Double tracking - natural sounding options?

[hotmitts]

Ok I'm recording acoustic guitar and vocals and trying to find a double tracking effect that sounds good (ie. natural type thing)
Personally I improvise a bit and have a fairly loose (wobbly) style, so recording parts on top isn't something I can always do.
Iv'e tried a few effects (waves, ADT, maybe some more demos) but they don't sound right to these ears IMHO.
I know the trick of nudging 2 of the same audio tracks by milliseconds...I guess I'd like to find something I could hear when I'm playing, and set up on a template track.
Anyone else have thoughts on this ?
One I haven't tried yet which I'm DLing tody to try later,is the Voxengo Spatifier
https://www.voxengo.com/product/spatifier/

[Watchful]

Well, you pretty much have 4 approaches.

1. Record yourself twice with a very rigid timing. Since you like the rubato style of playing, this might sound unnatural or forced to you.

2. Use the Haas effect, which you mention. Create a parallel track of the original. Pan one right, the other left (not too much), and put a 30ms delay on one of the two.

3. Use a software-based doubler; you are already testing a few, so no need to repeat your listing.

4. Record yourself once but use two mics on two different inputs. This can create a very natural stereo effect.

Alternatively you could experiment with parallel tracking. Create a send in your DAW, so that you double the track but instead put a different EQ on it, with very different settings. Shift the pan between the two slightly, or bring the parallel track down in output level. You thicken the sound in a very different and customizable way.

[andymcbain]

Have you tried https://www.sonnox.com/toolbox/voxdoubler ? Does a decent enough job for me - though admittedly my double tracks are usually mixed in pretty low.

[Ploki]

nothing really sounds as convincing as actual double tracking.

Eventide Microshift or something similar

[hotmitts]

...you could experiment with parallel tracking. Create a send in your DAW, so that you double the track but instead put a different EQ on it, with very different settings. Shift the pan between the two slightly, or bring the parallel track down in output level. You thicken the sound in a very different and customizable way.

Thanks Watchful for your help and informative post ( I had to look up Rubato haha, will try the parallel tracking later, it's a great idea.

Have you tried <span class="skimlinks-unlinked">https://www.sonnox.com/toolbox/voxdoubler</span> ? Does a decent enough job for me - though admittedly my double tracks are usually mixed in pretty low.

thanks andymcbain, I'll do the 15 day trial of this alongside the voxengo demo

nothing really sounds as convincing as actual double tracking.

Eventide Microshift or something similar

Thanks Ploki I'll look into it

[8Len8]

You really need to record twice. Effects will just get you something that doesn’t really emulate the random timing, tone and volume fluctuations of a true second performance.

[JerGoertz]

You could try Nembrini's Doubler. Sounds like it might be right up your alley, it's on sale right now for cheap too.

[seangm]

I have a few including the Waves one but my favorite for vocals is Valhalla Uber-Mod.

[donkey tugger]

Another method to try (and one which I've had the best results with) is using audio warping tools on a copy of the take to add deviations in timing. Melodyne has the add random deviations function;

https://helpcenter.celemony.com/assista ... l%20timing.

FL studio has Newtime which you can use to quantize audio to a lot of different groove templates, essentially giving the same effect;

https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-le ... ewtime.htm

I'm sure there are plenty of others.

If you use some of the other tricks above as well, invert the phase of one of the tracks, and/or shift the formant, you can get pretty serviceable results.

[Jafo]

Vacuumsound's ADT ("Artificial Double Tracking").

[jamcat]

Eventide H949

[Dormant]

There are amazing free DoubleTracker from VTarAmps. Simple and effective, suited specifically for guitars.

[briefcasemanx]

With the nudging 2 audio tracks trick you also need to adjust the pitch of the extra tracks up and down by cents in opposite directions.

[Watchful]

Yes, otherwise they'll phase or chorus.

[imrae]

To elaborate: nudging an exact copy of the track is just comb filtering, which is almost certainly not what OP wants.

To be honest my favourite technique in the "double-tracking" space is just a send to a good old-fashioned 16th-note grungy tape slapback. The trick to avoid a distracting artificial effect is not to mix it too high.

I'm not really sure what "natural-sounding" double-tracking would be anyway. The classic studio "thickening" effect of overdubs is not the real-world sound of multiple singers in unison.