Vocals sound great through headphones but fall flat through computer speakers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter musicgirl14
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I don't think there is anything to really solve? I have similar problems when I mix on the smaller speakers in the video studio - I simply can't trust these for making decisions on the less than 1K content. In my audio studio - the mixes work on the small ones in the video studio, and the ones mixed on the IEMs I quite like work pretty well. I have a pair of Sennheiser that sound great on playback, but mixing on those is dangerous? When you say 'quality' - what exactly do you mean?
 
Tricky to describe. I am a nincompoop with tech. Please forgive me. I record using M-Audio interface, audacity program, cheap Sony headphones, Bose speakers. While I sing the song live using the headphones it sounds ever so slightly amplified, clear in tone, and intimate, and pleasing to the ear. When I play my recording back listening thru headphones it sounds lackluster, no intimacy, Same thing when playing it over the bose speakers- all the good tone is lost. Should I attach a sound file? How long must it be?
 
Part of that could be when you're singing to record, you're also hearing your voice in your head. On playback, that part is missing. It's like a doubled vocal having one of the tracks muted on playback - the fullness and roundness drops away and a slight edge returns.
 
My guess is you are hearing yourself (when recording) direct monitored + track monitor which has a little delay, creating a 'flattering' delay/reverb that is fooling you. On playback, of course you are just hearing the straight recorded track. DO you add reverb?
 
mjbphotos said:
My guess is you are hearing yourself (when recording) direct monitored + track monitor which has a little delay, creating a 'flattering' delay/reverb that is fooling you. On playback, of course you are just hearing the straight recorded track. DO you add reverb?
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That sounds correct. Good call. Yes! Flattering delay/reverb to fool my ear. I have tried using reverb quite often, an improvement but it still kind of sounds annoying to me. Maybe there is a magic combo of reverb that I am too inexperienced to find right off the bat? Lately I have tried the "amplify" effect instead which makes it a tiny bit more tolerable. I want it to sound organic (aren't I hoity toity?? ha ha) but with some subtle amplification/reverb touches added.
 
When recording, it may be that you're monitoring Pre-Fader, hearing whatever FX are applied to the track but they're not being recorded with your voice. Playback is FX free - just your raw vocal.
 
spantini said:
When recording, it may be that you're monitoring Pre-Fader, hearing whatever FX are applied to the track but they're not being recorded with your voice. Playback is FX free - just your raw vocal.
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Yikes. I don't know what monitoring pre-fader means. I will have to look that up.
 
That was nice. You have a good singing voice. Very nice.

All I got was the right channel, nothing on the left.
 
One issue is that you naturally hear via bone conduction, so what you hear is NOT only what is coming through the headphones. There's no way around this. You can increase the volume to try to drown out the conduction, but now you're risking hearing damage!

It takes time to become accustomed to hearing your voice from a recording. That's how others hear you, so maybe get someone else to listen to your singing, and then to your recorded voice to make the judgement on the tone.

Listening to your clip, I think your voice is ok. I hear a lot of room echo in the recording, which gives it a somewhat hollow sound. I don't know how you are doing the recording but if you are using two mics, then move the vocal mic closer. If it is cardioid, then you will gain some bottom end from proximity, and will increase the direct vs reflected sound. Using moving blankets or duvets can help dampen some of the reflections as well.

What is your current recording setup (mic, interface, etc). You might also look into using a real DAW, like Reaper or Cakewalk. It allows you to make adjustments to your sound more easily.
 
TalismanRich said:
One issue is that you naturally hear via bone conduction, so what you hear is NOT only what is coming through the headphones. There's no way around this. You can increase the volume to try to drown out the conduction, but now you're risking hearing damage!

It takes time to become accustomed to hearing your voice from a recording. That's how others hear you, so maybe get someone else to listen to your singing, and then to your recorded voice to make the judgement on the tone.

Listening to your clip, I think your voice is ok. I hear a lot of room echo in the recording, which gives it a somewhat hollow sound. I don't know how you are doing the recording but if you are using two mics, then move the vocal mic closer. If it is cardioid, then you will gain some bottom end from proximity, and will increase the direct vs reflected sound. Using moving blankets or duvets can help dampen some of the reflections as well.

What is your current recording setup (mic, interface, etc). You might also look into using a real DAW, like Reaper or Cakewalk. It allows you to make adjustments to your sound more easily.
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thanks, there is echo. my recording area is obviously not great. maybe i will just have to get over my fear of equipment and tech. i don't know what DAW or reaper or cakewalk is.
 
spantini said:
That was nice. You have a good singing voice. Very nice.

All I got was the right channel, nothing on the left.
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thank you! i don't know why it's only recorded on the right channel. it is set for stereo on audacity. i will have to look that up and figure it out. i might be bugging you guys a lot in the future.
 
It's very easy to convert a stereo file to a mono file. Click the down arrow just above the word solo, and choose split stereo track. You will get two mono tracks, and you can pan the one with the audio to the center. You might be starting out with a mono recording, but when you export, if it only goes to one side, it might be your balance control.

Don't be scared about "tech". Its no different than your first VCR (remember those) or DVD player, or cell phone. The more you play with it, the easier it becomes.

It will help us to know what equipment you have, such as maybe a Focusrite solo and Shure SM58, or a RME Babyface and a Neumann U87, or a USB mic. Each will present different challenges.

Re: DAW. that is shorthand for Digital Audio Workstation. It's the recording program. Reaper is one type of DAW, Cakewalk is a free DAW by Bandlab. They are designed specifically for recording and modifying music. You can have multiple tracks, just like an old studio tape deck. With a DAW, you can have 1 track or 120 tracks. There are lots of videos on Youtube explaining how Reaper works. The Reaper Mania has gobs of videos. This is an example.

