what is going on in your musical life

vocals are the absolute worst but after 25 years of recording em I've got some general principles

1) spend some time to find the right mic that enhances or matches yr vocal style and timbre. human voices have a wide and highly idiosyncratic frequency range, and microphones have a big impact on how your voice sounds (unless you're awesome, but face it, most of us aren't). have the engineer set up as many mics as they've got, try em all. this can lead to:

2) defend your right to get a good vocal sound. don't let engineers or bandmates discount, belittle, or try to rush the vocal process. this can be hard when you already feel shitty and self-conscious, but don't be bullied into using the first SM58 stuck in yr face. kind of blows my mind when musicians sink serious dollars, time, and energy into honing a unique sound, and then view vocalists who own their own microphones like divas. I'm guessing this attitude is prolly more prevalent in the (punk) rock world?

3) if you're home recording, get a mic preamp. it's amazing how one small piece of equipment can make such a difference, but it does, and it is highly likely the channel preamps suck on whatever mixer you're using.

4) get hammered. unless you're doing opera or something, in which case you don't need my advice, you could stand to loosen up a little.

5) avoid marathon vocal sessions to "get them all done". better to break the vocals into 2 or more smaller sessions. invoke rule #2 if necessary.

6) find the right lubricant. water, tea, milk, booze, they all have diff effects on yr voice. find the one that feels right. folks doing a lot of screaming will find milk thickens the roar.

7) when mixing, if you can hear an effect on your voice, it's prolly too much. dial it back a little. unless you're going for a v specific sound like a rockabilly well of reverb. what sounds really awesome the first time can start to sound like unnecessary window dressing after the hundredth listen, or 10 years later, whichever comes first.

6) find the right lubricant. water, tea, milk, booze, they all have diff effects on yr voice. find the one that feels right. folks doing a lot of screaming will find milk thickens the roar.

pineapple juice has been p nice at times

oh yeah, a couple more:

8) PERFORM. it's hard when you're alone in a room singing into a sprig of pantyhose, but if you're not making any expressions or emoting (and you're not doing a cover of "warm leatherette") that kind of blah is going to be audible. you don't have to go ethel merman on the mic, but don't be sterile. I've seen crazy ass human dynamo vocalists suddenly stand with their arms at their sides because they were "recording a take". fuck that!

9) get comfortable. if you wanna hold the mic, hold the mic. lay down. turn off the lights, get under a blanket, whatever gets yr head in the right place.

Reading all of this between takes y'all

You are already distinguishing between "songs for self" and "songs for an audience" so we are in agreement, regardless of the difference between your audience (your friends) and my audience (my in-laws)

― you and me against the board (flamboyant goon tie included),

Nah, it isn't just crut's friends, there are subcultural aesthetic differences dude that aren't just "personal." I agree with what emil.y was saying about form and content in terms of production, and there is plenty of music that I probably would like better if it didn't come across as too smooth or slick-sounding

The post was made with a wink, I count myself among crut's fans.

aw <3

And yeah, slick and smooth are the worst. I do not know what you mean when you tell me there are subcultural aesthetic differences dude that aren't just "personal." I am not talking about my personal tastes when I say "a mix makes a record". I'm talking about making music for public consumption, public processing.

I'm talking about making music for public consumption, public processing.

that is what I am saying -- you are making generalizations, and consitituting the public as an undifferentiated mass, which it isn't. Certain production (or lack thereof) will be judged by a different aesthetic in certain subcultures. Making music for the noise underground or for black/doom metal audiences -- which is a "public" -- the expected sounds, the production aesthetic is gonna be different than something aspiring to Pitchfork praise

And you are assuming that I am not including noise and metal in my generalizations.

considering that your advice is about "pro-sounding" production techniques and an emphasis on mixing -- it seems like you are privileging music where the focus is on the production and mixing, like when you claim that there aren't shitty songs, which is pretty ridiculous. Granted, we can't all agree on what they are, but so much music, even on ilx, where there is a great interest in production technique, is discounted with "this is a bad song"

One of my main problems with the band Baroness is that I think their production on albums like Blue is totally shitty and doesn't do them any justice

Good production doesn't have to mean great mixing - it's whatever suits the song. Darkthrone would have sounded shit if they'd been produced in an expensive studio, but even the grittiest of black metal has had thought put into the production whether it was produced on an old C90 cassette or on pro studio equipment.

