Add a Telephone Effect to Your Vocals

Musicians have used vocal effects extensively in pop and other music genres for many years. One interesting example is a vocal effect replicating the sound of a human voice transmitted through a telephone. Several techniques can create this kind of vocal effect. In the following tutorial, we will guide you on how to add a telephone effect to your vocals.

As an illustration, let us listen to the short sequence we created in our SoundBridge: DAW, which contains most of the whole mix's elements, including the vocal.

~Full Mix - Vocal (Unprocessed)

First, Prepare Your Adlibs

Usually, a singer recording vocals will also provide "Adlibs." These are basically improvised vocal lines that serve to complement the primary vocal performance. They are typically used as additional layers alongside the primary voice tracks to make it more interesting. In our case, we only have the main vocal, which we can cut to create Adlibs. Let us listen to the main vocal solo.

~Vocal Solo - Unprocessed

This vocal line has some breaks in the sequence, where we will then place the specific vocal parts we will process differently. For this purpose, we will duplicate the original vocal and place the duplicated channel beneath the main one. We'll refer to this as the "Vocal Layer" channel.

Following that, let's cut the vocal parts and use them to repeat certain words from the main vocal sequence. You'll probably agree that this sounds like a manual delay effect.

~Vocal Main & Layer Solo - Unprocessed

Use Appropriate Processing to Add a Telephone Effect to Your Vocals

At this point, we'll be processing the vocal layer. Firstly, we will apply a saturation effect in the chain, which will be used largely.

~Vocal Layer Solo - Processed With Saturation

Also, we will employ an EQ to help simulate the sound of a telephone. As you can see from the image, the bands in the EQ we used to shape the vocal are also those produced by most telephones.

~Vocal Layer Solo - Processed With Saturation & EQ

Finally, to complete the vocal layer processing, we will add more delay and reverb effects to push this vocal layer back into the mix. Let us now listen to the main and vocal layer solo and then in the context of the entire mix

~Vocal Layer Solo - Processed With Saturation, EQ, Delay & Reverb

~Vocal Main & Layer Solo - Processed

~Full Mix - Vocal Main & Layer Solo (Processed)

If you liked this article about vocal processing, also check out these on the same subject:

• How to Make Wider Vocals
• Use Vocals to Create a Buildup
• Make Your Vocals Sound Unique
• Apply Volume Automation to Your Vocals