The Greatest Mutt Lange Vocal Trick Part 2

Check out this incredible elusive Mutt tip that will save you lots of headaches on your huge background vocal stacks!!
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[@alanunseld4942]

sounds like def leppard😎

[@bengarland]

Sundown summertime, send your Reese’s! :)

[@HuffwareStudio]

I have a hard time getting Artist to try this...they think I'm crazy until they hear the final product.. Another excellent video Cuz! 😎🎙🔊🎶

[@hummarstraful]

Tony Maserati says you only need one "S" and that the listener can't tell the difference. Love your videos, Doc.

[@seanemmettfullerton]

Yes! I've been in huge vocal choirs where the director would assign the most accurate singers to do the s and t sounds, especially for cutoffs and releases. Brilliant.

[@andyb7855]

@@seanemmettfullerton interesting approach, I've been in some worship choirs (15-20 people) - getting everyone to synch up the "T'. and "K" sounds always takes some effort!

[@seanemmettfullerton]

@@andyb7855 oh exactly... we could spend every minute of rehearsal on this stuff. Plus everyone seems to have their own clock for rhythms and timing, and even the best singers tend to be late, late on entrances, and late on cutoffs : )

[@gobigrey9352]

I started doing this when I first started recording as a teenager. I just thought I sucked at harmonies and did it to avoid the messy sound of too many consonants slamming in. I thought I was being unprofessional and never would have admitted to doing it. Many years later I find out it's normal thing to do! Haha

[@BobbyHuff]

You were a smart teenager!

[@ayg2199]

i mumble when i talk normally this trick comes naturally for me

[@guillermodelnoche]

I am always blown away at how your layered vocals sound! I completely hear how Def Leppard got their sound.

[@earache70]

Very u-eful and imple ut effe-ive te-ni-ue.

[@todds5095]

I clued in quick when you started the "mumble" parts.... that's AWESOME! Thank you Doctor!

[@rundaemon7109]

Hahaha, I love hearing you sing the mumble parts, hilarious. ;)

[@seanemmettfullerton]

OMG, this is huge. Thank you for this reminder. I'm currently recording a virtual church choir thing, and this will save my sanity :)

[@michaelcorcoran8768]

Can't wait to see the faces of the choir when you tell them not to actually do anything but mumble!

[@seanemmettfullerton]

@@michaelcorcoran8768 LOL... I won't have to tell them anything. Ha! Most amateur singers already mumble without much encouragement :)

[@genephillips4809]

Sounds like a choir of people having strokes 🤣

[@BobbyHuff]

Hahahaha

[@rnbsteenstar]

Extremely drunk and I'd say!

[@WallyMpls]

Hi Bobby, a new subscriber. I just wanted to thank you for this video. WOW! What an eye opener. Even after playing for 35 years. I can't wait to watch more of your videos. Best Wally

[@kobuk]

Great trick and a good laugh as well when listening to the mumbles by themselves!

[@kassemir]

this is so simple, and so genius - would've never thought of doing this myself, but makes so much sense if you think about it.

[@NexusLives]

Ah, The "whisper trick" I knew about, but I didn't know this one! Awesome! I'll have to try it out on my next song. You and Jesse Cannon have got to be my favorite KZbin channels right now. 🤘🤘

[@jukesjointOG]

I discovered this on my own in the studio and working with choirs. I just call it “no consonants.”

[@ronaldo101000]

What makes MUTTs BGV’s so unbelievable and hard to fathom he had to sing all the parts one at a time for EVERYTHING all the parts. Chours verses et etc. pre pro tools his records sounded “pro tools” that’s the genius of it all. And the work ethic. Probably hundreds of hours (just vocal parts)on the hysteria album alone. Not to mention overdubs for guitar parts etc!

[@rocnathan]

Brilliant. The man is a treasure trove. I don't actually record a lot of vocals, but if I ever need a bunch of them, I'll be thinking of this.

[@kerpela]

Gold as usual! Thank you so much!

[@recordman555]

Great instruction, Bobby! I've had experience with choirs from childhood Church - all the way into college. I know that the bane of the choir director is those multiple "t-t-t-", or "s-s-s-" in annunciation. I always thought, 'why not have about 9/10ths of the choir just leave them off?!?! Thanks for affirming my philosophy. I look forward to each day I can go to KZbin, thinking, "What does Bobby Huff have for me today?" Keep up the great work. BTW - I'd love to be your assistant engineer, if you're ever hiring. I'm in the Memphis area. I'm on FB - send me a PM.

