Uniform speed. vocals

[robbyrobmusik]

I am new to recording. I find sometimes my vocals are too fast for the beat or slow at certain parts. Is there i way I can fix this in my DAW or is this something i have to master performace wise?

[bennychico11]

as a musician you should always strive to master it in the performance. Don't rely on technology to do it for you...then you'll just turn into an Ashley Simpson and start lip syncing your songs on SNL and using Auto Tuner on all your CDs.

You just need to learn about basic rhythm.

[travelin travis]

practice with a metronome daily until you think your timing is where you want it to be.

[littledog]

Meanwhile, if you are using a computer and have enough time on your hands, you could always slide the vocals around to create any kind of timing you want. But yeah, it's sort of cheating... Think how much better you'd feel about yourself as a musician if you could actually perform it right.

On the other hand, some people involved in music production make no claim to being musicians themselves - and have no qualms about "cheating".

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Robby, to be honest, you're not ready for the record button yet. Practice until you can nail the song in your sleep. Then you'll be ready to record.

G.

[robbyrobmusik]

got it guys.. I was thinking the same thing about being able to actually perform correctly.. well back to the drawing board..

[metalhead28]

Sure, there doesn't necessarily need to be any talent whatsoever involved in creating music. You should be able to fix just about anything!

[RAK]

Originally Posted by metalhead28

Sure, there doesn't necessarily need to be any talent whatsoever involved in creating music. You should be able to fix just about anything!

If only I could give you positive rep points again.

[metalhead28]

(while the above post may be interpreted as a total dig at robbyrob....I didn't mean it that way. I just find it funny that people by default want to fix something with technology that only involves a modicum of talent)

Thanks RAK

EDIT: I have been waiting approximately 2 years to use the word "modicum" in a post. Kudos to me!

[robbyrobmusik]

Originally Posted by metalhead28

(while the above post may be interpreted as a total dig at robbyrob....I didn't mean it that way. I just find it funny that people by default want to fix something with technology that only involves a modicum of talent)

Thanks RAK

EDIT: I have been waiting approximately 2 years to use the word "modicum" in a post. Kudos to me!

hey none taken bud... trust me.. I just thought with the horibble performances i see now a days compared to how peoples retail sound. i thought hey.. what the hell.. But na man.. practice makes perfect!!

rob

[Robert D]

Practice first for sure, but here's another tip. It's often helpfull to feel the groove of the song if you hold an imaginary drum stick in your hand, and air drum the beat while you sing.

[chessrock]

Timing is something where ... you either got it, or you don't.

And if you don't "got it," then do your best to fake it. Some people just don't have natural rythm, so why try and pretend that you do? ? I say use the DAW to get you on the beat if you have to. If you can't use it for that purpose, then what good is it?

I don't see any shame in it. Hell, if there was a computer that could make me look like I could dance, I'd sure as hell use it.

.

[Robert D]

Originally Posted by chessrock

Timing is something where ... you either got it, or you don't.

And if you don't "got it," then do your best to fake it. Some people just don't have natural rythm, so why try and pretend that you do? ? I say use the DAW to get you on the beat if you have to. If you can't use it for that purpose, then what good is it?

I don't see any shame in it. Hell, if there was a computer that could make me look like I could dance, I'd sure as hell use it.

.

That's what I like about you Chess, you're never afraid to call a duck a duck, even if everyone else is saying be a swan or get out of the pond.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

"I've got music, I've got rhy-hy-thummm" - Steve Martin.

IMHO there's even less shame in not pretending or faking.

If you can sing but just need practice, then practice. It's far better sounding and far more rewarding than letting a computer do your work for you. And you'll never have that nagging feeling in the back of your head every time you get kudos for your performance when you know that a CPU chip actually deserves half of the credit.

If you're a songwriter and you really feel the need to get your songs "out there", then go ahead and do so. If your voice can't quite cash the checks that your songwriting mind can write, don't worry to much about it. Having a horrible sounding voice never got in Bob Dylan's way.

But if you just come out sounding like William Hung no matter how hard you practice, then get somone else to sing your songs for you if you have to.

If you practice and practice but you just can't sing, then don't sing. No shame in that. At 5'10" I'm not a pro basketball player. That's fine. And I neither have nor see any need to glue springs to the bottom of my shoes so that I can pretend to be a 7' center.

G.

[Robert D]

He didn't say he couldn't sing, just that his timing is a bit off. And I might point out that in concert, a lot of singers take liberties with timing, whether by design or by accident. You can make a solid argument that all pitch correction is evil, but I've gotta think that an argument against editing for timing correction will play itself out to the conclusion that digital editing as a whole is evil, and we never should have allowed razor blades anywhere near tape either. For that matter, what's this BS about overdubs? Artificial reverb? Compressors? Where will it all end?

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by Robert D

but I've gotta think that an argument against editing for timing correction will play itself out to the conclusion that digital editing as a whole is evil, and we never should have allowed razor blades anywhere near tape either.

I agree with you on most of what you say up until that point.

I'm not against editing to help fix performances, it's editing to substitute for techniqe that's the problem, IMHO. When one crosses the line from "Oops I was slightly off at timestamp 1:27:20, I can fix that" - which is perfectly OK - to, "I couldn't keep time with a stopwatch, but I don't care, I have my computer to fake it for me" - which is entiely different IMHO - THEN there's the danger of the slippery slope you describe.

There's a full magnitude of difference in both philosophy and in real world results between using editing to polish a performance and fix glitches in otherwise good technique, and using technology to manufacture performance and *substitute for* technique.

This is true for rhythm issues and for pitch issues as well. But in one way rhythm presents an extra factor that cut editing and shifting doesn't fix; the fat that the voice often has something going on between the notes. It may not always be audible (but sometimes it is), the there's a smooth sequence of things happening to the shape and breath between notes.

It's kind of like handwriting or your signature, where you may pick up the pen at the end of your first name, but where you lay it down at the beginning of the second name is usually at the end of a smooth motion of the pen while it's in the air. One can often look at the handwriting and trace a smooth continuous arc between where the pen left the paper and where it came down again.

A similar type of thing happen naturally in the human voice in places where there are not breaths being taken. If the vocalist gets the rhythm correct, the voice flows smoothly from one beat to the next. Having to over-edit the voice to correct bad rhythm technique often will result in a more staccato sound to the vocal, one can almost - and sometmes more than almost - hear hwere th edits take place because, evn though the timing is perfect, the reansition does not sound natural.

This is what I mean in that there is a difference in real world results between good natural technique and manufactured performance. Manufactured performance is audible and synthetic sounding, and the more that people use that as a crutch to make up for lack of human technique, the more everything starts to sound synthesized and phony.

G.