Need help with my vocals please

Have you posted this song before? It sounds familiar. Pretty cool track. On your "Rough" mix....the vocals are muffled and lack any brightness...just doesn't sit in the mix well. Try Rolling off the bottom end and adding in some between 1K and 2K. Adjust your Q ratio until it sounds good to you taste.

I know how you feel about not being a great singer. I am bad about trying to mask my in abilities as a singer with effects and such. But the big thing is you have to remain on pitch. I have never used an auto tune(maybe I should), but I can sit and do 100 takes just to get it in key.
 
Hey Bruthish, yeah I've posted this a couple weeks ago when I just had the guitars. Been working on this ever since :P

I will throw up a copy of the vocals without the auto-tune on there later on this evening. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to get the time to do a lot of takes in one sitting as I can't do this when my fiance is around. I don't want her to hear any of this until I hand her the cd on the wedding day and we work very similar shifts so I only have about an hour a day including warm ups. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to find a larger window.

I will try to play with the EQ more and make some more drastic alterations to see if I can boost the clarity. I showed a friend IRL late last night and he is of the mind that I should re-record the vocals since my voice sounds like it's in a box? I didn't quite understand but I suppose more takes and changing mic placement can't hurt.

Based on what I have for eq right now, what would you personally add/remove/change to get the vocals to pop out more?

EDIT: LOL I just realized I didn't cut out the end of the recording where I say "let's try one more..." hahaha
 
Last edited:
Your vocals need clarity right now...bump up 1K-2K and start there. Your bottom end will add or subtract presence and you can adjust that to taste. EQ can really make or break you. Its easy to go overboard on it to make up for poor recording or poor mixing of the rest of the instruments. If you are wanting it to sound clear and upfront, I would ditch all your effects and adjust the EQ until you get it where you want it and then SLOWLY add them a little at a time.
 
I listened to all the tracks. I think Bruthish is on track. The effects in the rough mix just turn the vocal to mush. Rough 2 was better. However, the vocal sounded the best when it was just raw. There are pitchy spots. And unfortunately drowning a vocal in delay/reverb isn't going to help that.

On one of those tracks, I thought your use of Autotune worked well. So to me, the autotune is probably the only effect that improved the vocal. I never thought I'd actually say that.

OTOH - I think you're a real good guitar player.

When you said it was a wedding gift for your fiance, I figured it was going to be a nice love song. I was surprised.
 
Thanks for listening guys. I will try another mix with just the auto tune and maybe play with the EQ more when I get home? Rough2 was me playing with a couple things like 10mins before I left for work haha.

TripleM,

Thanks for the kind words man, I really love playing guitar. The song has a harder edge than most love songs because I guess that's just the best way I can express myself. The lyrics are symbolic but I guess pretty odd for a "love" song haha.
 
Omni -

I am going to be straight with you, mang.

Unless your fiance has an incredible sense of humor, I would go with a diamond or something a little more traditional.

The vocals linked above need lots of help. There's so much processing, I don't know where to start. The dynamics are all off, the tone isn't complimentary to the guitars, and attitude just isn't there.

The good news is I know that you can totally do it and you are in the right place to learn how to get it done.

Can you post the vocals with the song totally dry? Make them too loud but dry as a bone. Then we can hear what the track needs.
 
Supercreep,

Thanks for the honesty. Crushing as it may be, I appreciate it. Frankly, there is literally 0 chance the vocals can be on the same level as my guitar playing. We're talking 10 years off and on of guitar to a year maybe of really off and on vocals and no real training.

When you listened, did you also listen to rough2? I dropped the delay on that one I think and someone earlier suggested just the auto-tune and maybe some EQ. I personally feel the rough1 is awful compared to rough2, not that it's anything amazing with that said.

I'm not sure what I can do about the attitude, I'm singing pretty free but I just don't have a whole lot of power in my voice and I guess I'm not the best at writing vocal melodies. As long as the song isn't overly complicated, I can replicate to an "okay" standard when I cover other songs but it probably doesn't help that my favorite bands to try to sing are guys like Coheed and Cambria or Kamelot.

Eh, maybe I should give screaming a shot... I wanted to avoid it as much as I like practicing them because my fiance is not into harsh vocals, she prefers old school like Priest or Maiden.

When I get home I will post up a copy of the raw real loud on the mix then update this thread.

Thanks again to anyone who took the time to try to help me.

EDIT: If it matters, I'm using a SM58 to record with and I'm about 3-4 inches (maybe a little more) from the microphone when I'm singing, I try my best not to move around for a more consistent volume. The mic is tilted slightly up and my head is slight back as well. Is my mic position killing the recording? Or is there just anything I can do to try to get this into better shape for the song?
 
