Autotune and improving your vocals

DM60

Well-known member
OK, I stuck this here since I am not sure where else it would go.

I have been recording now for at least the last 5 years, pretty heavy. All of my songs are original (at least I think they are ;) ) I have gotten pretty decent with recording, still some work to do, but getting pretty good results for me and my goal. But my vocals are just sucking like hell (insert polish a turd here). I was pretty sure I could sing, but man, holding a tune was just really a struggle. Just a little off here and there, but enough to sound not the best.

Now if I sang to a tune knew and had heard often, I did pretty good. But on my songs, I just sound like poo (I felt I could do better). This weekend I tried something new. I would record a vocal track, and use Waves to tune it, then record the corrected vocals to another track (once I had the timing and delivery down, don't waste your time until is done). Then I would do a new take a sing with the Waves tune take. Then Wave tune the new take to see how far off I am and then record the new "Tuned" take until I am pretty spot on.

I have done this on a couple of songs about 4 or 5 times for each take. Wave tune doing little to no corrections. What I am thinking, those of us who are trying originals with no one there to assist/feedback, it is hard to improve.
If you know the song only one way, it is hard to really tell if it is bad. (That is my excuse and I am sticking to it)

Anyway, I really liking the results and I think my next batch of songs will vocally come out better and have me able to focus more on mixing than trying to fix bad vocal pitch (which consumes a lot of time). Anyone doing their own songs have less sources to lean on than doing a cover. But I think if you try this approach, might help you get better vocals with less need on assistance and more time for other parts of the song.

Just thought I would share with all you bedroom recording warriors. Hope it helps someone out there struggling with the same problem.
 
The simplest/best way to get your singing in tune, IMO...is to sit at a piano (assuming you have one and can play some)...and just play the single note melody and sing with it. If you don't have one, then use whatever instrument you have where you can just play the actual single-note melody you are trying to sing....but I think a piano (tuned of course) will give you the best sounding single notes to follow with your voice.
Practice the melody lines one verse at a time play & sing, play & sing...until you can stop playing and still sing it same way. Then just work your way through the whole song, and do the hard parts until you got them...not just where you get lucky on them once in awhile. :)

I think when you are playing full-on guitars or even strumming an acoustic...never mind listening to a more complete mix...and then trying to sing to that, it's much harder to hear where your vocal melody is going with its pitch from note to note.
 
One of the hardest things to do is find objective feedback to tell you what needs to be improved.

You have found a way to do that, good job.

Now you have to avoid the trap of looking at how in tune you are, instead of listening to how in tune you are.
 
One of the hardest things to do is find objective feedback to tell you what needs to be improved.

You have found a way to do that, good job.

Now you have to avoid the trap of looking at how in tune you are, instead of listening to how in tune you are.

Yes, that is the only way to get better to eventually "know" when you are in tune. But this I think gives you some feedback to have someway of improving. My monitor is far enough away to have to learn to be in tune. But it also helps to have something to key off of.
 
The simplest/best way to get your singing in tune, IMO...is to sit at a piano (assuming you have one and can play some)...and just play the single note melody and sing with it. If you don't have one, then use whatever instrument you have where you can just play the actual single-note melody you are trying to sing....but I think a piano (tuned of course) will give you the best sounding single notes to follow with your voice.
Practice the melody lines one verse at a time play & sing, play & sing...until you can stop playing and still sing it same way. Then just work your way through the whole song, and do the hard parts until you got them...not just where you get lucky on them once in awhile. :)

I think when you are playing full-on guitars or even strumming an acoustic...never mind listening to a more complete mix...and then trying to sing to that, it's much harder to hear where your vocal melody is going with its pitch from note to note.

Can't disagree with anything you are saying here. This is just good fundamentals. One of the problems I may be having is I don't start determining the phrasing of the song until it already has a lot of structure built. Meaning to your point, lots of stuff I am trying to key off of and trying to play off of to try and get the vocals to better compliment the instruments. Like the bass is running a line and you use those notes to play off of it, kind of like a harmony.
 
Can't disagree with anything you are saying here. This is just good fundamentals. One of the problems I may be having is I don't start determining the phrasing of the song until it already has a lot of structure built. Meaning to your point, lots of stuff I am trying to key off of and trying to play off of to try and get the vocals to better compliment the instruments. Like the bass is running a line and you use those notes to play off of it, kind of like a harmony.

I get all that...but once you get the phrasing from the whole mix...step back and fine-tune the melody using a single note instrument as your guide, like a piano....if you are having trouble getting in tune.
The problem with a full mix is that you are not really hearing yourself clearly, you're listening to the whole things, and it's harder to focus on just the melody...which is what your vocals are about.

It might be faster than all that tracking, auto-tuning, re-tracking...etc.
Just a suggestion. :)
 
I get all that...but once you get the phrasing from the whole mix...step back and fine-tune the melody using a single note instrument as your guide, like a piano....if you are having trouble getting in tune.
The problem with a full mix is that you are not really hearing yourself clearly, you're listening to the whole things, and it's harder to focus on just the melody...which is what your vocals are about.

