The Art of Vocal Production (Coursera)

Through analysis and/or hands on projects that the students will post for peer review, the student will gain an understanding of the many choices available to modern record producers as they record and mix with a modern tool set. You’ll see, in action, the Vocoder, Auto Tune, Melodyne, Elastic Audio, Flex Time, Vocalign, tempo based editing and a host of other file modification protocols that are readily available on most Digital Audio Workstations. This course gives students a thorough look at the expanded choices that have risen in the art of vocal production as a result of these modern tools.

The goal of the course is to help interested novices understand the recordings they are listening to, performers find an expanded language for their recorded voices and for vocal producers to be able to create musically artistic visualizations using singers as their paintbrushes.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Welcome to The Art of Vocal Production! In this module, we will cover all the details about how this course works and what you'll need to know to get the most out of your course experience.

Natural Vocal Design: How Vocal Producers Create

By the end of this lesson you will understand vocal placement within the stereo field and how recording a vocalist multiple times can create various types of listening experiences. You will understand level, phase, phantom center, panning, balance, equalization and compression concepts used in modern recordings. Your ability to listen to music will be expanded and you will probably never listen to vocals in music the same way ever again once you have been exposed to these simple concepts

WEEK 2

Artificial Vocal Design: How Vocal Producers “Sweeten” the Creation

In this lesson, we will lean less on the vocalist and more on tools that can be used to change the way we listen to vocals in music. You will now understand how delays and reverbs have been used in the music you love and their relationship to time and tempo.Your desire to try out some of these techniques will be piqued by the time you finish this lesson.

WEEK 3

Vocal Time Compression and Expansion: Tools of the Trade

In this lesson the nature of the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) will be demystified and simplified. You will understand time as an absolute concept, time as a relative concept and further grasp the utility of the sample rate and bit depth parameters in your audio software. You will be shown tools that can change a song from a ballad to a dance record and vice versa. Many modern vocal production tools exist in software that might already be on your computer; but if you do not have such tools, you will document the use of these concepts via in depth analysis of current and emerging music.

WEEK 4

Vocal Pitch Correction and Tuning: More tools of the Trade

In this lesson, you will learn some of the industry standard pitch correction and tuning tools. Although you will gain an understanding and appreciation of how easy the job of a vocalist can be when these tools are used, you will also learn that your first lesson in simple performance and placement is still the most potent skill in your art of vocal production arsenal.