Achieving Realistic Harmonies (Harmony Engine Evo & Harmony EFX)

Achieving realistic harmonies using Harmony Engine Evo and Harmony EFX does take little adjustment for the individual voice you are working with. The following are some tips on how to get better sounding harmonies using either one of the Antares harmony plug-ins (Harmony Engine Evo or Harmony EFX).

YOUR SOURCE
As with any vocal processing tool, your results will only be as good as your source. So make sure to have a clean powerful recording and try not to add effects to the source (other than maybe EQ and compression).

PLUG-IN BASICS
To get the most of your plug-in, it's best to insert it on a stereo channel. This will give you panning options for each individual harmony voice allowing placement in the stereo field to give it a life-like sound and adds interest to the vocals.

It's common practice for vocals to be recorded in mono so if your host doesn't offer a simple solution to convert a mono channel into stereo channel (remember this wouldn't be a true-stereo channel because the left and right would be identical to each other), then place Harmony Engine Evo (or EFX) on a stereo BUS, send your vocal track to that BUS and (viola!) you'll have a stereo effect from a mono source. If you do use this route, remember to MUTE the Input channel in the plug-in. Since your source track will be providing the the main vocals, you don't want to double up by applying another main vocal through the plug-in.

At this point let's presume you have some sort of data that is controlling what harmonies play out of the plug-in. This could be Scale Interval, MIDI Channel, Chord Name, or any other option from Harmony Control center. Review the manual for more information on these options if you are unfamiliar with them.

TWEAKING THE PLUG-IN
Now that you have routing setup, let's take a look at some plug-in settings. Since each artists voice sounds different, a little trial and error is going to take place in order to get the right sound out of the plug-in. Keep in mind, the following are suggestions for realistic sounding harmonies but don't forget to listen to the voices and experiment in other creative ways to get fresh new sounds that others might have never thought of.

One by one, solo each harmony channel and adjust the throat length until you find a setting that sounds best for the pitch of the voice. Generally, voices re-pitched higher than the source will sound better with a smaller throat length (moving the slider down) while voices pitched lower than the source will sound better with a larger throat length (moving the slider up). The gray area to the right of each throat length slider designates normal average throat length limitations. These are average limitations so don't worry if the voice sounds better past the gray area in your case.

Now that all the voices have their own specific throat length, let's adjust some volume settings. Set your source vocal to a level of your liking then go back to the plug-in and lower all the other harmony voices so that your source vocal is not drowned out. At this point it's not a good idea to solo each voice and try to adjust the volume levels without hearing the other voices. Each voice compliments the other voices so you'll want to hear them as a group. Try lowering the higher pitched voices a little lower than the lower pitch voices so the bass and mid voices stand out a bit more. As with previous settings, experimentation is key. Each song, genre, or stylistic quality will require slightly different settings so trust your ears and find a levels that sound best in your production. 

SIDE NOTE: A good general mixing tip is when you find yourself tweaking settings up and down a little too much and you can't seem to find the right balance, stop adjusting and move onto some other area in the track to work on or simply walk away for a while. Coming back to a problem area with a fresh set of ears (and a little less frustration) will allow you to spot the problem area much easier and adjust with more confidence.

Using the stereo plug-in, you'll find that the voices are preset to pan one direction or the other. These are generally already in a good position but adjust them yourself and to find other placement that might be better for your production.

HUMANIZING
Next, let's adjust a few of the humanizing options in the plug-in. For Harmony Engine Evo users, you have a bit more flexibility in this area where you can adjust Naturalization, Pitch Variation, and Timing Variation to create life-like effects as you would hear with actual harmony singers. You can find these effect knobs in the top left corner of the plug-in. These effects leave room for error, preventing the harmonies from sounding perfect. The more you turn them up, the less perfect they'll sound. To get a natural sounding harmony, less perfect is better but if you push the limits too far then you'll just have a bad sounding harmony. Again, experiment to find a good balance that sounds best.

For Harmony EFX users, those three knobs (Naturalize, Pitch Variation, and Timing Variation) are tied into one knob called Naturalize. Although not as flexible as Harmony Engine Evo, this is still a powerful tool. The naturalization knob in Harmony EFX does not change all three effects equally. Each effect has been carefully calibrated to either activate at a certain point, work logarithmically, or linearly based on its specific function. It is an simpler way to achieve great results-- quickly.