Some vocalists are lucky enough and talented enough to be able to deliver a flawless performance of a song in a single run-through. Those of you in that category can skip this article; for the other singers out there, the technique of vocal comping (or compositing) can level the playing field - or at least, allow you to cheat depending on how you look at it. :)

Comping involves recording several takes of the tune against the backing tracks, then selecting the strongest elements (phrases or even individual words!) and combining them into a composite performance.The lead vocal of a song is almost always a song's primary focal point, so it's very important to assemble the most in-tune, mistake-free performance you can. However, musical perfection must always be balanced against spontaneity and emotional delivery, both of which tend to get lost after too many takes. Having too much material to choose from can also slow the creative process to a crawl. It all depends on what style you are going for and the strengths and weaknesses of your singer. I would recommend trying to record around 3 or 4 good takes and throw the rest away.

>Now that you've got your good takes, line the tracks up in your DAW. Listen through the takes a section at a time (verse, chorus, or whatever). Find the one you like the best and use it as your primary track, replacing elements with materials from other takes as necessary. The amount of detail you apply to the vocal edit is largely a matter of personal taste. Musical genre, skill level of the vocalist, and the producer's working style all factor into your decision-making process here. Some people like to choose whole sections of music, some work on the level of lines and phrases, some get to the level of words, and some people even edit syllables of words from different takes. How you work is up to you, but remember that pitch perfection can come at the expense of musical flow.

>What if the take with the better energy has a couple out of tune notes or some rhythm problems? There are a few programs out there that you can use to correct pitch and even rhythmical errors. The most famous program (and even a rack mount unit) is Antares Auto-Tune. This little gem of a program can load into your DAW (digital audio workstation) and actually process your vocal track in real-time.

A program that can remedy pitch AND rhythm problems is called V-Vocal by Roland. It can be used to fix a wide range of vocal issues with a simple and easy to use graphical user interface. This program comes with Sonar Producer Edition (starting with version 5). So, you Mac (ProTools) guys will want to stick with Auto-Tune.

Bottom Line: You don't have to capture the perfect vocal all at once. Take your time and "comp" your vocal track until it sounds exactly the way you want it to.