hey chris lippe here with the isolated vocals from helter skelter the beatles paul mccartney
this is an aggressive performance by paul and it's an amazing display of range dynamics grit
and also from a production standpoint the way that the uh slap delay reverb effect is brought
in and out coupled with his dynamic approach it's really fun to study this the main thing
that i pull away from these iso tracks is the way he leans into certain notes and phrases and then
at the end of phrases sometimes he'll he'll cut back also how just incredibly free he is you can
hear all sorts of sounds in the background you can hear him snapping fingers and doing these little
uh aside things with his voice which i have put in my own voice in my own practices when recording
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are made aware of when i post a new video well stop panic done i'm gonna go for a ride now
we're gonna talk about saturation and how you know back even when they were recording here
the multiple points of of saturation meaning where the sound was kind of pushed to the limits creates
this nice even waveform and allows him to really dig into the mic and be less engaged in the mic
and it still sounds great no matter what he's very free with his dynamics because of the signal chain
we'll go over that more here in a minute but you can hear it right here done i'm
gonna go for a ride just a little bit of that breakup at the top there that tape saturation
now you can hear that slap echo reverb thing
grow it's not there here go for a ride till i get to the bottom and i see you again
yeah yeah by the time he gets to that so don't see you again
and then he does that little thing he's really kind of drenched in that slap
reverb thing let's see how one might recreate something similar
the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to awaken a level of saturation on my chain hey
hey hey it just got a little bit more in my face i'm using the shep's omni channel got a little
bit of saturation there i'm compressing quite a bit and uh you know i'm really letting this
meter be pegged that's fine this is in addition to me going in to my manly core reference channel
strip and it's got some limiting uh and a tube compressor on there as well so we are saturating
and compressing on the way into the daw we're saturating and compressing a little bit more here
and then i am adding another bit of we'll call this well now we're hitting tape of tape tape
saturation this is a phoenix 2 tape emulation plug-in this is similar to what would have
happened in the old days where we've got a not transparent front-end mixing board that introduces
a bit of saturation in the form of this right here and then we hit tape we've got it saturated again
and so when i when i start digging in to this sound i see you again
you can hear as my voice gets more
intense that sound it it like gives it a hug and warms it up it's a really neat sound you couple
that with this way that they're bringing in that reverb delay mix here's what i've got for that
first test test got a little bit of reverb now the reverb that i'm hearing on this recording
is not a stereo reverb uh and i should i should narrow that just a little bit
test test test test test test there we go there's a little bit of reverb
on the main vocal and then that's brought in simultaneously with test
listen carefully well a b a little to the bottom to the bottom to the bottom and i see you
we've got an echo boy junior and we've got it set to a narrow mode and we've got it set
up as a slap echo and i have it on the cheap tape setting and i'm limiting the bandwidth
both here as well as with an eq but i'm bringing up the harshness of it just a little bit ah again
and then i'm reverbing this is also mono i'm reverbing the eq delay and you'll see
and hear how this is brought in uh over and over again and it's also brought out over and
over again over certain parts so be listening for that as we go on now that we've laid this
foundation now pay careful attention to this next phrase but do you don't you want me to love you
listen to want me to love you want me to love you want me to love you
i'm exaggerating that but he really backs off he gets to this climax here do you don't you
want me to love you do you don't you want me to love you he ends in head voice you you you
do you don't you want me to love you it's very clean
he cuts it off sooner than i am do you don't you want me to love you
next phrase coming down fast by the miles above you miles above cleans it up at the ends of those
phrases it's really cool it's not miles above you he's very intentional about those arcs over those
phrases coming down fast by the miles above you coming down fast but i'm miles above you
miles above you clean clean ends of the phrases wet right there they they bring
in that reverb again and and delay slap well you may be a lover but you know dancer hey
listen to how the delay is there held the scandal
held the scale down dry there is still fun i never really noticed that before
now you really start to hear and you hear it here too listen to the in-betweens
you hear him going you can hear him
snapping
there's this sense of like re-grounding and reacquainting himself with his voice he's he's