 
We bang on about kit and software and all sorts but the real thing to practice when setting out is to set everything to no processing, no eq and then spend time moving the microphone around. Most amateur recordings now have more microphones and capabilities than any of the famous studios in the 50s had when they recorded the classic tracks. They put the people and the mics in the right places. Not every successful studio even had great acoustics. None had access to software or clever measurements. If it was too bright they added stuff to absorb what needed removing and if they wanted brighter they added hard surfaces. Engineers really knew how to make what they had, work. Now we put the wrong mic on the wrong sound source at the wrong distance in the wrong room and expect software to fix it. The other day we had one track put up with one mic and it was really, really good. Time had got the positioning right, and the person just sang and played and it just worked. Maybe we should all go back to recording that way?
 
keith.rogers said:
I am sure I read "flat" as "you're singing off pitch" because I can end up singing an entire song off pitch when tracking! I think it's because I end up listening to the voice in my head instead of the one in the headphones (working on that).
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Are you able to play and sing while recording? Playing the two at once locks you in time and key. Sometimes just holding the guitar while you sing helps. Buddy Holly..
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
Are you able to play and sing while recording? Playing the two at once locks you in time and key. Sometimes just holding the guitar while you sing helps. Buddy Holly..
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I generally do a scratch track that way unless the guitar part is either a) so monotonous I just loop it or b) too hard to get through without mistakes [yet] i.e., at the time I decide to create a scratch track playing and singing the whole thing is an exercise in frustration :). Sometimes it's not "that" flat but it's mostly a matter of listening to the monitor feed correctly. It seems to be better, but I honestly haven't done much recording lately...
 
I
musicgirl14 said:
So I've encountered this problem many times.
My vocals will sound great through headphones, tone is great, every note is right on pitch. But when I unplug the headphones to listen through what most people will listen to my music through (just regular computer and phone speakers) my vocals completely suck and the tone of my voice changes drastically and I feel as if they fall flat! I listen to other people's demos through computer speakers and they sound similar to the sound in the headphones. It's making me very frustrated and making me feel as though I can't sing! I use a Blue Snowball Ice to record. What do you think the problem is?
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I have the same problem, however my first thoughts on the matter was resonance. I had taken my vocals and evened them out to where each wave was around 5 decibals (which makes a big difference in itself). The problem is, the vocals still sound flat. I use the Elvis Shure mic (the one that looks like it's from the 50's) that only records what's in front of it (I think it's called cardioid or something).
Anyways, I use this with my Scarletti Audio Interface, in other words I have a fairly decent recording set up for home recording however I can't seem to get my vocals less "flat".
To me the problem lies in the resonance and such (idk if this was brought up yet in this thread and I know it's a few years old, but I'd like to throw in my situation also as to find the solution). With headphones, the vocals can get "drowned" in with the music, whereas with playing on a loudspeaker, the music disperses out in all directions, potentially causing parts of the recording to stick out. The other theory I have is the recording method itself. I notice that when singing close, the result is bassy and muffled, whereas singing too far gives the vocals a nice "atmosphere" and makes it kinda blend in more, however it thins out the voice and lends to the "flatness"; it also makes it a pain the remove background noise as the voice blends in too much with it. The right distance away from the mic has really helped, but I still am getting this kind of one dimensional flatness.
Hopefully I am reviving this thread by posting here xuz I need help too XD
 
The Shure 55, and the clones of it are designed to look good. They are NOT a mic of choice for most people because they sound like a typical dynamic cardioid mic - warm when in close, thin and weedier further away. They do work on a few people's voices where their frequency response works for them, but I find them a dull and boring mic.

Headphones can be fine for recording if they are truthful, but most are designed to flatter. Speakers, good ones, are better - BUT - must be in a decent controlled space. A small, hard walled room with budget speakers will not flatter either.

The key is to try recording somebody else - who you know has a good voice. Do they record OK? If they do, and you don't then at best, the 55 just doesn't suit you, but it does them. EQ of course could be the problem - making a vocal sit in the mix requires a 'hole' in the music for your voice to sit in. If your music is busy at the same frequencies as the voice, they fight - so EQ might be able to sculpt a space where you need it.

When you say you evened your voice out to 5 dB, do you mean you normalised it to -5dB, which leaves the dynamic range intact, but sets the top level to that level or did you use a compressor and squash it? Normalising does not change the sound, just the level, compression changes it.

Why not post a short clip so we can hear for ourselves - one dimesional flatness in your head might be different in ours?
 
Can you explain a bit what you mean by sounding "flat"? Do you mean they are dull sounding? That could be the proximity effect if you are very close to the mic. Cardioid mics will boost the low frequencies as you get closer to them. That's what Rob is referring to.

It might also be helpful if you say what headphones and speakers you are using. Headphones vary ENORMOUSLY! A Sony 7506 sounds nothing like a Senn HD280 or an AKG K240.
 

Those ^ 'media' speakers are just about the only ones on the market that get any kind of approval from the experts (of which I am not one!)
I heard a pair in a shop a couple of years ago and they impressed me* with their generally neutral sound. I sent a pair to my son in France. He is a first class musician and knows what things should sound like. He loves them.

They will not rock three doors down nor will they get your trousers flapping but within their frequency and volume range they do a good job. Superior to most headphones. There is quite a debate but I think, on balance, most sound professionals think you cannot really mix on headphones alone.

*My home monitors of many years are a pair of Tannoy 5As.

Dave.
 
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