When I work with any client I am primarily interested in "what they want out of this recording" and often that is "top sales" and/or "good reviews", regardless of genre. That goes for noise records; Christ, ignoring my own bucolic records, I've acted as mixer on more noise recordings than any other genre. No metal records, tho :(

it seems like you are privileging music where the focus is on the production and mixing

This is exactly what I am doing-- except I am suggesting that this is what the public does, whether they know it or not. Great songs are hard to sink and rotten songs are hard to get flying. But plenty of neutral-bad songs find fame and fortune because they are well-mixed (Rhye and Ratatat immediately spring to mind) and plenty of neutral-good songs don't receive the mix they deserve and blow away upon release.

wrt my "advice about "pro-sounding" production" like my list of Fun With DAWs that was specifically for the other people posting in this thread about how hard it is to record vocals.

so you are basically modifying your stance that there aren't any shitty songs

less fighting, more tips for recording pls

I dunno sarahell this is not the first time that I feel you've read my posts through, well, whatever the opposite of rose-coloured glasses are. Death glasses.

i think you are projecting. i have criticized your posts on a grand total of 2 threads, dude. Considering how frequently you post, it is really a miniscule number.

"dude"

"grand total of 2 threads" = not the first time, i.e. Anyway, have a good evening

would you prefer to be called "dawg" like when drew d. is schooling ppl?

I have criticized whiney and lj on far more occasions and lj knows i have mad <3 for him, and whiney didn't show signs of any sort of weird persecution complex when i called him on his generalizations

I would love to engage with you!!! but I actually have to go meet my sisters I'm late. Fightcha later

Death glasses.

their first album was great in spite of the shitty mix and poorly recorded vocals

so what are the barest of minimum things required to record something in the comfort of your own home?

I currently have two probably crappy microphones that came with my friend's PA and are in my basement and a two year old macbook pro, and that's it.

if you're looking for a cheap entry level digital interface you can get something like this

http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-M-Track-2-Channel-Portable-Interface/dp/B00BQ6KSN6

it comes with recording software but if it won't work on the macbook you can always use audacity or garage band

So I got through lead vocals plus double tracks for 3 songs last night in about 5 hours. There were some hair-pulling segments but so far it sounds pretty awesome and nothing had to be pitch corrected or really chopped up and the producer told me I'm a good singer. Feels good man. Each song after the first took successively less time and difficulty to get through so hopefully that trend continues and by song 11 I will nail the whole thing in the first take.

If you can afford it, I suggest Reason 7 - it comes with a full DAW and audio interface and it's under £300 if you shop around.

SG - you are a really good singer IIRC.

the time of day can really affect how i sound. baritones = morning, falsettos = evening. That's what I've found. I'm not sure where I sit on the vocal scale, think i might have a fairly wide range but it would be interesting to speak to someone who knows their shit and tell me what range i'm best at.

Anyway, back to this possibly-tedious side-track w sarahell--

I'm going to ignore the personal comments and stuff like "weird persecution complex" because it suggests there are hurt feelings involved? which there aren't, glad to be here etc.--