centering himself on that pitch but it's vibey too at the same time i do the same sort of thing even
before i knew that guys like him did it it's a way to kind of collect yourself and stay in the groove
even over these sort of call and answer type lines sometimes you can get lost if
you don't ground yourself but you can hear i mean you can hear him getting into it
and you can hear him concentrating this is a form of concentration
i'm coming down fast but i'm miles above you
tell me now here listen here
hello
just having a good old time in the background you can hear him
exuding glee and then taking a breath right
held the skeleton the helter skelter
this is important to pay attention to you might not think so upon first listen
but this shares with you his attitude as he's recording in his vibe more so
than what you actually hear prominently in the recording
you get this visual picture of how into it he is and how free he is we'll hear more of that
shaking a cowbell or putting change in a cowbell
listen to how dry these background vocals are in comparison to
this particular passage on that delay reverb
coming down thing you can hear that that effect really uh prominently come out here very dry
and listen to how he goes in between his head voice and chest voice here
you made you made me a lover but you ain't know
you made me a lover but you ain't no dancer it's not a good idea to try to imitate
you know actual note because he's he's being very free here but if we can get this sort of oh you
made me a lover made me a lover be really worried be a really worried lover but you ain't no dancer
and then bring it back in be really loose and floppy and and then reign it in listen to what
he does on densa dance like right on dance he leans into it and then pulls back dancer dancer
this is a key line here but you made me a lover but you ain't no dancer but you made
me a lover but you ain't no dancer it's all over the place because he's so giddy into it
where he's like going back and forth on the mic so much and remembered that he needed
to sing and leaned into the mic again you can hear that proximity effect there
nice head voice and you know gritty sort of
i never realized how dry those were i i guess they are but that contrast of that
that effect that they have on his voice that they bring in and out coupled with these
the the different placements and environments that those vocals are put in is interesting
it's neat how he gets way more over the top here
and i like how he he cracks into his head resonance there where he's going to the
he's got that access to his higher head voice
listen carefully here this is a neat articulation
i'm still maintaining that aggression and that grit
that's that's compression false chord compression
here dynamically he's not backing off anymore right want me to make you
as opposed to the beginning want me to make you
want me to make you want me to make you very different don't let me break you
such a cool transition don't let me break you or is it is he is he big on you let's break you
these kinds of things are really fun to play with where can you adjust this really lean
into the don't let me break and then yeah is that gonna be a clean chesty reach yeah
down to head voice don't let me break it
is it gonna be a pure head voice don't let me break you
is it going to be are you going to try pushing you don't let me break you
back off in different places be able to do all of those things
intentionally think about those lines he wasn't thinking
so detailed like we are during the performance but i guarantee you with all of that practicing
he has become so confident with the way he can go in and out of resonances he's able to call these
up on command and be loose and have a party while he's recording and summon all these muscle memory
experiences
just these head voice shrieks they sound a little bit thicker than he's not just going on look out
he's engaging some compression while he's up there it sounds like a heady mix
and then coupled with that effect it's pretty special
you have that grip there
i like how he gets a real like note in there that time he's intentionally hitting that pitch
it's coming down fast yeah fast yes cheers you can hear him connect his chest voice
there really neatly too dries it up yes cheers stairs those letdowns chris cornell i guarantee
you he pulled that in part from paul mccartney that let down after a nice aggressive note
say any word right love
those are fun to practice as well and paul mccartney is great at those yes she is
coming down fast
you can tell he really lengthened up lengthened up lengthened out
you know he's all right here yeah
you can see his body language and his face changing there
so much fun this was a great one to go through so much nuance in the recording in paul's
performance absolutely incredible pay attention to these nuances as possibilities in your own
voice as you pull things out of these isolated recordings and there aren't many better ones
than this one helter skelter by the beatles again if you'd like to take your voice further
and you'd like my help if you'd like to take your recording further and you'd like my help
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other tracks you'd like me to try to find isolated recordings of we'll see you for more