As someone who takes great interest in ambient electronic music, I was most intrigued to discover that Coldplay had taken a new direction into this area with their new video appearing online, “Midnight”. The track sees the band employing the help of Jon Hopkins to produce the track, a collaboration I certainly approve of.
In this post, I wish to study the Vocal processing they have used on Chris Martin’s vocal. There are several choices made by the producer and/or engineer in order to characterise the track to the genre.
Upon listening, it is immediately noticeable to me that the vocal has a lot of reverb present. The Reverb has a long decay time, and a very short pre delay (if any at all). The use of a long reverb like this helps create an atmospheric ambience to the track, and is used as a creative tool rather than just a tool to make the vocal sit in the mix. The reverb appears to change decay time in appropriate places in the track, such as in the instrumental breakdowns.
The vocal is heavily multi-tracked, and is layered multiple times with harmonies. Some of these harmonies are created with what appears to sound like a vocoder, creating a very electronic sound to the vocal arrangement. The main vocal line appears to be heavily tuned, using melodyne for instance. This, again, gives an electronic feel to the vocal, and makes the track more abstract.
1)Taking from this study, I have processed a vocal in a similar way on one of my own recordings, by replicating the heavy use of tuning software on the BV’s in order to create a robotic feel.
2) I have also tried using a very long reverb on a vocal as an ambient effect, and using a second reverb to place the vocal in the mix. This has proved successful for me upon trying this out, and is an effect I have enjoyed using on ambient music of my own.
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