A few more tests
That's where the light came on in my head - you've got a 'proper' voice and I'd bet that close in, it's pretty loud. I had no idea how a 2020 would cope. To be honest, I thought it would be blasty and horrible, but it wasn't - it coped pretty well but it suddenly had that strange 'tone' extra component. Not even really distortion but a weird thickening?
Love to hear the response and see if I guessed right 'cus it's a new one and one to remember.
Thank you! Yes, it doesn't really sound like distortion, but just a strange tone that I really don't hear coming from my voice. So, I recorded some random stuff with the gain knob at 30% singing about 1 ft away from the mic and then right after in this same clip, the gain is at 25%, I tried to be about the same distance from the mic. I turned up the volume 3dB in my DAW. At the 30% level, I still hear this fuzziness in the first five seconds right before the note changes, which would be the peak of the wave, and then there is some clipping around 8 seconds. The 25% gain starts around 16 seconds in, I don't really hear the fuzziness, but it sounds so far away. I assume the more I learn about EQ and mixing, I can probably fix this?
I've been playing around with recording my voice for awhile, and haven't taken the time to look into why it was clipping. I like to sing a lot with the higher notes, sometimes I record singing with crystal singing bowls, or just the bowls on their own. It sounds like I've been overloading the microphone when things get too loud and into higher frequencies. I just have the Scarlett Solo for my audio interface. The microphone goes directly into that, interface directly into the computer. Is there a different microphone or audio interface that I can look into that might work better when I want to sing in the higher register? Or something more capable of handling the full range, or perhaps I just need to learn to move myself while I'm recording, to or away from the mic. And play around more with this one. It seems to work well if I'm singing in a lower range.
Also, the reason I was singing so close to the mic is because I read/learned somewhere that being closer could help minimize the echo/sound of the room, too.
Since you're being so kind to help me identify what's going on, I attached a short clip of another song (Eyes of Love) in my lower register. This was a higher gain level, probably 50%, and I was really close to the mic. I hear fuzziness/breathiness/lack of clarity here, too, but it might be different, and this might actually be my voice. I think it's happening because the sound is going too far back in the my throat, so it's losing clarity? I can hear it while I'm singing. But I don't think that's happening when I sing higher, as that has always been the stronger and clearer part of my range.
View attachment GainTests.mp3
View attachment Eyes of Love_Short.mp3