Listened to rough 2. It's better. The SM58 is part of the challenge here, if your system lacks a lot of gain. Let's go through the whole signal chain. SM58 into a what? It's all mids.
 
I was on the page and listened to the raw vocals. Pitch isn't your problem. You are trying to sing metal using your inside voice, which is very quiet and has a nasal quality. You have got to find your chest voice and push a lot more air. It will be like night and day.

You can sing and you can find the notes, because I heard you sing and hit the notes. It wasn't that pitchy. You need to practice at stage volume and record at stage volume. You will be surprised at the notes you can hit if you are pushing enough air.

Anyway, if you are determined to use lullaby vocals on your metal song using an SM58, cut a notch in your mids and sweep it until you find that nasal frequency. Then make that notch narrow and very deep. This will make it "breathe" a little more. Find the point where the vocals are just a little too loud, then add some reverb to tuck it back under. It will still be nasal and not ideal. But it will totally work.

Be gentle with that pitch correction stuff, man. As soon as my ear spots it it is a distraction. Just be real.
 
Okay so that notch thing was a godsend, dude. This is also my first song mixing so I am not super familiar with equalization yet, today was a good learning day as well. Knowing the notes to the melody I was singing I was able to find the specific words to cut with the notches. I completely redid the equalization on the vocals and they sound much better to my ears. I essentially dropped all the nasal sounds I could, boosted my low range a bit to add some chest to the vocals and then boosted the super high frequencies to give more presence and shine to the higher notes. I don't have a copy to show yet, still playing but I think this will end up better.

I also dropped the reverb, delay and auto tune. The auto tune wasn't doing much to help me singing on key and was making it sound a little digital, not worth the trade off.

Thanks again, I'll be back with revised copies.
 
Alright, another stab at this.

https://soundcloud.com/omniwang

I put up my raw on top of the mix it's called rough-raw, it might be a bit quiet but I can't really do much about that at this point without at least a compressor. I also put up the new EQ under rough3. Boosted my low a little to give it more chesty sound, tried to find all the nasal tones and notched them, added some significant boosts at the 5-15k range to give it more clarity
 
I still think raw 2 is my favorite. That's probably because autotune is helping with some of the pitch problems. Tonewise, I suppose raw 3 is my preference.

But unfortunately there are still significant vocal problems even beyond pitch problems. The guitars sound decent, but the vocals sound like they were recorded with a PC mic. They're very boxy and distorted. They sound like they're in a completely separate space from the guitars.

I think at some point you'll need to tell your fiance, "This is the best I can do. I did it because I love you." I think she'll understand. Or at least I hope she does.
 
That SM58 is not doing you any favors....but you have to work with what you got and I can relate to that. What I am hearing in your new mix with EQ is that the vocals and the music are in two different spectrums. Vocals are out on top while the music is playing lightly in the background. Sounds karaoke-ish. Listen to it at a lower volume and you can see what I mean. Part of it is because you have too much "presence" in the vocals as I mentioned earlier. Roll off the vocals with a high-pass filter between 250hz and 500hz and adjust so it "sits" in the music more. Bring those "5K-15K" settings back down as you have added sibilance to your vocals now. I usually roll my highs off with a low-pass filter.

Also, try stepping a little further back from the mic and keep your head perfectly still when singing. Any movement closer or farther away from the mic will be picked up. And sorry the nasal tones are still there and I am afraid its in your voice or the way your singing. Sounds like your singing with a stuffed nose. Remember "trash in, trash out".....gotta remedy what gets recorded before you can work on the rest. Not trying to sound like a dick, but trying to be real. Your headed in the right direction...just keep at it and keep researching.
 
Yeah... I don't know what else I can do to really make the raw sound better. If I put my chest into the singing more, yes I'm louder and more dynamic but I'm also all over the place and completely off key. I'll try but this probably won't end well. I think I'll just hire someone to sing it for me.

That, and I'm going to just change the way I write on guitar for future songs and just add a 3rd guitar to play the vocal melody. The frustration this process is causing is beyond my ability to explain in words. I'm not even that great on guitar but it's light years ahead of where my singing is.

I'll keep at it but this is feeling more and more like a first and last attempt at singing.
 
Don't get discouraged man...we have all started at the beginning and learned as we went. I still learn new things every time I try. You just have to find your comfort range when singing. Learning how to EQ and mix everything is not easy...if it was everyone would be rock stars. Just keep at it you will find it.

You could always send your tracks to someone to mix for you to try and help you out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top