The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

First mixdown of Don's song tomorrow.

Not too bad of a song except for the singer. Man he couldn't carry a tune in a dump truck. To heck with it unless somebody else wants a stab at it. It's just the best I can do and I know when I whupped.


Jeeze I tried but I hosed it.

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THE MUSIC IS DOWN IN HERE
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Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Can I (we) get an advanced listen? You're probably way to hard on yourself...

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it's funny, the older you get, the older you wanna be

I'd agree with bokchoy.

But I'd tell you if I changed my mind after listening .

I dread having to do vocals. It would normally takes me a whole day to get all the phrases down to paste together and that's with every trick in the book. I use generated harmonies, doubling, thickening, and last, but not least, pitch correction. At the end of the day, if I end up with something not cringe-worthy, I've had a good day.

The bottom line is, if you want to record songs, you normally have to try a vocal. I like to think I sound ok in the shower but when you hear it recorded, man it hurts. At the end of the day, you have to mix it up front so go for it. I have found you get better (marginally) with every effort.

A thing I often hear.

Maybe this turns singing into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy at times... what you consider hard, can't be easy.

Sometimes it's all a matter of just... cheesy as it sounds... letting go.

...and it gets even cheesier now:

Just let it out... your voice is your voice... and there's no single other voice like it out there.

The tough part about singing is that you can't *hide* behind an instro...


...OMG, assorted wisdom by MicE... err, we'll be right back after the commercials .

I'm definitely with you guys on this one. If you are uncomfortable doing vocals, you're not alone. The only singing "training" I had was in my 8th grade chorus class decades ago. I don't consider my singing to be bad per se (others may certainly disagree ), but when I listen to the results when recorded, they are passable but I'm not really happy.

I look at it this way: if I can teach myself how to play one or more instruments and record with the G, then there's no reason I shouldn't be able to improve my singing to a level that is decent at least. I know there are some books out there that help with this. Gotta check them out.

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One man's high art is another man's elevator music.

One other thing to consider is perception vs. reality.

One big downside of singing - anatomically speaking - is that the better it sounds to your ears while recording, the worse the outcome might be once on tape.

The reason I'm saying this, is: The better you hear you own voice, the more you want to control it, the crappier you're gonna sound. Kinda like the snake biting its own head...

Now, another fact is... the better you hear your voice within your head... the worse you sing technically. It's just a fact, based upon where your voice should *sit*... the more you get away from that virtual point, the worse you get technically, but the better will you hear your voice's reflection via skull bones etc.

Sometime a take you would have loved to delete right while singing it... might be the best take you ever did.

Then there's the part of "you'll always hear a different sound for your own voice than other will"... also due to skull reflections etc...

BTW the current issues of both EQ & Recording magazines are devoted to recording vocals. Might be worth a read.

you couldn't be any worse than willie nelson