Which mic does not sound like a kazoo?

C

cooljoebay

New member
Hi

I am a beginner/intermediate singer. For the past year I began recording myself singing with karaoke tracks to supplement vocal training. Something that has annoyed me since the beginning is a certain "buzz" or kazoo like sound that radiates from my voice at times. It reminds me of taking a high quality recording and resampling it to 10 bitrate just to hear a fuzzy sound.

At the beginning, I was using an AKG Perception 120 studio mic. Today, I am using a plain old Behringer XM8500 mic. As different as the two sound, that annoying kazoo sound is always there. The common link here is that I have always used a Tascam US1800 to do my vocals. So I dont know if its the sound of the preamps or my voice or the mics. I have heard some talk about some people;s voices just sounding that way. With little to do to change it. I am hoping someone can give some advice. I already use the eq to tune things out a bit. But I cannot always rely upon using post. Especially if I decide to get on stage. If there is a certain mic that might help me, I am looking to pay less than $200. preferably one I can use live on stage as well.

I have attached a recording here as an example. Thanks a lot. --JJM
 

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  • LoveTheWay_LAST.mp3
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I'm going to be honest... I hate Country...

As far as the recording goes; I don't actually think it's as bad as you make out. Could it be possible that you may be a little over-critical?

My experience gigging was that vocal mics (generally an SM58) were provided and you'll have more to worry (guitarist too loud, drunk bass player, awful monitor mix etc) about than which mic is up against your grill...
 
It appears from your post that you've already identified the problem................your voice. Unfortunately in your situation, I would not expect you to find a mic that can fix that. The goal of mic design is to faithfully reproduce the sound it receives, you're wanting a mic that corrects perceived inadequacies. EQ will not work unless your kazoo tone is consistently at the same pitch. Rather than looking for any processing band-aids to fix this, I would suggest vocal training with a pro to correct the issue.
 
this is a mic technique problem, if your voice is naturally nasally, you need to position the mic above the mouth pointing down at an angle, try this before deciding it's your voice.
 
Well,. you can certainly do better than a $10 mic. Get an SM58, It will be the most common mic you sing into. Learning how to use it with your voice, so that it sounds good to you when monitoring (headphones or stage monitors) will make your vocals more confident and powerful. The skills you develop in working with this mic will translate to most all of the stage microphones you will ever use. You can pick the up for $50-60 used,. or $100 new.

And yes,. this will help in the studio as well. Of course if the only time you ever sing is in the studio you'll probably not get much better at singing anyway.
 
Try drinking some hot honey with lemon juice before you sing, and be sure to sing from your stomach, diaphragm, and belt it out holding nothing back. Otherwise, you can get a piece of tinfoil and fold it lengthwise, place it on your head whilst reciting, jabba jabba hootnykopt, three times fast, then drop onto the floor and squirm around flopping like a fish, then put your lips together, as tight as possible and blow pressure into your cheeks so that they balloon out so large that your nostrils flare large enough to hold a ping pong ball. Take one aggy marble and one pokemon ball and insert them into your nostrils taking care not to lose pressure in your cheeks. Go onto youtube live crank the music and sing brotha SING.
 
Yeah. Sounds like a voice and vocal technique issue, especially since it's primarily on the higher notes. Coaching can probably help with that.

Wait... how does one "roll [her] eyes slightly off key"?
 
Yes you're going to get used to it because a mic is not going to change your vocal tone.
The song you posted is pretty good but in a lot of places it's pitchy.
 
well first we will cut the obvious things: no dairy, icecram, chocolate, no tobacco products.

the second part, there is no video to see if your craining your neck, looking down, being seated in a chair and slumping, or bad mouth movements. Those are common vocal bad habits.

as for the mic comment, an sm58 upgraded with a tab t58 transformer for live use, an sm7 with a tab t58 transformer installed for studio use. But that will not solve the bad vocal habbits.

also dump the cowboy hat when recording.
 
I agree with most of the above, but...

Once you've used some of the tricks discussed above to remove as much nasal quality as possible (and I agree that it's not as bad as you think), there's a trick or two you can use.

First, a bit of careful EQ can remove some nasal quality...not work miracles, but help. The easiest way to do this is to use a parametric EQ on your DAW, set up a medium-narrow "Q" with fairly extreme boost and sweep it slowly across your vocal until it sounds VERY nasal...this will likely be in the 800-1500 Hz range. Once you make your voice worse, you know the problem frequency. Change from a boost to a subtle cut and the nasal quality will be helped. Play with the Q (the width of frequencies you're affecting) and amount of cut for the best compromise.

Second, room acoustics can help. If you hang some movers blankets behind you to just deaden the room a bit, that can help too. (Full acoustic treatment is even better of course...but just dead is an improvement).

Third, I'm going to disagree slightly on the recommendation of the SM58. Mics with a harsh presence peak (which the 58 has to help it "cut through" in live situations) can also accentuate a nasal quality. By all means you need a better mic...but I'd try something a bit smoother than the 58...maybe a Sennheiser e835 if you want something cheapish.
 
Just getting around to listen to this. ACCHHH on the music choice! :eek: But seriously, the voice is not that bad, a little EQ would be fine.
 
I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the replies. lol. But I appreciate them all.

