Recording and Monitoring One's Own Vocals

HRmusic90

HRmusic90

21st Century Digital Boy
So I recorded a vocal track last night and it sounds lousy. The drum, bass, and guitar tracks all sound really good. I couldn't figure out why there was such a discrepancy between what I was hearing in headphones and what I was hearing in my DAW. The vocals were much thinner and badly EQed. The only thing I could think of is that I can't help but hear my own voice also resonating in my head when I sing, and maybe that's what's interfering with getting good objectivity on how the vocals really sound.
Is recording your own vocals one of the trickier things to do?
 
HRmusic90 said:
The only thing I could think of is that I can't help but hear my own voice also resonating in my head when I sing, and maybe that's what's interfering with getting good objectivity on how the vocals really sound.
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That's exactly right. Our voices sound quite different when played back to us without us being able to hear it through our head cavities. Additionally, there is the psychological thing of us usually thinking we sound better than we do.
 
Try to listen more analytically....IOW, don't think of it as YOUR voice, listen to it as just another element in the mix, and try to be as unbiased as possible.
You have to learn to accept the unique sound of your voice...you can't sound like anyone else.
What I'm trying to say is...a lot of people CAN sing well, it just takes some training, but we can't completely change the personality of our voices...the part that we are born with, so just accept it for what it is.
 
HRmusic90 said:
Definitely. I wasn't happy with it, but my wife seemed to like it.

So what work-arounds are there, if any?
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There are none.

Just because you sound different on playback than you think you do when you are singing doesn't mean it's necessarily not as good as you thought. It just means its different to what you expected.

Heed Miro's advice: treat your voice not as being your voice but as another musical element in the whole puzzle.

If you hear things you don't like in that element (e.g. pitchiness, an unpleasant tone, unexciting phrasing, whatever), either takes steps to fix them or just accept it for what it is (which is what I've had to do).
 
gecko zzed said:
the psychological thing of us usually thinking we sound better than we do.
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Interesting. Do you mean that we think we sound better on the recording than we actually are or do you mean in general we think we're better singers than we are ?
If the latter, I've come from the opposite direction. It took me a very long time before I thought I could sing sufficiently to actually want to hear me. I still would rather have certain of my friends sing my songs than me {I love doing harmonies and back ups though}. But I also have come to realize that no one can sing like me, for better or worse, because my voice doesn't sound like anyone's that I've heard. So I've grown to like it. I'm pleasantly surprised when people say they like that voice. No one has ever said they don't like it ! But my default thought is borderline doubt. Then I think, no, it's alright in it's own funky way {although it's not funky !}.
In terms of the OPs, question and problem though, in my experience, it's not uncommon. I've recorded vocals that I thought were good and then a few days later, I've had to seriously wonder what was wrong with my ears to have passed that. I'm coming around to the conclusion that I might need to factor in an extra day when I've done vocals just to let the dust settle, get my ears back to normal and listen again. I find that I'm having to re ~do an uncomfortable number of vocals !
 
Most people, I expect, would rather be praised than pilloried, and so I think that someone would not voluntarily get up and sing if they knew they didn't sound good.

They may not realise they don't sound good because they hear themselves singing in the shower and it sounds great, and their friends and family tell them they are great. Sometimes their desire for fame and fortune blinds them to their lack of talent.
 
Once you accept your voice, and can treat it objectively, then the next thing to do is see what you can do, what you can't do, etc. It is an instrument that is unique and has to be treated that way. Presnt it i9n the best light you can, if you have pitch issues, see if you can fix that, if it sound harsh, see if you are singing too loud, too soft, work the mic, try different keys to sing in, just have to find your niche.

I don't care for my singing, but it is what it is and I push on. Try to make it as good as I can let it go.

You do have to figure out a way to work with your voice, just the way it is.
 
I kind of skimmed through the thread, but I don't think anyone touched on direct monitoring versus playback. If you monitor yourself through the direct monitor function on an interface, you aren't listening to your voice with whatever processing you placed on the channel. then when you play it back, you hear the vocal track with the processing.

This may not be what you're doing, but if so, that would account for difference in what you're hearing.... as well as the head voice thing and not acclimated to the sound of your own voice.
 
Chili said:
I kind of skimmed through the thread, but I don't think anyone touched on direct monitoring versus playback. If you monitor yourself through the direct monitor function on an interface, you aren't listening to your voice with whatever processing you placed on the channel. then when you play it back, you hear the vocal track with the processing.

This may not be what you're doing, but if so, that would account for difference in what you're hearing.... as well as the head voice thing and not acclimated to the sound of your own voice.
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I was trying to monitor with processing so that I could make adjustments, but I think the adjustments I was making were off because I wasn't hearing how it really sounded.

Admittedly I need to work on both things. I've been playing guitar a lot longer than I've been singing, so I need to get better both with being accustomed to my own voice, plus the engineering of vocals.
 
Also: most headphones give a non-realistic reproduction of vocals in a mix. Fine for monitoring while recording, but use decent monitor speakers for mixing and applying EQ, etc.
 
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When recording I used to lather on the reverb and delay because it made it sound awesome in my headphones while i was singing but it really left me with worse performances. Turning the effects down and getting an awesome take always leaves you with an awesome take. While recording with a bunch of stuff to make it good means you're kind of trapped there. Turn the effects down (maybe just a little reverb) and you might come out with a better result (I did anyway, may not work for everyone).
 
Another trick is to get one of the cups on your headphones off the ear. Or if you're using a cardioid mic you can fire the dead end at the monitors and not use headphones. I wish it helped my talent as a singer (it doesn't) but singing with cans on can throw me off quite easily. Getting an ear in air seems to restore the real world and my ability to gage what I'm singing.

Might be worth a try.
 
snow lizard said:
Another trick is to get one of the cups on your headphones off the ear. Or if you're using a cardioid mic you can fire the dead end at the monitors and not use headphones. I wish it helped my talent as a singer (it doesn't) but singing with cans on can throw me off quite easily. Getting an ear in air seems to restore the real world and my ability to gage what I'm singing.

Might be worth a try.
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I'll give it a shot, but what I wish I could do, would be to somehow turn off my brain's ability to hear my own resonance. I use headphones because I want to hear what's going through the chain and nothing else, and I tend to crank them to drown my own self out as best I can.
 
HRmusic90 said:
I use headphones because I want to hear what's going through the chain and nothing else, and I tend to crank them to drown my own self out as best I can.
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In that case Snow Lizard's advice is golden.
You do need to learn to find that balance between the sound you are singing to and the sound you are making. It takes a while sometimes. What you're going through is by no means unusual.
 
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