I’ve created three audio files to demonstrate the techniques described in the Cubase workshop in the April 2026 issue of SOS.
www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cubase-15-vocal-doubling-techniques
All are based on the same short song extract, with a male vocal line used to illustrate various doubling approaches. So there’s a sensible musical context, this simple arrangement also includes drums, bass and guitar, these instruments having a touch of compression and ambience applied, but no other mix processing.
Aside from the various doubling options, the vocal has just some basic compression and EQ applied, plus a little bit of reverb. Each example contains multiple passes of the same song section, each time featuring a different vocal doubling option, as described below.
In all cases, I’ve applied any doubling processing to the entire length of the clip, but it would be equally valid as a spot effect, just highlighting particular phrases.
Cubase 15 Vocal Doubles Audio Example JW 01.wav
This doubling approach is based on a combination of AudioWarp Quantize and VariAudio. There are four passes of the song section as follows:
1. Original vocal phrase with no doubling.
2. Vocal phrase plus one double, but with very subtle pitch and timing variations applied for a subtle end result.
3. Vocal phrase plus two doubles, panned left and right, and again using subtle timing and pitch variations — but these are different for each of the doubles. The result is a more obvious reinforcement of the lead vocal.
4. Vocal phrase plus two doubles, but with greater amounts of pitch and time variation, applied less tightly. a formant shift has also been applied, to change the vocal character of each double. As a result, the double sounds more obvious.
Cubase 15 Vocal Doubles Audio Example JW 02.wav
This example illustrates the use of the doubling approach using Cubase’s PitchShifter plug-in. There are six passes of the song section as follows:-
1. Original vocal phrase with no doubling.
2. Vocal phrase doubling applied using the PitchShifter plug-in in Linked mode, and with a 0.3st pitch-shift value. The result is a subtle reinforcement of the lead vocal whose absence is easily detected when it’s removed.
3. Vocal phrase plus the use of the PitchShifter plug-in in Unlinked mode and different pitch shifts (+0.1 and -0.1) applied to the left and right channels. It’s still a subtle effect but adds more obvious weight to the vocal.
4. Vocal phrase plus two doubles. As for the previous example, but with higher pitch-shift values (±0.25) to make the doubles a little more obvious.
5. The vocal with PitchShifter using the supplied Tape Manipulator preset. This applies different left/right pitch shifts but also adds formant shifting and tape-based saturation to the doubles to provide a more obvious change in the vocal character.
6. The vocal with PitchShifter using the supplied Lead Vocal Thickener preset. This applies an octave shift (±12st) to the left/right channels for a much more obvious effect. Formant shifting and tape-based saturation is also used. The end result is a more ‘creative’ vocal doubling effect, but the Mix controls can easily be adjusted to make it more or less obvious in the mix.
Cubase 15 Vocal Doubles Audio Example JW 03.wav
This example illustrates the use of the doubling approach based on PitchCorrect. There are six passes of the song section as follows:
1. Original vocal phrase with no doubling.
2. Vocal phrase doubling with a single additional instance of the vocal passed through PitchCorrect. The pitch correction is kept quite subtle, but a very modest Transpose and Formant shift have also been applied to make a greater different between the unprocessed and processed vocal parts.
3. As for the previous examples, but with two duplicates of the original vocal, each using different settings within PitchCorrect to create a more obvious doubling effect.
4. Vocal phrase plus two doubles. As for the previous example, but greater amounts of Transpose and Formant settings exaggerate the differences between the unprocessed and processed versions of the vocal.
5. Just for a reference point, a version of the same vocal passed through iZotope’s free-to-download Vocal Doubler plug-in. I used fairly subtle settings just to add a little weight to the original.
6. As per the previous example, but with Vocal Doubler’s controls maxed out for a more obvious result.