Nectar - A question about using Harmonies (called Voices in v.4)

[Roger W]

I'm just starting to use Nectar . . . I have v4, but what works in  some older versions would probably work in 4.

I've got a typical song with verse, chorus and bridge sections.
What I'm trying to do is put different harmonies on each section.
I can think of ways to do that, but those ways are neither simple or efficient.

Can anyone suggest a good way to do this?

Something else . . . .

I can select a harmony, and it sounds mostly good throughout a song. But there are a few places where it's unharmonic.
Is it possible to keep a selected harmony, but insert a correction here and there?

 

Thanks!

Edited December 6, 2023 by Roger W

[Roger W]

Through experimentation, I've learned that it's possible to automate Nectar  harmonies.

It looks like it will do what I want . . . but due to my lack of understanding of music theory, I'm going to have to do a bit more learning before I can implement it.
Time to read the manual . . . . ?

[mettelus]

Be careful with using automatic harmonies because your real intent is to make a melody better fit the active chord in the chord progression. With common things like a B note sung over a GMaj chord (G,B,D), you do not want to blindly use 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. (on that B note), because the note (even if the harmonizer locks to a GMaj song key) can easily fall outside of the underlying chord intent. In the case of a sung B over a GMaj chord, the D (or 3rd if locked to song key) is often the better choice, but only for that particular combination, not blindly all the way through. You've already found out that the interval being static doesn't quite work through an entire piece.

Sometimes it is simpler to use an instrument track (pad or strings) to noodle out harmonies like a parallel melody, and be deliberate about it. Then you are doing something very intentional to make the result fit than try to figure out "automation" of something you are not sure what it is really doing. It also forces you into the "parallel melody" mindset... what should that second person actually be singing?

Edited December 7, 2023 by mettelus

[Roger W]

1 hour ago, mettelus said:

Be careful with using automatic harmonies because your real intent is to make a melody better fit the active chord in the chord progression. With common things like a B note sung over a GMaj chord (G,B,D), you do not want to blindly use 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. (on that B note), because the note (even if the harmonizer locks to scale) can easily fall outside of the underlying chord intent. In the case of a sung B over a GMaj chord, the D (or 3rd if locked to scale) is often the better choice, but only for that particular combination, not blindly all the way through. You've already found out that the interval being static doesn't quite work through an entire piece.

Sometimes it is simpler to use an instrument track (pad or strings) to noodle out harmonies like a parallel melody, and be deliberate about it. Then you are doing something very intentional to make the result fit than try to figure out "automation" of something you are not sure what it is really doing. It also forces you into the "parallel melody" mindset... what should that second person actually be singing?

Thanks for your pointers ?

Some people may think that auto-harmonies are not worth using because the sound is robotic.
And it's true that the Nectar harmonies soloed do not sound highly realistic. However, when they are positioned in the background and not too loud -- and doing this is highly customizable in Nectar -- they do sound quite good - I dare say adequate even for "pro" usage. In an application like Simon & Garfunkle, where the two singers are equally prominent, the Nectar harmonies would not be adequate. But when used in the right way, these harmonies really add something positive to the vocals of a song.

When I said "automate Nectar harmonies" in my initial post, I should have said, "apply automation to Nectar harmonies".
The way they have it set up, it's possible to create automation "lines" in Cakewalk . . . just like you would use automation to increase volume in one phrase of the vocal, but leave the rest of the vocal at normal volume.

So for example, I can draw an automation line that bypasses the Nectar harmonies on the verses, but enables them on the choruses.  Or, even cooler, if I put an "automated" Nectar harmony on large sections of a song, but part of a word sounds "off" when a chord changes, I can draw in automation that will give me a good sounding harmony note. Or, at least I think I can . . . .

Here is a list of the choices in the types of automation for Nectar harmonies. I've put in comments what I think some of these mean, but would appreciate feedback if I'm wrong. I haven't experimented much, and doing that will probably make things more clear for me. (I was unable to find out anything about these Automation settings in the Nectar 4 manual.)

