Help with out of tune vocalist

  • Thread starter Thread starter eyema_believer
  • Start date Start date
eyema_believer

eyema_believer

Bondservant
Guys....
I'm recording a lady, and she sings sharp almost all of the time... It's making me an old man.... any ideas on how to help her sing in tune? Whole passages will be sharp! HELP!!

~Shawn

ps... sorry if this is not a good place for this post....
 
yup melodyne works wonders on vocals, and even on intonation problems on bass etc.

I recommend the VST version.
 
I've got Antares Auto-tune. It isn't working... she slides into every single note, and 15% of the time she's so out of tune that Autotune pulls it to the wrong note! I never was very good at the graphical mode... maybe I should give it whirl with her... It's just very frustrating, and time consuming... She ain't makin' me a milionaire, if you know what I mean. Although, she is paying me, and I need the $$, so I can't give up.
*sigh*
 
make it sound worse and only sell it to indie kids.

...in all honesty, i would tell her "this is how it is... if you want it to be better, you'll need to practice more."

you could take a pitch shifter and just flatten it.

i've automated a pitch shifter's cents before to fix pitchy things and it works well. it's not a difficult job to do...it's just more rewarding for her to practice...
 
I agree with Cello...........

Good business is also about being honest as to her approach. If she wants to move forward, and for $$$'s purposes I hope she does, then Tylenol and YES Melodyne would be your best approach.

The reason I say be honest is because She should know to what extreme you must go and the amount of work you're putting in to correct her shortcomings. And hopefully she will RESPECT the professionalism and honesty.

And she won't be deceived into thinking that she sounds like the Final product!:D

Good Luck!
 
Hand her a mix of how she really is & a scrap of how it'll sound if you spend the extra hours working with technology to fix it & ask does she want to pay to have it fixed.
You could record it a phrase at a time or put it into sing star & let her see how far out she is.
 
auto tune isn't my fave. Melodyne does have a bit better appreciation for sliding notes, even though you may have to adjust it every now and then.

But I agree with the others. Be honest. In sessions, I let the singer know that I'm going to using a plugin that will show them where they need to work on their notes. It's an auto correction VST, so I say, if you hit a flat note, it's going to pull it down, but if you're shakey it'll smoothe it out. and then let them know we're only going to worry about sharp and flat notes. We record till it's good. Then I use melodyne in it's auto pitch correction and it's just fine.
 
Shawn, You can fix it in V-vocal if you have access to Sonar 6 or 7. Short of that I can suggest that she is wearing cans that are too loud. That will make you sing sharp.

You can always play her melody on the piano and pipe it to her cans and tell her to match the notes she hears.
 
You guys have given me some good advice, and I appreciate that very much! I think I will mess about with the headphone mix some more. I tried a sidechain ducking compressor, where when she sang, it turned the music down... I tried turning her vocal down, up... etc etc. Maybe, I'll have her put an ear plug in one ear before she puts the cans on. I always carry one when I go to places to sing, in case the monitors are bad. It really works.
If that doesn't work, I will explain what I will have to do in order to make her sound decent, and figure out what she must pay.
Thanks again for all of your suggestions. Yous guys are the bestest!

Peace!

~Shawn
 
if it makes any difference. I seem to hear myself more accurately with earbuds. I don't know why. I just do...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top