon collaborated with her on the song exile from folklore and then again on her next album evermore. But it could also just be he recorded a 2nd harmony vocal track. But for sure, his vocals on evermore sound like his Prismizer Effect is on there the whole time. But they do offer similar functions. Fans notice a difference, but it does not sound robotic. Speaking of folklore, I actually compared it to evermore in a recent article.

The collaboration with Bon Iver is great, but what about the rest of the music? The article goes deep into what inspired the music and why she released them so close together. In another recent article , I discussed her work with The National.

I explained their connection as well as their role for folklore and evermore. However, he does use falsetto often. A strong falsetto is a great talent to have, but this does not mean this is the only way he sings.

This is something they are known for that has become a signature. This is not a bad thing as long as fans can accept when Justin does not use his falsetto. The other interesting thing about the use of the falsetto by Bon Iver is that he typically uses it for full songs. Most artists use the falsetto for parts of a song. Perhaps an adlib or a chorus.

This means it takes real pipes to maintain it for the duration of a song. This is part of the reason so many people associate him with the falsetto. Autotune is cheating if the primary goal is to correct notes that were sung off-pitch. A higher buffer setting will reduce CPU but will increase latency — which is not ideal. Step If you desire additional processing, such as reverb or delay, be sure to insert these effects on your output, not on your vocal or instrument channel.

Note that this may not be the exact method used by Bon Iver in his live performances, but it certainly results in the same signal processing and final sound. In addition to this setup, it may be possible that Bon Iver is using the Auto-tune Live plugin on his vocals — the reason I suspect this might be the case is when he briefly sings 3 tuned notes without pressing any keys. So if no notes are being played, no harmonies are generated. Midi Fx can be used to make the Prismizer Vocal Effect or any software instrument sound better and more natural.

Various Midi Effects work in a similar fashion as plugins except they process and alter how the incoming Midi data is received by the software instrument. As the name suggests, the Randomizer makes the incoming Midi data have a random velocity.

The Velocity ranges from 1 — , and represents how hard or intensely a note is hit — which the software instrument uses to determine the sample it should play. A higher velocity results in a louder sound, whereas a lower velocity results in a quieter sound. So for example, if the velocity of a note is and the software instrument used is a drum machine, then it will play a sample of a snare being hit with a fair amount of force.

If the velocity of a note is 20, then the software instrument will play a sample of a snare being struck gently. When using the Randomizer in conjunction with the Prismizer vocal effect, narrow the range of the velocities as a velocity of 0 may not be desired and choose the weighting that you feel is appropriate for your performance.

Simply put, the chord trigger uses one note to create a full chord. Using the presets , you can pick which types of chords are generated when you click on just one key of your Midi-controller.

If you find midi-controllers interesting, and think the idea of computer data affecting analog signals is fascinating, take a look at our blog post that covers a similar topic:. The Prismizer vocal effect is definitely a creative and unique way to affect your vocals and other instruments.

Although how to create the effect may have seemed convoluted or incapable of decoding, the actual set up is relatively simple. If you have a Midi-controller, an audio interface, a microphone and the Antares Harmony Engine Evo plugin used as a software instrument you can easily recreate this effect. It boils down to using your input or your vocal recording as a sidechain and then enabling midi control on the Harmony engine. When performing this effect, be sure to limit all additional processing to after the Harmony Engine affects your signal.

If you end up using this method, share your results and let us know how it worked for you! So Vernon challenged Messina to hardwire something that could. A few days after the Pioneer Works show, Chris Messina was on the phone; he was willing to offer a simplified version of what goes on with his machine. But Justin wanted to not only harmonize in real time, but also be able to do it with another person and another instrument.

The result is one thing sounding like a lot of things.