• Harmony Bypass -- bypasses all harmonies
• Wet Mix  --  Set the amount of wet signal
• V1 Enable --  Turn on/off Voice 1 harmony.      Well, they've got Mute below. What's the difference between Muting  and dis-Abling?  Seems duplicative.
• V4 Enable --  Turn on Voice 4 harmony.        Why did they skip V2 and V3 Enable?
• V1 Maj/Min Int -- Not sure about this. Does it mean being able to set the harmony using any of the scale tones?
• V2 Maj/Min Int
• V1 Chrom Int  -- Not sure about this. Does it mean being able to set the harmony using any of the 12 tones?
• V2 Chrom Int
• V1 Mute- -  Mute  Voice 1 harmony
• V2 Mute --  Mute Voice 2 harmony
• V4 Mute --  Mute Voice 4 harmony.  Why is V3 left out.
• Global Bypass -- bypasses all Nectar effects

By the way, the automation for the Nectar Voice has it's own section, with several additional parameters that can be automated.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Roger W

[mettelus]

No worries, it was really more to point out the importance of the music theory behind what the harmonies are "doing" and often the "why" is more important. I had someone asking me about harmonies who was fascinated by them but knew no music theory, so rather than try to explain with words (I actually took a shot at this, but was excruciating), I sent her a video dissecting "Seven Bridges Road," which is a good example and did that with Melodyne to visually show what I was talking about. The chord progression is DMaj, CMaj, GMaj, but if you sung it solo, the most prominent notes are D, C, B.... but all of the notes sung by all of the singers fit perfectly on the DMaj, CMaj, and GMaj chords. My point was really to be deliberate about harmonies, so that they match the song.

A side note I thought of after the first post was that old guitar pedals had "harmonizers" that just blindly followed the note played (no song key capability), so they sounded cool solo, but didn't work in a song unless you only played notes that had harmonies that also hit the song key (or if you got lucky).

[Roger W]

deleted post

Edited December 13, 2023 by Roger W

[Ricebug]

I've attached the sheet music and a transcribed MIDI file for this song. Don't know if you could use it.

I did a bunch of Eagles stuff, using a songbook ordered from Amazon. Unfortunately, Seven Bridges Road was not part of the compilation.  After much searching, I found the sheet music, but it lacked the harmony parts. When I transcribed the piece into MIDI, I tried interpreting the harmonies, based on the chords. However, the result is less than satisfactory, IMHO.  No one can do it better than the Eagles!

SBR.zip

[mettelus]

Thanks for posting that. I had just used that as an example for someone who had no music theory knowledge to give them a visual demonstration. Getting through some of the terms initially was a bit rough, but Melodyne (Editor and above) is a useful tool to look at an entire song in a "score" fashion. That visual assist made explanation far more simpler once terms were out of the way. "Seven Bridges Road" was just the first song that came to mind, but was a good segue into more discussion.

[John Vere]

Speaking of Melodyne that is what I’ve found is working really well for me. 
I don’t apply much pitch correction to my lead vocals as it tends to zap my vibrato. 
But my harmonies I always flatline them. What I found is because I do have this huge vibrato as well as I tend to slid up into notes that this is terrible technique for singing harmonies. So my attempts have been pretty awful in the past. 

I’ve only really learned how to  use Melodyne lately so this flatlining harmonies was a new discovery. 
I sing the harmony parts trying mostly to match the phrasing. I don’t worry to much about if the notes are right. Just sing them clean an pure. It’s a lot of falsetto on the edge of my range. 

Then in Melodyne I pitch correct to 100%. And then I remove all the vibrato ( Wavy lines) 

Then I move each note as I solo the lead and the harmonies along with maybe a piano or guitar until the harmony part sounds pleasing.  I can also adjust the levels and timing. I think the results are about as good as I can get other than hiring a good singer to do it. But even that would need tweaking.
Sure it’s a bit of work but it’s the sort of work I like doing. 

They are baiting me with the upgrade to the top version for only $99. Then I can see all the vocals in the editor at the same time. It’s the best investment I ever made in software. And they have very good tutorials that are a must to watch every one a few times. 

Edited December 22, 2023 by John Vere