[@MykeLewisMusic]

It’s so simple yet mind-blowingly cool!

[@casperguylkn]

Thanks Dr. Bob! Much love from Lancaster SC

[@freez092also]

Excellent trick man! I love how full this sounds!

[@MeekerProductions]

This a great, Bobby! Appreciate you sharing the knowledge.

[@minstinct280]

Huffy, you are so cool dude! Your tutorials are awesome!

[@jefbrewer]

Waaaay cool Mutt trick and explained perfectly, Doc!

[@philippes1987]

Great stuff! Keep em coming!

[@Dave_Moore_Malin-Music]

Fantastic Bobby. Great content, thank you.

[@jimmcdougall9973]

Valuable advice, as always. Thank you sir.

[@DonFredricks]

Going to use this trick, definitely! Thank you!

[@michaeltablet8577]

This is very helpful! Thank you so very much for this and for all your videos!

[@jaymurray8776]

Cool food for thought! Thanks for the videos

[@DarioRondini]

Superb trick!

[@russellszabadosaka5-pindin849]

This is brilliant.

[@TheeRocker]

I'm lovin' this... makes so much sense. Awesome!!!

[@HewittH]

This video felt long. Great trick, and your "right script" joke gets me every time!

[@southdank3190]

Always great!!!

[@keithrowe1007]

I think it should be said how amazingly consistent you are. If I sang all those parts I would be editing for about four days to get everything to line up, not to mention variations in pitch from take to take

[@aceedmond8053]

Thanks Doc Huff for another great tip trick... every tip and trick is priceless.

[@juanospina4882]

Great trick Doc. Thanks for sharing the great Mutt Lange wisdom

[@JaviBello]

whoa!!! didnt know this one Bobby!!! Ill sure give it a try on my next project. Thanks for sharing your wisdom :D

[@MarkBlasquez]

Very clever idea. Thanks for sharing.

[@schoobitz]

That s probably the only trick from your youtube bag of tricks I've figure it out on my own years ago. Simple yet extremely effective one. Great piece of advice, dr. Bob!

[@michaelparson-mcnamara782]

I remember bursting out laughing, the first time I heard him do this on a Shania track. So much less to de-ess! LOL

[@BobbyHuff]

Correct!

[@michaelparson-mcnamara782]

@@BobbyHuff It goes right along with duct taping all but one pair of mandolin strings ....LOL

[@rnbsteenstar]

Footage?

[@michaelparson-mcnamara782]

@@rnbsteenstar ??

[@pdxfun4888]

Amazing technique

[@megazoned3973]

Seems like you could do something similar by heavily de-essing harmony vox.

[@toddscotdrumcovers2341]

Great trick!

[@JeremyWhiteShow]

Super fun! Corey Churko told me he and Mike Shipley would automate EQ and thresholds sylable by sylable on the BVs, and dip all of those out with automation on the Up! album, also hired Nigel Green in a seperate studio doing the exact same thing with the lead vocal cause it was just taking them way too damn long on their own haha!

[@OAlem]

Very cool. The T in the mumbled señoritas is still hard. It's interesting for me as a musician and a linguist, because I can tell someone's accent by Ts and Rs. I make them say "Better water" and I can tell them what country they're from. Imagine David Bowie singing señoritas in his native Cockney, in the vein of "Scary Monsters": "Señor EE ahhs". Cockney is East London, as I'm sure you know, but I'm pretty sure good Sheffield boys like Joe Elliot sometimes omit their Ts well. There is a lilt to Sheffield vowels as well., as I've heard you channelling before. EDIT: Consonants and languages, in general, are interesting. Opera only sounds good in vowel-heavy Italian. Listen to flamenco vocals. The Andaluz accent shuns the S and other consonants.

[@rnbsteenstar]

He forgot to flip that r!

[@neolyth]

made me smile this one! haha class video as usual

[@ianharris8706]

Nice thanks Dr.!

