Create a Vocal Glitch Sequence

Jul 11th in Production by Mo Volans

Glitch processing is a popular technique in contemporary electronic music. Although this method can be used on any sound it is often most effective when applied to vocal sounds. In this tutorial, Mo Volans shows you how...  

Author: Mo Volans

Mo Volans has been releasing tracks for well over a decade with many of the world's top electronic labels. Having worked with a long list of high profile artists, he has enjoyed top ten success on numerous of occasions. Mo records under the names MoHawk, Twisted Air, and Openair and also writes music for TV and film.  Mo is also a prolific writer and journalist writing for publications such as Music Tech, Remix mag and EQ.

Note: this article contains embedded audio that will not display in a feed reader. Click back to the site to read the tutorial with audio, or download the audio files at the bottom of the post.

Step 1

  Select and import the vocal phrase or performance you would like to manipulate and make sure it's on its own dedicated track.   As far as choosing the right sort of vocal to process, it really helps if you can get the original to a point where it’s in time with the rest of your production. You can do this by using time-stretching or propellerheads recycle (if it’s a rhythmical phrase). Of course, it also helps if it's in tune, but again, if needed you can manipulate the audio until it fits.

Step 2

At this point, create a few new audio tracks. These tracks will accommodate the new edits of your vocal sample so it's a really good idea to make them the same format as the original track i.e. stereo or mono.  

The amount of tracks you make here isn’t critical, just try to estimate how many you will use. If in doubt create a good number, they can always be deleted at a later stage.

Step 3

 Now cut the vocal up into its component parts. This is easily achieved by visually scanning the part and cutting at every hard transient or dynamic event. Audition each part to make sure the sounds are clearly divided. This is a critical part of constructing your glitch sequence, so take your time here, it will pay off later.

Step 4

Start to place these new sections of audio onto the new tracks you have created. Initially pick out the stronger sounds with plenty of attack and impact. This is really a process of trial and error, so don’t be afraid to undo what you have done and start again. As you are placing the initial parts you can start to build up the early stages of your sequence. You can do this by repeating some of the parts and moving others into new positions.

Step 5

  As the pattern develops cut smaller sections from some of the audio slices and loop them for small amounts of time. This creates the classic glitch/stutter effect you may have heard in other electronic productions. The smaller the section you cut and repeat the more intense the effect will become. Try experimenting with lots of different lengths and repetitions.  

This works better with some parts than others and you’ll find that brighter sounds with more high end content and faster attack signatures will produce a better result.

Step 6

Now start to build up a groove using larger parts of the vocal. Place these slices into gaps in the sequence and try replacing other parts with them as well. This will essentially twist the original order of the vocal part and make it sound synthetic. You should also hear a new groove developing at this point, go with it and start to develop any ideas you have as you go. This will make the patter more original and compliment your music.

Step 7

  Zoom out and take a look at your overall pattern and see it as a whole. This is often a great way of spotting gaps or areas that could use work.   Put any finishing touches to the sequence and make sure you are happy with your groove.

Step 8

  A good tactic here can be to try developing a completely new pattern from the vocal parts, in no way based on the original vocal. This can be used as an alternative pattern or as a fill in your sequence.   Do this in an empty area of your arrange window--this way you’ll be uninfluenced by the previous pattern.

Step 9 

 It's now time to think about how these new clips and sections are mixed together. Open the mixer in your DAW and start to strike a good balance between the parts. Also make sure they are mixed well with any beats or synths you may already have programmed and try to avoid clipping if possible.

Step 10

Try adding effects and processing to different parts of the sequence. You could add some distortion or saturation to one part and delay to another, creating real texture and contrast.

Filter any problem frequencies from the parts and use dynamics processors to control wayward dynamics.  

Think about your stereo field at this point. Try to spread the different sections apart from each other. This will create a wider, more involving sound. You can also try automating some of the pan and level settings for extra movement.

Step 11

 Finally route all of your vocal channels to a group for further processing and control. Some light limiting or compression and a filter to remove any very low frequencies may suffice here but you can always add an automated filter or some extra eq if needed. Your glitch sequence should now be ready to use in your arrangement. If you need to save CPU headroom you can always export the sequence for use as one audio file.  

Listen to the finished product:

Download the Play Pack for this tutorial (6MB)

Contents:

Printable PDF tutorial
Audio files

Hear examples of Mo's work or drop him a line at www.myspace.com/mohawkmuzik or www.MoVolans.com.

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User Comments

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Joel Falconer July 11th

Very cool effect, Mo. The more of these tuts for electro effects you write, the more I’m tempted to try fusing them into heavier stuff
Andy Slatter July 11th

Cool tute,and great finished sound.You can also generate glitch effects by using vst effects like “Livecut”,”Supatrigga”"Madshifta”(The latter can be controlled by keyboard input for pitch shifting) as insert effects on a vocal track and bouncing the results to a new vocal track,then cutting and pasting parts of the original and parts of the bounced track in a similar way to what Mo has done here.Oh,and lets not forget “Dblue Glitch”……..all freeware by the way…….google ‘em!
Skellie July 11th

@ Joel: Metal electro? That could be interesting!
Andy Slatter July 12th

Martin Grech……”Open Heart Zoo”
pista July 14th

I think this is very difficult way how to slice voice, there are a lot of plugins and other software which can slice the audio and you just choose part, tempo, speed and so on…
Justin July 15th

For Live 7 users slicing like this can be easily done with the “Slice to Midi” command. Just load an audio file as a clip or in the arrange window, then set the warp markers to where you’d like to have the file split then right click on the clip/audio selection and choose “Slice to Midi” then create one slice per Warp Point.

You then will have a new midi track with each slice of the sample loaded into the Drum Rack so you can individual process slices and trigger them via midi. Slice to midi can be used in a variety of methods, like slice per note division or dumping all the samples into a sampler. The one draw back to this method is that you can only slice up to 128 divisions at a time before you’d have to slice to a new midi track.
Appox July 15th

Really nice end product.
Brooke July 17th

Even though there are plug-ins that do this, it is good to understand how to achieve it manually. Sometimes you just want total control.

Keep up the great tuts!
Mo Volans July 18th

in answer to a few posts here …

yep there are certainly a good amount of plug-ins that achieve this effect to some degree… i have written a few features on these plugs and techniques for using them in some of the mags… but… i feel the end result is a little more bespoke when performed using manual editing. It may seem difficult at first but once you get into the swing of it, it becomes second nature.