I give up

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CyanJaguar

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I have used every natural technique in the book and I am pooped. I give up.

I can sing in pitch when listening to speakers, but when I put on the headphones, my voice wavers like a bad mexican wave.I tried everything. I even had a keyboard line to make sure I stayed in pitch but no workee. Also, when I put on the headphones, I lose all emotion in the singing.

What the heck am I doing wrong.


BY the way, does this song have too much range. It seems I go from too low a voice to too high a voice.Also, Do you find it at all catchy? or should I give up the effort and start something else?

Plan- WIP
 
When wearing headphones, try only wearing one headphone, leaving one ear to hear your live voice. Alot of singers use this technique in the studio. It should help your pitch problem.

As far as your vocals go, they're fine, you do however need to get control of your vibrato. Only use it at the end of words, or even better only at the end of sentances. I'm hearing alot of constant uncontrolled vibrato. This is probably the "wavering" you are referring to. You may want to consider voice lessons to help you learn how to properly use your vibrato.

I will say this, your voice is very original sounding. I can see it fitting in well with certain pop or dance tunes.

Your song is catchy enough, I would imagine some synths, strings, pads would add alot to the overall fullness. As of now it sounds a little empty. Make it fuller, stronger, you may have a good little tune there! Keep it going....
 
to Mr. "Funk On", himself...

I have the very same problem tracking my own vocals, and I can say that pulling one side of the headphones off helps... but it's very tricky getting the levels right. I usually jack up the snare drum level, and possibly one of the guitars (if it's not an off-rhythm part). Off rhythm parts tend to confuse when tracking voice.

Sometimes I'll do 50 vocal takes and think they all sucked, so I've been there too. For me it's just a matter of working thru it.

HTH :rolleyes: :)


Chad


EDIT: Something to try -- record a scratch keyboard part; peck out the melody... exactly the notes you'll sing, roughly the same rhythm... and use that + drums for reference... worth a try, anyway
 
you have an original voice for sure cyan. don't give up! is this recorded with that blueberry?

are you mixing your voice loud enough to hear while your singing in the headphones? are you mixing it so loud that you can't hear the guide or supporting sonorities?

most importantly, do you have a vocal coach? talk to a pro. it will be worth every penny you spend if they are good. maybe you already have somebody but it's the kind of feedback that i don't really think you can find on a bulletin board or in a book imo.
 
The song is good. I hear a completely different arrangement and production in my head though... something a lot more up beat and danceable... maybe a little quicker tempo. But the melody and structure are great.

There were certain vowels and soft consenants that seemed a bit.. i don't know how to describe it... un-natural? Anywho, vocal wise, I'm not qualified to tell you a damn thing. If my vocal chords were ripped out of my throut by a jaguar, I wouldn't even miss them...
 
The song is not my genre, and in those cases I find it harder to say whether or not it's a "good song." It seems plenty of people have said it is. So that's got to make you feel good.

As far as pitch, I liked participant's suggestion of a rough vocal track where you're concentrating just on pitch and not on delivery. Then when you're ready for a take, sing the "real" track over that.

erichenryus suggested a vocal coach. May be some $$$, but could be worth it to you.

You could also colaborate with someone to do the vocals.

Funk on big cat.
 
thanks everybody.

TripleM. I kinda feel good about the comments. I did not post this song until a friend heard it and liked it. I hope he was not gushing.

Jr#97. I wanted to make it 130 bpm, but I had to settle for 125 bpm since that was the drum loop I had. Thanks for the listen and the uplifting words.

Erichenryus, this is not the blueberry. This is the AT 4033. I used it with the vmp-2 and I was finally able to put into words why I dont think the two work together. The 4033 works like magic with my mpx4a but the vmp2 makes it sound pinched, and if you listen closely, you can actually hear the plastickey sound that comes from that combo.

Misterx, I have tried pulling one headphone off, but it never seems to work. How loud do you track? Thanks for the listen.



I do have a vocal coach. Thats the sad thing. She has trained me for about two years.
 
a good headphone mix is key.........try jacking up the vocal on the headphone mix so you can really hear it well......this always gives me problems
 
I like your harmonies.

It sounds like something I went through a long time ago. The hard part is I think it's mostly in your head. You gotta' get out of it. It sounds like you're trying too hard and thinking of the notes and your vocal/breathing technique instead of just letting it flow naturally.

And that's the toughest hump to get over. I still haven't, which is why you don't hear a lot of chessrock original work in the mp3 clinic. :D I rely so much on the interaction between my voice and the accoustics of the room for one. Take that away, and I'm left only with what I'm hearing over the cans, which sounds unnatural and "confined" in a way.

I'm still convinced it's just a matter of psyching yourself out and getting in the proper mental frame to where the cans and what's coming out of them feels natural and comfortable to you. Let me know if you find any techniques for that -- cuz I could use them.
 
CyanJaguar said:
thanks everybody.
Jr#97. I wanted to make it 130 bpm, but I had to settle for 125 bpm since that was the drum loop I had. Thanks for the listen and the uplifting words.
Click to expand...


What kind of recording set-up do you have? You might want to look into a beat-matching program that can increase the bpm like Acid or Fruity Loops. Sonar and Cool Edit Pro 2.0 also do beat matching. If you're interested, I could take your loop and up it to 130. Another cool thing about Acid, is that you can layer loops from all kinds of sources and have them all be in sync.
 
There is a way to sing with your speakers on. I might need some help from the board on details, but its something like this:

You either put your speakers out of phase by changing the hot and ground leads on one--or put one side of the mix out of phase--if you can do that with a DAW. Also, put your mix in mono (I think--this is the part I can't remember, so maybe somebody can help with this).