[@PickettMusic]

I do this. To keep 's' and 't' sounds from slamming my recording later For me, it came from my dad directing church choir and only having a couple sopranos hit the last consonants of individual lines so you wouldn't have 30 different endings of lines. Works in the studio too. I love how fast you can lay down a Leppard-y sounding vocal mass, man. So rad! Great video.

[@rnbsteenstar]

I tried to keep the s's and t's soft as possible so that it sounds natural.

[@Necronomicon66]

Brilliant. Thanks!

[@beautysfield]

Hi Bobby thanks for the great tip. I'm going to record some BV's for a new single this week and I will use it! Keep up the good work. Cheers, Simon.

[@GoodKev]

Awesome bro 😃

[@rnbsteenstar]

The drunken slur tracks. You forgot to flip that r on señorita!

[@barryharris4967]

This is an old backing vocals trick created long before Mutt. this technique was already well established when I entered the industry in the seventies stacking vocals on TV and radio jingles.

[@BobbyHuff]

I guess I always give credit to who I learn it from.

[@cederickforsberg5840]

WOW! I actually discovered this on my own years ago. I told singers to NOT sing "S" or "T" in backing vocal tracks, it was very unusual for them, but it works really good!

[@ryKirwan1]

That was badass✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻

[@ParisblueCos]

Can't wait to hear your work with Mark Moore! Great buddy of mine.

[@StevieBoyesmusic]

Nice trick

[@matthewcooper6284]

Great techniques Doc, thanks for sharing this!

[@BobbyHuff]

My pleasure Matthew.

[@matthewcooper6284]

@@BobbyHuff I’m in the market for a new iMac and interface, would you recommend the UA Volts?

[@BobbyHuff]

@@matthewcooper6284 I’m a PC guy but I would definitely recommend the Apollo..I don’t know much about the Volts.

[@matthewcooper6284]

@@BobbyHuff thanks my man, appreciate the reply. Have a happy holiday and keep the vids coming!

[@amsedelm]

Wow. Thx!

[@BobbyHuff]

Thanks!

[@richprincipe749]

Crazy good….

[@m.o.n.d.e.g.r.e.e.n]

ha i thought i was the only one doing BVs like this

[@kimhow8824]

Very good

[@Hexspa]

I was watching Dukes Of September and noticed that the background singers often don’t use consonants. Good tip. Melodyne has a sibilance tool for this but it’s good to get it right at the source, as you noted.

[@TomiBonTomi_2.0]

From now on, esses are for asses! Great stuf Bobby!

[@soultest]

I'm Finnish and our language is basically JUST hard consonants etc... :P Very hard language to mix and record. This is a known problem for us producers etc. So maybe I'll try the mumble vocal trick on lead vocals too! XD

[@JimhawthorneNet]

Simply Brilliant! Can you give us a video about songs where the 1-chord is never (or very rarely) played?

[@BeatsAndMeats]

Chris Liepe, a phenomenal singer and KZbin vocal teacher, said that this is an old Motown trick. Professional backup singers always knew not to sing the hard consonants or S's. Let's say the line is "To end the story", they would sing "-ooh end the -ory."

[@swettyspaghtti]

Good stuff Doc. Where do you get all these mutt tricks?

[@relaxingsounds1386]

wow

[@SaucemanSauceman]

Cool

[@SuperLevelone]

I wonder if you could just DS severely all the background vocals to get the same affect. I guess I will experiment with that on some old recordings. Love your videos can’t wait to see the video on Vocal and distortion fit into the mix

[@pvalenti]

Interesting idea...abusing or overusing a De-Essing plugin can do almost the same thing. I would think that possibly a combination of De-Essing and Transient Control, you could certainly get close. I mean it has to be viable and a huge time-saver over manually editing pre-recorded tracks if you weren't present during recording or were unable to get the mumble tracks in studio that is. Who knows, maybe even creative use of gates would work for removing or softening the transients of the vocals... Definitely worth a little experimenting. If you get tracks captured from live shows (as I most often do) these type of "hacks" are a definite plus if your client wants a more "studio recorded" sound for their live show(s). I generally specify live tracks should be accompanied by stereo LDC's in figure 8 positioned on the apron between the floor monitors and behind the FOH stacks, aimed almost parallel to each other directly at the back wall and focused on the center of the back wall. I also request stereo SDC's in an x pattern at the FOH position (provided it's dead center toward the rear of the venue that is). I generally do my best to clean the bleed in all the tracks, to remove the live vibe from them and replace it with the ambient room mics which are usually both compressed heavily and automated depending on what I'm trying to feature.

