What if your vocals suck

  • Thread starter Thread starter walshinator666
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walshinator666 said:
Well thanks for everyone's input.I know there's alot of shitty singers that sound good on the cd but can't sing it live,I just thought maybe there was something like that for me but i'll just keep on keeping on.Like I said i'm having fun with it:D
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It's called a Frankenstein track. That's a studio track where practically every phrase or word is a punch in, and every punch in is the result of four or five takes taken until the singer gets it just right. After a few hours of tediously singing the same three words over and over again before moving on to the next three words, ya put 'em all together, and it sounds like you can actually sing a three minute song.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
It's called a Frankenstein track.
.
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HAHAHA, I've done that. Never new it had a name. In the 80s I was recording in Manhattan, the engineer was also working on a LaToya Jackson record. He said they were doing the whole album word by word with a pitch shifter(before autotune) the dude was fried.
 
When I first began to record my voice it threw up all sorts of pitch problems I'd never noticed live. Vocalist.org.uk is full of useful stuff and links out to other sites where examples of scales, warm -ups and much else can be heard. I found this immensely useful.

Practice is the way to go, but assuming you just want to get the song demo'd to a level where you can play it to the real vocalist and have them learn it, here's what I'd do:

Take your hayfever pills, your inhalers or anything else you might need to help you breathe. Drink black or herbal tea rather than iced water or cold beer. You'd be surprised how far that stuff can mess you up.

Firstly warm up. Singing scales is the 'classic' way but really you can sing whatever you like, a capella at a pitch you're most comfortable with for around twenty minutes. During that time you can gradually try singing higher or lower, but don't push yourself into a range where you'll strain your voice at all. Think about using your 'chest' voice, breathing from your diaphragm and singing where you talk from. Most under-practised singers push into their 'head' voice (think Dylan's nasal whine) too easily.

Once you're good and warm do three or four takes of the vocal. Sing from your chest, but try not to shout or belt it out - if you have a weak voice that may well throw you off key. If you're monitoring through headphones try just having them over one ear - so that you can still hear yourself in the room with the other. Keep all the takes, but don't stop to listen to them until you've done a few.

Now play them back one at a time. Better than you expected? If you're happy with one take use that, if not pick your two best and use them as your double-tracks.

If you still aren't happy you could try adding a third track. If it's a particular spot of the song that's bad across all the takes you could try a punch-in or a pitch shift, or if you don't want it too fixed sounding you could try blending one track with an auto tune plug-in applied and one track without.

Hope some of that helps.
 
PDP said:
HAHAHA, I've done that. Never new it had a name. In the 80s I was recording in Manhattan, the engineer was also working on a LaToya Jackson record. He said they were doing the whole album word by word with a pitch shifter(before autotune) the dude was fried.
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I don't know how common of a name that actually is, TBH, but the technique is a lot more common than one might think.

One of our producers does it all the time for virtually everyone he produces; not only for vocals, but for many of the instruments as well, regardless of how good they are. There are a whole lot of commercial recordings done that way these days also.

I personally prefer a bit more orgainic of a session, but with a lot of today's so-called "artists" ya gotta manufacture an artificial track because they just don't have the talent to make it through a song by themselves. It sure aint like the old days when "artists" were actually musicians, and entire 20-piece bands could record entire sides in a couple of takes.

G.
 
The other thing you could do is just embrace the fact you suck - idunno, maybe run your vocals through an amp sim or something, and really just absolutely fuck them up. Make the fact they suck the whole point. When life hands you lemons... :D

Then again, some of my favorite vocalists are guys like Tom Waits, who I suspect most of the board wouldn't consider a "good" singer. :D
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
with a lot of today's so-called "artists" ya gotta manufacture an artificial track because they just don't have the talent to make it through a song by themselves.
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And, as you once said, that won't change until they stop signing dancers and start signing singers again.
 
RAMI said:
And, as you once said, that won't change until they stop signing dancers and start signing singers again.
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Yep, it's all about the visual act these days. Now the big money is made from concert tours and t-shirts and such, and not from CD sales.

Which brings up an important point; everybody always wants to know how "the pros do it", and think that they should be parroting commercial technique. Sometimes that may be a good ideam but one has to remember that often times a commercial production has *different goals* and is working from a different deck of cards than we are, and following their example is not always what we really want to be doing with our own music.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Yep, it's all about the visual act these days. Now the big money is made from concert tours and t-shirts and such, and not from CD sales.

Which brings up an important point; everybody always wants to know how "the pros do it", and think that they should be parroting commercial technique. Sometimes that may be a good ideam but one has to remember that often times a commercial production has *different goals* and is working from a different deck of cards than we are, and following their example is not always what we really want to be doing with our own music.

G.
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CD sales ? What's that ? :p

Recorded music of any quality is so ubiquitous now that it is essentially powerless as a market force. Unless you make music for non downloading crowd, even then the increased competition dilutes market share.

Entertainment has and always will be about exactly that - entertainment.

I have to "lol" at people bitching acts like Bieber and Ke$ha when these people make no bold claims about being master musicians or even accomplished singers, what they do and do well is sell entertainment to their generation. Technology has always played a huge part in this. Incidently, every generation tries to differentiate itself from the one preceding it.It's how they stick together as a group.

Technology has evolved to the point where good musicians and singers now have to play and sing for their supper.....every night ...like the good old days* :)

* I also have to lol at people referring to "the good ole days" as if its possible to snapshot a point in history where it was good for everybody, not just a privileged few.