It might be faster than all that tracking, auto-tuning, re-tracking...etc.
Just a suggestion. :)

Not a bad suggestion. Might even yield more vocal articulation.
 
Using software as visual or aural feedback when singing for real seems really awkward to me. Better to train your ears, directly, imo. If you can hear something is off, at least you are some way to solving the problem. But you then have to learn to use your ears to tell you "off how?"

Exercises on learning to sing through a mix should also help. That takes practice. There was an interesting thread up a short while ago about a singer who said she couldn't hear herself when singing with instrumentals. I think some people took that more literally than intended. It is mostly the mind's voice that gets drowned out,. It is that voice that is singing a little ahead, before you actually vocalize, and helps you track. It takes practice to make that voice strong enough.
 
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I think the software thing is a good idea, especially for someone who doesn't have a good ear for intonation.

But, like I said before, it is too easy to start looking at how far you are off, rather than listening to if it sounds good. I think people would be surprised if they looked at some classic vocals with auto tune, or actually listened to them tuned. A lot of great songs prior to the late 90's would sound a lot different.
 
I think the software thing is a good idea, especially for someone who doesn't have a good ear for intonation.

But, like I said before, it is too easy to start looking at how far you are off, rather than listening to if it sounds good. I think people would be surprised if they looked at some classic vocals with auto tune, or actually listened to them tuned. A lot of great songs prior to the late 90's would sound a lot different.

I do agree with this. Sometimes what is deemed "out of tune" just works. Hitting the wrong note on the guitar (from a key perspective), but it works. Bends are a good case in point.

I guess I was thinking of a more reasonable approach, just get it a little tighter. Instead of leaning on technology, use it as a tool to improve.

But I get your and agree 100%. What works, works regardless of what the rules say. That is the great thing about what we are doing here.
 
I get all that...but once you get the phrasing from the whole mix...step back and fine-tune the melody using a single note instrument as your guide, like a piano....if you are having trouble getting in tune.
The problem with a full mix is that you are not really hearing yourself clearly, you're listening to the whole things, and it's harder to focus on just the melody...which is what your vocals are about.

It might be faster than all that tracking, auto-tuning, re-tracking...etc.
Just a suggestion. :)

I was thinking about that, and while I still agree to some extent, when I am working on a song, it always takes me 20-30 attempts before I begin to settle on how it will sound. With that in mind, I thought, while not kill two birds with one stone. Plus with the software, even though it will sound like poo, you could experiment with different notes.

You also could export the vocals to MIDI and use a piano VSTi and use it as a "guide".

I was just thinking for those people who might not have someone working with them and giving real time feedback (others in the band), this could be a good way to "learn" and improve.
 
What has helped me on my vocals is simply listening to recordings of my singing.
If it sounds like shit, ask yourself the question..."why does it sound like shit?"
Is it because it's hard to understand the lyrics that are being sung?
If so, the consonants need to be greatly exaggerated when delivering the vocal. It will seem to you like it's going to be evident in the recording but usually it sounds 100% better when you do that.
More often than not it will be sounding like shit because the vocal is off pitch....sometimes sharp but most often flat in places.
I believe everybody has a natural tendency to slur certain words and sing certain notes off pitch. Different words and notes for different singer's. It is very difficult to hear yourself sway off pitch without developing your ear. That is where listening to recordings of yourself singing helps tremendously. When you listen to a lot of recordings of your vocals you will start to pinpoint the notes and phrases you have a natural tendency to botch. Through diligence and reputation it will get ingrained and you will start to recognize that you are singing a note flat. That how you develope a good ear.

It works.
 
Firstly your voice sounds worse to you than it does to others.
I pretty much guarantee it.
There are professional artists who just can't listen to recordings of their voice and of course to the rest of the world it sounds great.
Jason Isbell has said he can't listen to his singing and to me it sounds great.

So there is that.
But that doesn't mean that it doesn't need help.
It's good to try to improve but personally when it comes to recording I have no issue with subtle pitch correction.
Like on the TC Helicon things. To my ear is sounds normal as long as you get close to the note.
There is no harsh correction like a robot.
 
Firstly your voice sounds worse to you than it does to others.
I pretty much guarantee it.
There are professional artists who just can't listen to recordings of their voice and of course to the rest of the world it sounds great.
Jason Isbell has said he can't listen to his singing and to me it sounds great.

Doesn't mean much.

If he had said that he loved the sound of his voice, more people would tend to say, "it's not all that".

If you say that you can't stand the sound of your voice -- gamesmanship -- you stand a greater chance of drawing attention to it by saying, "what! you've got a great voice!"

People can be funny like that.

If you find most successful singers doing the latter, it's more to do with the Darwin Awards.
 
Practice singing. Practice singing scales/arpeggios using solfege or scale degrees. Practice singing scales/arpeggios on all of the vowel sounds. If there is no one to give you feedback, use the tuning software trick after recording yourself doing these exercises.

This is especially helpful for singing original music, because you have nothing to copy, so it is important that you are singing pitches that are correct relative to each other.

Also, look up singing exercises to improve your vocal technique(breath control, support, etc.) there are of course tons of resources online.
 
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