[@cbrooks0905]

This is what I do. Although mumble tracks sound like more fun.

[@rnbsteenstar]

​@@cbrooks0905you pretend to be a slurring drunk!

[@christiankoch5646]

I think of BVs as an instrument that adds tone or phonetics. When applying this technique, lower vocals can be equalized sharper to cut through the mix without getting noisy.

[@jerrymckenzie1858]

Pshhhh, I've been mumbling on my tracks for years! hahaha

[@joebuckley9181]

ery ice ideo!

[@TheVinceb100]

i tried to mumble your "summertime" vocals in key and i spent all my time trying to remove everything but vowels i forgot how to sing. lol

[@Fiveash-Art]

Sounds like Lou Ferrigno

[@NorthAlbanyAllstar]

Hey Dr. Bob, will you please do a video with a breakdown of the intervals Mutt used to build the classic Def Leppard harmonies. Thanks

[@dannylerch]

This

[@daddymidwest4111]

Fantastic video, but if Bryan Adams couldn’t get away with it, without the ML jabs, what chance do I have at avoiding the town’s people coming after me with clubs and torches? 😉

[@tazchevelle4506]

Shit hot Doc. Many thanks

[@crptn6789]

❤‍🔥

[@jeremythornton433]

This is very cool! Quick question. How do you have your Cuvase set up so you can re-record so quickly of is it a video editing trick? I'm using Cubase 10 Pro and I'd love to be able to very quickly stack vocals. Thanks for this one!

[@jditty4050]

Brilliant. I wondered about this too. Quick work flow!

[@beatweezl]

This is a nugget.

[@caseymcbridemusic8321]

🤯

[@joshridge6068]

This is neat. I've been doing something similar but editing out the S and T sounds. Makes sense to simply not sing them. Don't have to edit what's not there.

[@andyb7855]

Wow, never would have thought of this before! #Learning

[@johnpeace971]

I've always smoothed them out with spectral repair before a mixdown

[@thahacksaw]

You're dating yourself here. That's the Mac Dre hat 🤣

[@BobbyHuff]

And it’s still great. Is using a Linn drum sample dating myself too? They are ALL over the radio again…just ask The Weekend.

[@thahacksaw]

@@BobbyHuff Linn drums are eternal my friend. I'd be concerned if anyone said otherwise 🤣 Cheers Sir! You've got some stellar content 🙌

[@BobbyHuff]

@@thahacksaw thanks my friend!

[@hankdoral]

What if my lyrics do not have any s's? Should I add some, then just not sing them ? Thanks for the great videos!

[@bevo65]

Wow. That tongue guy was pretty good too. Is he for real?

[@SteelStringThing]

Thank you Bobby for your excellent videos...I have a question, you sang 4 takes but when they played they were very natural and - what are you using in Cubase to do this as well they seemed almost tuned in real time but very human and natural sounding part at 2:13, then when playing @ 2:26 they sound great, the high parts- very nice...the results are amazing...but I'm just curious

[@BobbyHuff]

Hey Morris. I didn’t do any tuning on these. Just sang away! Thanks for the compliments!

[@SteelStringThing]

@@BobbyHuff thanks Bobby

[@revuutube]

How come it looks like you're clipping as you record? Definitely gonna try this trick

[@SuperLevelone]

Wonder if you could get the same affect if you just DS the shit out of background vocals

[@sekritskworl-sekrit_studios]

What is your vocal chain, sir?

[@lt.loomis8176]

what do you find better for de-essing when it's already in the track? multi band comp / dynamic eq or (surgical) automation

[@BobbyHuff]

I use the Waves DeEsser and the Fab Filter DeEsser.

[@c.e.anderson558]

Whats a soft k? Knife?

[@soundsuitestudios-b-9723]

You can do the same thing with Boz Digital Labs Big Beautiful Door (gate with dual EQs). Regardless of how may backing tracks you have, singers can sing normally and BBD can eliminate "esses" etc. Boz demos it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqmyY4Rqqaeqe6M

[@AllenPendleton]

And you don't need 200 vocal tracks. That's insane.

[@andyb7855]

Exactly, why record 200 vocal tracks when 199 will do...