And wrt "there are no shitty songs" that is an inaccurate paraphrase of what I was saying above, but for clarity: I am saying that it is rare in my experience that an album can be sunk by shitty songs alone, mix has to be bad too--

but in response to the perceived specificity of my argument to the Pitchfork set-- not an unfair assumption I guess but still an assumption-- tbh the two records I was thinking about most when it came to "mix makes the record" were Godspeed's latest (two-inch-tape, Neotek board, best sounding room in the country) and the Goslings record that won the Archive Records poll which was according to the press release: "lovingly recorded to two-inch tape" also the disparity in quality between the good C Spencer Yeh records and less good ones, all mix issues to my ears as his writing is consistently good, and loads of classical recordings where the performance is secondary to the recording quality. Also when I say "it's a good mix" or "well-mixed" that doesn't necessarily mean "hi-fi" at all, it means that the sonics of the recording are great, the terms of which vary from genre to genre

xpost

Haha, thanks dude! I was functionally tone deaf as a high school theater kid to the point where I could only get non-singing roles in musicals (so I never got to realize my dream of playing Pontius Pilate) and I still think of myself that way sometimes but I've come a long way and I'm feeling pumped about this new album.

Also definitely agreed re time of day, early morning is Stephin Merritt/Tom Waits/Leonard Cohen time.

xp - thanks for the thorough explanation!

catching up w/ this thread

i really like recording vocals. they are my favorite thing to record! a lot of the feelings expressed itt about recording vox apply more to recording guitar for me.

the one advantage to recording vocals over recording guitar is that when I botch a vocal line, I don't have the ability to fling my vocal cords across the room in anger.

(this is one reason I quit playing guitar).

something about recording makes me sings better than normal. something about the pressure and the concentration and the otherwise silent room

my musical life is ruling atm

- old band that was in what looked like a terminal rut now blazing hot productive and making our best music ever after some instrumentation changes (went from 2 guitars, drums to guitar, bass, drums) and spending our writing block learning covers & getting high and just generally bonding as bros (if not as musicians). playing a sweet bill next weekend and i think we're gonna kill it

- putting on a show this weekend as a fundraiser to meet my radio show's goal in the station's upcoming funding drive. i had been really lazy and shitty about it and thought it was not going to happen until i got my shit together and everything fell into place so beautifully at the last minute

ps just wanted to say i love reading this thread/board so much because of the variety of backgrounds of everyone posting in it. even if i don't always understand some of the technical stuff the real heads are talking about it's just so rad that artists coming from such difft places can support each other & give tips, advice etc. \m/ <3

I might have found my Twitter niche; a capella champion. Just had two separate a capella groups follow me, including a group who made the finals of The Sing Off the year Pentatonix won.

I don't know precisely how I feel about this but I think it might rule?

plz start a capella beefs a la azealia

omg that would be AMAZING

"hey Vocal Point, I heard that Urban Method ganked your arrangement of 'Wrecking Ball'" *sits back, smiles*

dreamt that I fucked up somehow while trying to set up a guitar and ended up with scalloped frets.

Did you unleash the fucking fury?

had really good band practice yesterday. playing first show next month!

I tracked lead vocals for 6 more songs over the weekend. I tried to start on a 7th but it was one of the hardest to sing and my voice was feeling pretty ragged at that point so I decided to end the day there. 9 lead vocals done, 2 to go, plus an assload of harmonies, which I keep adding to every time I think about it. Things have been moving pretty quickly though, and I think I like how it sounds.

Had a GREAT concert with the spiritual ensemble in CT yesterday; now just need to gear up for next week's concert with the church choir

My ex R has loaned me his Tele for a bit. I need to PRACTICE MY GUITAR PLAYING BECAUSE IT SUCKS.

so I go to my caroling company rehearsal the other night. I've been doing this four years, and I know most of the songs, but don't know all 70+ of them (as most don't). nonetheless, it's all going well, but we get to Good King Wenceslas, so I pull the lyrics up on my cell phone cuz I'm notoriously terrible memorizing words and still need help on that one. Pretentious tenor guy was like "WOW, THERE MUST BE SOMETHING REALLY INTERESTING ON YOUR PHONE", to which I shot back "I'm...just looking at words" and he replies "glad you're still with us."

DUDE - THIS IS A SEASONAL CAROLING GIG IN CENTRAL FLORIDA. where do you get all that pretension from.

so I killed him in front of his kids natch

I made accidental vaporware today