Country certainly isn't my first love when it comes to music. It just runs in the family. But I prefer 80s pop and rock music. Only that my voice isn't ready to too much of that since I am still training. Sounds like all the advice here is good. But I am going to try upgrading the mic anyway. Surely that Behringer isnt doing me alot of good. Through eq tweaking, it does look like that "buzz" comes in around the 4Khz range. So that rules out an SM58 or similar. Also, it never actually ocurred to me that I was singing so nasal until you guys brought it up. But I guess I am. I think I am playing it safe when I sing in order to place the notes. Adding too much vocal compression. When I emphasize more of an open throat I sometimes go off key.

Btw. She rolls her eyes when I'm slightly off key. lol.
 
I think you just don't like, or aren't used to, your own voice.
The recording sounds fine to me.

If that's the case, don't blindly spend money on mics.
Sure, borrow or test mics to satisfy your curiosity or to inform your next purchase, but I wouldn't just assume that a 58 or any other mic will fix the 'problem'.

OK, you're a little off key here and there but the overall tone of it sounds fine to me.

What you could do and, again, I'm not sure that I'd bother, is take an eq plugin on your vocal track and set a very narrow q on one of the bands.
Now boost the gain of that band to at least +6 db and very slowly sweep with it.
Sure, every point on the scale will sound bad with an aggressive boost like that but, hopefully, you'll come across a particular frequency that ties in with what you're not liking about your recording.

When you find it, pull the band a few db into the minus figures to taste. You might need to widen the q a little to keep it natural sounding.
 
I actually prefer the higher notes (where you can actually hold the pitch well) to the lower ones (where you seem to have pitchy tendencies). You've got a decent voice for country, but you've got to get some more power and control over the lower notes. Coaching can definitely help with that. :)
 
i have to agree with the first reply that perhaps you may be just a little over-critical... It sounded good and your voice fits well on a country music... I just only heard 33 seconds of your song (my slow connection speed cut the download short) but i think the recording sounds good... if your not comfortable with your voice try experimenting with the "proximity effect" or distance of your mic when singing... it would yield different results which you may like..
 
cooljoebay said:
.. Sounds like all the advice here is good. But I am going to try upgrading the mic anyway. Surely that Behringer isnt doing me alot of good. Through eq tweaking, it does look like that "buzz" comes in around the 4Khz range. So that rules out an SM58 or similar. ...
Click to expand...
I doubt you'll find a nic that happens to have a notch right on that buzz frequency. You could try a flatter mic, but you might end up wanting to do some sort of high lift anyway, Why not try an eq there to deemphasize the buzz freq first?
 
Firstly - I've got to agree with the others that you've become hyper critical about the sound - and your description of kazoo like is way, way off the mark. The style of music doesn't bother me, and as a Brit, it sounds like the US stuff of that genre we often hear over here.

What is clear, though is that you need to find a really good singing teacher who can work with you on posture, and head position. Maybe this could also help the odd pitching issues - which could be part of the same 'bad habit' you've developed. Me, for example, I can sing ok, I usually do BVs but take the lead too. Much of what we sing is VERY high and some of those high notes are a struggle and a few hurt! I play bass at the same time, and as I'm a bass player first, my stance on stage was always to be able to look down at my left hand - usually just for confidence. A singer friend of mine said I should bring up the mic stand 3" - not comfy at all, because it means my chin is up - but weirdly, the high notes suddenly appeared with little stress at all - no more sore throat after the gig either. It just opens up the tubes, and the space at the back of the mouth - really simple, but I've never had singing training, so how was I supposed to know. I'd guess your kazoo description is simply head resonance from the sinus area. My friend said the air from the vocal folds splits into the main stream out of your mouth, but some goes up inside, and it's a little like a sax reed - it gives a weird roughness.

Singing teachers are not just for bad singers, they're for people who are good - like you, but want to be better.

For my money - Country isn't an issue at all. Not my thing, but I can appreciate the genre. I listened all the way through - the opposite of when I click a link and death metal comes out. Five seconds is about my limit!
 
cooljoebay said:
Hi

I am a beginner/intermediate singer. For the past year I began recording myself singing with karaoke tracks to supplement vocal training. Something that has annoyed me since the beginning is a certain "buzz" or kazoo like sound that radiates from my voice at times. It reminds me of taking a high quality recording and resampling it to 10 bitrate just to hear a fuzzy sound.

At the beginning, I was using an AKG Perception 120 studio mic. Today, I am using a plain old Behringer XM8500 mic. As different as the two sound, that annoying kazoo sound is always there. The common link here is that I have always used a Tascam US1800 to do my vocals. So I dont know if its the sound of the preamps or my voice or the mics. I have heard some talk about some people;s voices just sounding that way. With little to do to change it. I am hoping someone can give some advice. I already use the eq to tune things out a bit. But I cannot always rely upon using post. Especially if I decide to get on stage. If there is a certain mic that might help me, I am looking to pay less than $200. preferably one I can use live on stage as well.

I have attached a recording here as an example. Thanks a lot. --JJM
Click to expand...
This is a reply to your question SEVEN years after you asked it, but unfortunately it's just another question. I'm experiencing the same buzzy, kazoo-like effect in my recording. Did you ever get to the bottom of it? I can totally hear what you're talking about in your recording and it's all too familiar! Thanks
 
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