My advice to the OP is to, indeed practise, but in the interim, try belting out a really emotional performance and then pitch correct the result. :)
 
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SouthSIDE Glen said:
Yep, it's all about the visual act these days. Now the big money is made from concert tours and t-shirts and such, and not from CD sales.

Which brings up an important point; everybody always wants to know how "the pros do it", and think that they should be parroting commercial technique. Sometimes that may be a good ideam but one has to remember that often times a commercial production has *different goals* and is working from a different deck of cards than we are, and following their example is not always what we really want to be doing with our own music.

G.
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it really is about the visual act, I don't even try to sell my music, I put it up for free dl hoping that when I perform a show or try to sell merch, people would support me then...its all materialistic now.
 
CFox said:
* I also have to lol at people referring to "the good ole days" as if its possible to snapshot a point in history where it was good for everybody, not just a privileged few.
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And I, OTOH, have to shake my head in pity at those who feel that everything is supposed to be good for everybody. That's baloney. Personally I long for the days where people actually had to EARN the right to be recorded, because then the recordings were WORTH listening to.

The world would be far better off without so many Taylor Swifts - who couldn't carry a tune in a freakin' wheelbarrow. It's not like she's and other no-talent pretty faces like her are filling any gaps in entertainment; there are more entertainment options with more accessibility to more people than ever at any point in human history. What the hell do we need to be filling the music recording industry with no-talent hacks for? The answer is we don't.

G.
 
To be fair, Taylor really isn't nearly as bad as some.

SouthSIDE Glen said:
Personally I long for the days where people actually had to EARN the right to be recorded, because then the recordings were WORTH listening to.
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I'm mixed on this - the home recording movement has completely democratized the process of making an album, which is both a good and a bad thing. The good news is that almost anyone can now, um, how to say this... I guess build a rig that has the potential to make a "professional" sounding recording, provided they're willing to take the time to learn and do it right. If you're writing songs and you want to turn your song sheets into an album, it's easier than it's ever been to do that, today.

The bad news, of course, is that almost anyone can make an album, so a potentially valuable filter in the form of the "record contract" has been rendered mostly irrelevant. :laughings:

I guess ultimately I'm cool with it - the onus is now on the listener to determine what he or she likes to an extent that's never been possible before. Anyone can get on iTunes these days, so there's now a TON of stuff out there that previously was just too niche (or, shitty) to get recorded in the past, so if you're into pretty obscure stuff there's almost an infinite amount of it out there. You just have to find the quality through all the dross.

I'm perfectly OK that the album I'm working on now, an instrumental guitar album, never would have had a chance of existing 20 years ago because the market just wasn't big enough for an unknown guy with a all-consuming day job. I don't care if it sells, I just want to do it because it's fun. :) (of course, I also don't expect to become the next Justin Beiber, so I'm probably way less annoying for that. :laughings:)
 
A lot of generalizations from frustrated people is what I hear... lack of good work is the root cause. If we were busier than shit we wouldn't have time to post this stuff.

Everything doesn't suck nowadays. My music is better than it's ever been.

We are in a paradigm shift that's all, and lots of people are sucked into believing that "the sky is falling". Ray Kurzweil has the most accurate assessment of what's going on of anyone I've come across, tv news the most inaccurate.
 
Today is obviously the greatest day for music the world has ever had, not only do we have all the music of yesteryear but all the music produced up to today....until tomorrow, which will be the greatest day for music the world has ever had....und so weiter....repeat to fade
 
dintymoore said:
lack of good work is the root cause. If we were busier than shit we wouldn't have time to post this stuff.
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You've said that before, as if "being busy" means not having time to take a shit. I don't know, man. I work every week end live, record all week, have a day job, teach drums, do personal training at my or other people's homes, etc....I still have time to get high, jerk off, have sex, watch movies, post on the internet, etc....

I don't think "being busy" means "not having a life".
 
My vocals suck, always, but they suck on pitch.

To the OP: I just listened to your track, and it does indeed suck something fierce. That's not just bad singing, I think you're tone deaf. For one, sing harder/louder. It sounds like you're talking you're way through it. Secondly, practice and learn how to suck in key. Sucking is okay when it's in the right key and pitch and you can produce a melody.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
To be fair, Taylor really isn't nearly as bad as some.



I'm mixed on this - the home recording movement has completely democratized the process of making an album, which is both a good and a bad thing. The good news is that almost anyone can now, um, how to say this... I guess build a rig that has the potential to make a "professional" sounding recording, provided they're willing to take the time to learn and do it right. If you're writing songs and you want to turn your song sheets into an album, it's easier than it's ever been to do that, today.

The bad news, of course, is that almost anyone can make an album, so a potentially valuable filter in the form of the "record contract" has been rendered mostly irrelevant. :laughings:

I guess ultimately I'm cool with it - the onus is now on the listener to determine what he or she likes to an extent that's never been possible before. Anyone can get on iTunes these days, so there's now a TON of stuff out there that previously was just too niche (or, shitty) to get recorded in the past, so if you're into pretty obscure stuff there's almost an infinite amount of it out there. You just have to find the quality through all the dross.

I'm perfectly OK that the album I'm working on now, an instrumental guitar album, never would have had a chance of existing 20 years ago because the market just wasn't big enough for an unknown guy with a all-consuming day job. I don't care if it sells, I just want to do it because it's fun. :) (of course, I also don't expect to become the next Justin Beiber, so I'm probably way less annoying for that. :laughings:)
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I've said it many times: the ease of home-recording has watered down the talent pool and made being shitty okay. That's why there's so much bad screamo metal and hipster indie garbage out there now. It's too easy. You don't have to answer to anyone when you're someone like me and can churn out song after shitty song and release it all over the world via the internet.
 
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