Audacity Forum

With great help from this forum last week I was able to add vocals to an instrumental. I am now trying to find out how to add harmonies. Not trying to make a prof track or anything. Do I need to add new vocal tracks over the first one or is there a tool to make this happen... or am I trying to do something that is not possible?

Thank you.

You can totally do this. You can do it manually with the overdubbing/multi-track tools...

http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/man ... rdubs.html

Or you can use software to "fill out" the music and make and make the vocals fuller and broader, but that's not strictly harmony. That's just clever management of echoes and delays.

The shortcoming of the overdubbing method is you need to actually be able to sing the harmonic parts. The up side is the ability to add minor thirds, sevenths, etc, as needed in the song. And redo it as many times as you can stand it.

I tried this technique earlier, but it turns out multiple layers of somebody who can't sing still doesn't come out music.

I'm looking for that software package.....

Koz

Here's one possibility.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 42&t=57770

Koz

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... ces#p29978
Koz

Thank you, I will read through all of that but I think it is beyond my capabilities lol looks hard but I will still read it all. Thank you again.

You can add the harmonies the same way you added vocals.

...or am I trying to do something that is not possible?

There's really no limit to the number of times that you can add to an audio file. You do have to be a bit careful with the levels (to prevent clipping/distortion), because the volume increases every time you add sound. But, as long as you normalize or adjust the volume for 0dB peaks or less before rendering (exporting) you'll have no problems.

You can always add (mix). But, you can't usually subtract (un-mix). Except for example, if you have the original unmixed vocal track, and you haven't adjust the level or otherwise altered it, you can invert it and mix it back-in to cancel/subtract it out. Of course if you have the original unmixed tracks, there's no reason to do that.

You might want to consider using more-advanced software... A DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) application would allow you to record many different tracks (at different times if you wish), and then mix all of the tracks at once, while adjusting the various levels (and other optional effects). If you try to add one track/layer at a time, you might get to the end and wish that the instruments or vocals were a bit louder or softer, and at that point you can only adjust the new track, or the already-mixed parts as a whole. I don't know of a free DAW, but REAPER is only $60 USD for hobby or small-business use.