Whether we're working with vocals we've recorded with a singer or sampled vocal phrases, building an arrangement up with vocal harmonies can add a real richness to your mixes.

This week, I'm going to show you how you can use Flex Pitch to create harmonies; an approach which has two obvious potential uses. Firstly, if you're working with samples, 'artificial' creation of harmonies might be the only way to make backing vocals. Secondly, even if you're working with a singer, creating harmonies using Flex Pitch can take the pressure off a vocalist to improvise harmonies 'on the spot', giving you a chance to work out the notes you want to record, before replacing your created harmonies with the real thing.

Whilst you can make harmony parts simply by trial and error, by dragging notes up and down until they feel right, I'm putting the harmony of my track under a Music Theory microscope, to help steer the direction of the harmony line I want to make.

00:00 Intro
00:54 Analysis of track and playback
02:08 Introducing Clyde
02:31 Breaking down the melody/harmony
06:03 Setting up a Harmony track for Flex Pitch
07:44 Thirds are your friend
09:16 Harmonising a 7th note
10:53 Splitting notes to harmonise individual notes
12:38 Moving onto a B flat major chord
14:48 Using extended Flex Tools
17:15 Backing vocal mix treatment
20:07 Analysing each part individually
21:15 Summary and final thoughts