TOOK ADVICE!!! Used Vocal Skills to FULL ability and panned as suggested!!!

mshea

mshea

New member
OK. You had all given me the thumbs up on my vocal ability in previous posts. I followed your thoughts and turned off my shyometer and belted it. This is a song my Mother used to sing to me as a child. I wrote some soothing yet moving music and freestyled the vocals to fit, then went back and created the harmony. I hope this is a bit better produced than my other vocal attempts i.e., 'Sunshine or Rain' which I am currently tweaking trying to fix the levels and reupload. Once again. Thanks so much for your help in advice. By golly...I think I've got iT!!!!

Memory Lullabied

Enjoy! Can't wait to hear your replies. Especially you CyanJaguar who so fearlessly tears up my stuff. Your support on the vocal thing has meant the world to me. And Buck also. THANK YOU!
 
I did a search to find out what panning advice you'd been given - This mix doesn't work for me - here's why:

1. both vocals are panned to the far left. Your lead should be dead @ 12 o'clock and the backing vocals slightly further to the side

2. the secondary keys are panned well, but could stand to be brought up a bit.

3. the main keyboard pad could be spread out wider. There's a wide stereo field out there, use it!

4. The entire mix is too low, like, WAY too low. I tried out another mix after yours to make sure I had my monitoring levels correct & nearly scared myself out of my chair. There was that much of a difference. :D

I guess that's my critique for now - that being said:

It's a great little tune with a good feel. You've done a great job on the vocals, they just need to be panned correctly and heard. Not many female artists post here in the clinic, so this was a great change of pace. Keep working @ this recording thing. I'd like to follow your progress.
 
Hmmm? OK!

Lead vocal 12 oclock...good very good....

Question... how do you 'spread out' something...I have all these filters, knobs and buttons and press them randomly most of the time. Now don't laugh...here comes the blonde thought...Do I use an 'expansion' filter...seriously. I have no clue...but did hear what you were talking about.

And as far as WHERE to pan vocals...totally CLUELESS!!! I've been trying to LISTEN to other songs and find the 'standard' of WHERE in the mix to put them.

I will also up the entire thing and see if I can't save the Left Hand Piano line.

Thank you so much. I'm LEARNNNINNNGG!!! I will be tweaking the second I get home tonight...re-listen tomorrow and reply again with my very unscientific findings.

Did you notice any FLATS in the vocals. I tried to keep it clean.
 
Let's see, are you using Sonar? I think I remember reading that, and an Aardvark card? I may be wrong.

I have all these filters, knobs and buttons and press them randomly most of the time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, me too. :D It took a long time for me to get the basic hang of my software and gear. What I was really talking about was the issue of panning again on the main synth patch. If you're recording a synth in stereo, it's just a matter of panning one channel left, and the other one right - When I record keys or organ in stereo I pan @ 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock - but that spread could be more narrow or wider - depending on the patch or instrument. A tune like this loves W I D E space.

On the vocals, no, almost everything was right on. There was one note that stood out a little (I think it may have even been a little sharp
:eek: ) I don't have a time reference, but nothing to really worry about.

Look forward to the next mix.
 
AH HA!!!

OK! I can do this. NO PROBLEM!!! I am using Cakewalk on this Program. I've only been using Sonar for mixes that require NO MIDI. Why? Don't have the right drivers at the moment!!! GRRR!!!

But I get it now, I am understanding how to make wide...man...that's so simple and to think..I was busy trying everything to fill things out...UG!!! ...but when you say main synth sound...do you mean that moany sounding background thing...'angel synth' to be exact. And to make sure I get this straight. The piano lines are OK where they are, just up the 2nd piano line a bit?
 
I thought that the vocals were waaay too buried in the mix and over-effected.
The drum track could've been a bit clearer... it was too muddy.

I wish I could comment on the singing, but it was drowned out by the organ/keyboards.

Was there a bass in there somewhere?

I'm listening at a low volume because the baby is asleep, but even still, I can barely make out those vocals.

Now, don't take this to heart, because I had some troubles when I switched from analog recording to digital... and I took my lumps from some of the "pro's" around here.
But that criticism made me work harder, and thus, much better at digital recording. :)

I really think a good set of monitors would be a wise investment right now. It would make recording much easier and your mixes MUCH better.

Better mics and cables would be nice, too... but get those monitors first. Your music would benefit GREATLY.

Buck
 
Do you have a limiting program? Oh, a simple normaliza operation on the final stereo wave file will do. This is to increase the final volume of the mix. I suspect that Sonar will have either a limiter or a normalizer. It would help your mixes much.

Is this track for a movie? I saw a movie "a walk in the clouds' where all the vocals were panned to the left just like this song.
The more traditional approach( and better sounding IMHO) would be to leave the lead vocal dead center and pan the backing vox anywhere

I still dont think you are using your vox to the fullest of your ability. You have vocal beauty thats for sure. At this point, I think that another hinderance is the vocal mirophone employed. I think you should invest in a condenser. It will provide a smoother tone with better high end. This vocal really sounds like an announcer on the radio singing into a radio mic.
I think that the vox can use some more reverb

I really love that orchestral sample you used. I also like the drum sample. What synth did you use?

What is your monitoring like? Do you monitor at an average of 85 dbs?

peace
 
UMMMM... I don't know

Hey...all this vocal panning info is really helpful...I'm a COMPLETE moron and just realized a few days ago that i really do have 'real time effects'...so I will be attempting to 'tweak' things a bit more as it takes less time now. I feel like a moron for not figuring out how to make that 'feature' work and having my stuff for so long. Oh well. At least I know now.

Naw, the music was only for My Mom...I know the lyrics came from somewhere/someone else...I just don't know who. All I know is that my Mother used to sing it to me (different melody) when I was little and I couldn't get it out of my head...so...this song.

I'm using an Alesis QS7.1 synth. The background synth sounds are a combination of 'Angel Synth' and 'Ooooh Choir'...chord progressions are all my doing...it was actually a mistake gone quite well.

More reverb? I thought I had reverbed them to death...ok?

Monitoring levellllllll ummmmm....uuhhhh....uhhhhh.....sure....um...errrr....I dunno?

Note: This song is done on Cakewalk Pro Audio 9...eek
 
for vocal panning what i've been doing lately is:

putting the lead vocal dead center, and putting the bass and kick 5% away from center to leave a nice pocket for the lead vocal to sit in. then panning the rest of the drum kit and such within the 5%-15% range away from center so that the bass and snare are on one side of center, and the kick and hat are on the other.

then putting the back vocals 20% from center. i don't have any kind of rules on which vocals go where (5th, octave), i just slap em around until it seems to fit. and of course as soon as i wrote this rule down in my little music book, i did another tune where the vocals didn't fit anywhere but hard L and hard R. so i'm still an idiot-savant. i make rules so i can break em.

someone mentioned limiting? dsp-fx has a limiting maximizer (but that's not what they call it) that does a good job. not as good as waves' ultramaximizer but it is cheaper.
 
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