The next thing is to find the mic placement right in the center of the two speakers to get maximum phase cancellation. The idea is that the phase of right and left will cancel out in the center, where your mic is. What you will end up with is the vocal and perhaps a very tiny bit of track.

It might be worth a try.
 
A Confession...

About a month ago, I got so fed up with listening to mixes on my headphones where the leads and backups sounded GREAT, only to unplug the phones and have my speakers give me the TRUTH...out of pitch, out of sync...AAARRRrrrggghhh...

So I started recording without headphones at all. There's my big confession. I'm gonna' definitely look into what Crawdad said, but I've been getting away with just recording vox with the speaks on very low volume (just low enough to avoid feedback). Sure, there's a heck uva lot more "bleed" on the vocal track than there used to be, but it doesn't matter to me because, guess what, it's the same stuff that's gonna' be in the final mix anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I know there are all kinds of problems that can happen when you start compressing the vocal track with all the other track noise, but so far, with all the careful and trained ears here, nobody's ever caught that my vocal tracks have too much stuff on 'em. Especially if you're used to singing live with floor monitors, I actually recommend tracking vox without headphones. Works for me.

(the vocal wasn't bad at all, btw)...Yeah, I guess I should probably say something about YOU in this post, eh?

:D

post lots,
-nobody
 
Good harmonies man.The secret(for me at least) to a strong vocal track with headphones is to have everything UP loud enough.I always turn my vocal monitor down at least equal with the ryhtym playback or lower than the playback.

If your vocal monitor is really loud in the headphones you will have the tendency to lay off a little and not put all the feeling and force that you would have normaly....your ears get fooled into thinking that just because the vocal sounds loud in the headphone that you need to soften up a little and not sing with as much force and feeling....you only need to hear yourself enough to sing on pitch.Turn those backing tracks up in the headphone mix and wail on daddyo!

btw/ there's nothing wrong with this vocal at all.It's on pitch and the harmonies are sweet.
 
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Chrisharris and Crawdad,

You guys are tempting me bad to just say forget about it and use monitors. I'm going to try it soon.

I'll try kramer's suggestion of increasing the volume first. I usually dont turn it up to where it gets in the mic.

Chessrock, I hear you. I think its psyching onesself out too. Some days I wake up and I am ready to lay vocals. THe only thing is that those moments are few are far between so the other times when I just feel normal I need to reach inside and find the energy.

I am definitely going to find a fix for this though.

Funk on!
 
Don't give up!! You don't have enough reason to give up and I don't think you could if you wanted to;)

The "one can off, one on" suggestion and the "loud ass vocal mix in the cans" will help tons. You might wanna check into "open headphones as apposed to closed" before you try that tricky monitor thang.......I'd look at the mix board and see if you can't pump up the headphone volume without affecting the tracking volume and I think you'll be fine........

If you give up and can't sing in a studio then I'm most certainly a helpless, hapless, blasphemous, deseased and repugnant pig of a studio singer.

I just need to wire the house with my favorite vocal mic, waterproofed and mounted 5 inches below the shower head with a firm gate to cut out the "bathing noises" and I'LL BE ON MY WAY TO VOCAL BLISS!!

don't quit, learn some more.............


Peace,

Theron.:) :)
 
I have the same problem.

I'm totally intimadated by standing in front of a mic and singing with headphones on.
Definatly have to try it with monitors.

What's helped me some is to do a scratch track,and singing to it,but better.
Know what I mean,compete with yourself,helps to get pcyched up.

I think you sound really good,did you record the vocals with just the piano track you have here?
Dosn't sound like enough backround music to sing the melody to.
Mabey a fuller mix would help,you could always kill it later.

The 4033 sounds good on your voice,I was seriously thinking of thinking gettin one.
What do you like better about it than the Blueberry,I have a Dragonfly so I'm curious.

Good luck.

Best to you,
Pete
 
During a lot of his sessions with U2, Stephen Harris often talks about how most of the vocals were done with Bono singing in to an sm58 plugged in the Neve board with the monitors "blaring."

The sound-on-sound search engine has a lot of articles on the subject:

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/search/
 
cyan...your singing is usually just fine. Sure...if you had the big budget stuff backing you, you could spend the rest of your life going for perfection... But, I put this in the context(comparison) of reggae (for instance)..., etc. It is the style and the sound of the voice that is pleasant to listen too. We could name names all night of people who really aren't all that vocally trained, but yet pleasant to listen to. Your voice is unique in which that makes you one of the lucky bastards.

Some low end happnin' on that track...eh?

pno leans on the MIDI side a bit too...

Stick with it...your ears can be trusted.

and.....not that you need 'em...but keep hanging in there with the lessons. [mixmkr says;] "A person who is satisfied sits on a plateau..."
;)
 
Hey Cyan -- I know what you mean about that old vocal problem...I am always having them myself...I guess it is one of those things where you just have to keep on keeping on (I think that is a song or something) ...

I was only able to listen to the first 12 seconds of the song (cos' I can only listen in lo-fi, so hi-fi always stops after 12 seconds...damn connection speeds) but what I heard didn't sound bad. I guess you have already got a lot of advice already...my only advice is to keep it up!
 
lessons are cool man ... the singing is in pitch for the most part ... you drop some notes here and there and you do sound somewhat "frozen" ... loosen up man ... :) I also agree on trying to speed it up and maybe making rythm more smooth
cheers
 
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