Bobby Layne
New member
Hello.
Context
I have taken a 6+ year break from music. Previously, I had wrote a little over 100 songs and worked on the 20 or so I thought sucked the least and fleshed them out in Cubase 7. Besides 1 very small coffee shop style performance and 10 songs I posted on SoundCloud but basically never promoted (link - https://soundcloud.com/ciseight-band), none of the music ever saw the light of day (I'll use shyness / anxiety as an excuse, but I'm sure laziness had it's role too). I always hated my voice, and hated my vocals on the tracks and was embarrassed.
I have found motivation to start up doing music projects again over the past couple months. I'm setting myself a goal of "just get my music on Spotify, and do some basic self-promotion on socials and at least put myself out there to see if there are locals around me who might be interested in forming a band for gigs" by the end of the year. I still have all my original Cubase 7 project files.
Actual Question
6 years later, as I listen back on my tracks I haven't heard in years, I am actually relatively satisfied with the arrangements and mix (I am far less of a "perfectionist" then what I used to be; it's still very amateur, I just don't care). However, the vocals are still just as cringy to me, and some of the lyrics I feel inspired to update. I would like to re-record my vocal tracks.
How might one begin to tackle redoing vocals on old projects?
The computer I used to do all my projects on died a couple years back. I built a new PC, and re-installed Cubase 7 and Native Instruments on it and moved over all my saved project files, but the functionality is not quite as good as it used to be (Plugins I used to use showing as "not-found," MIDI piano rolls lagging, etc.) I have also bought a MacBook Pro and have begun to get the basics of GarageBand down on that. I have 2 mic's: an SM58 and an ST59. Currently, I am considering:
Also, hello everyone! Longtime lurker here, but first time posting (like I said, I'm shy).
Brett
Context
I have taken a 6+ year break from music. Previously, I had wrote a little over 100 songs and worked on the 20 or so I thought sucked the least and fleshed them out in Cubase 7. Besides 1 very small coffee shop style performance and 10 songs I posted on SoundCloud but basically never promoted (link - https://soundcloud.com/ciseight-band), none of the music ever saw the light of day (I'll use shyness / anxiety as an excuse, but I'm sure laziness had it's role too). I always hated my voice, and hated my vocals on the tracks and was embarrassed.
I have found motivation to start up doing music projects again over the past couple months. I'm setting myself a goal of "just get my music on Spotify, and do some basic self-promotion on socials and at least put myself out there to see if there are locals around me who might be interested in forming a band for gigs" by the end of the year. I still have all my original Cubase 7 project files.
Actual Question
6 years later, as I listen back on my tracks I haven't heard in years, I am actually relatively satisfied with the arrangements and mix (I am far less of a "perfectionist" then what I used to be; it's still very amateur, I just don't care). However, the vocals are still just as cringy to me, and some of the lyrics I feel inspired to update. I would like to re-record my vocal tracks.
How might one begin to tackle redoing vocals on old projects?
The computer I used to do all my projects on died a couple years back. I built a new PC, and re-installed Cubase 7 and Native Instruments on it and moved over all my saved project files, but the functionality is not quite as good as it used to be (Plugins I used to use showing as "not-found," MIDI piano rolls lagging, etc.) I have also bought a MacBook Pro and have begun to get the basics of GarageBand down on that. I have 2 mic's: an SM58 and an ST59. Currently, I am considering:
- Exporting to .wav files the entire track except vocals, put that into GarageBand, and re-recording vocals over it (trying out different mic placement and trying to improve the performance).
- Continue using my Windows 10 PC with Cubase 7, try to deal with the functionality issues, and re-record on that.
- Don't even bother re-recording; just use Cubase to remix it (lower the gain to make it less prominent in the mix, maybe add some light distortion effect to try to mask to poor performance?)
- Download Cubase 7 on my new MacBook Pro and see if functionality is better there, then re-record on that.
- Buy the newest version of Cubase which should run smoother and re-record on that (do projects from Cubase 7 open without issue on new versions?)
- Completely restart the songs from scratch on MacBook (I have been more into folk as of late and could see myself changing the arrangements up for a more chill Jack Johnson vibe, but that seems like it would be wasting a lot of years work on the style I currently have).
- Say f-it, don't bother re-recording or re-mixing, and just release it / promote it as is.
Also, hello everyone! Longtime lurker here, but first time posting (like I said, I'm shy).
Brett