Vocal Tracks

[Johnbee]

I'm hoping someone here can give me some advice.  I take notice that many here record with the little Boss recorder and I am amazed by the sound quality of especially the vocals.  I use Cakewalk.  I have a dedicated sound reinforced room and use a $500.00 Avantone CV-12 tube condenser microphone and in my estimation my vocals SUCK sound quality wise. They all have an annoying lo fi and muddy sound that I've been struggling 8 years to clean up.  It's baffling me to no end and I'm just about ready to give up. Is it just MY ears?  Is it a quality in my voice? Is it in my recording environment or can it be corrected in the mix?  I've tried EVERYTHING in the past 8 years.  Different mics, different mic positions.  I even tried moving my gear down to my acoustically dead basement and it still sounds as crappy!  So, I'm appealing to anybody here who can give me a tip or two.  I can send you a dry vocal track to analyze if you need it.  I would appreciate any help you could give.  Thanks!

[Ted]

I feel your pain. I took some singing lessons a long time ago, and I have retained a few things, for what they are worth.

• I always sing standing up if possible. I suck in my gut and try to find my diaphragm.
• I use a pop filter.
• I sing at a slight angle to the mic, so my breath isn't aimed right at the mic.
• When I was recording my silly cover of "Smoke on the Water", I recorded some placeholder vocals doing a silly over-confident rock star voice, and I somehow tricked myself into sounding better than I do when I'm trying to sing seriously.
• One mistake I make is that I don't sing – ever – until I'm ready to record my vocals. My vocals tend to be better if I'm in the habit of singing every day, even just walking around the house singing out loud what is running through my head. (Imagine if I practiced singing in a disciplined way.) One of the most recent 10 songs I recorded is super chromatic, and the vocals are awful three different ways. I didn't practice singing until the day I wanted to record the vocals. I keep thinking I will re-record the vocals on that one.
• Since I sing into the Micro BR, I will record pretty DRY, and then one-by-one I audition the vocal presets afterwards against the playback. I don't usually tweak the settings.
• Sometimes I do the trick where I record a reference vocal and then severely autotune it. Then I record the vocals again with the autotuned vocals in one ear of my headphones. That helps somewhat with pitch.
• I have "good voice" days and "bad voice" days. I don't understand why. But if I have set aside time for vocals, and I can tell it's a "bad voice" day, I may just skip and wait for another day. "Good voice" days come along more frequently if I've been singing in my spare time.

My good mic is in storage in the USA. I just use the built-in Micro BR mic.

Hopefully you'll get some more useful advice than this, particularly about the recording and processing side of things. I'll be watching this topic for tips.

[Ray Brookes]

Hi John,

First of all, you do not need to go running off down the basement and secondly your vocal sounds fine to me. The songs you write are very melodic over some complex jazz-style harmonic structures and intervals I personally wouldn't even attempt with my voice.So keep it up!

All the advice that Ted gives above is spot on and recommended but bear in mind that most singers, famous and otherwise, hate the sound of their own voices. The mic you are using is also a good one by the way though I can't comment on the recording software you are using as I am not familiar with it. Also, persevering with EQ and various FX can help a lot as long as you don't go over the top (like I do sometimes)

Anyhow, keep recording and posting those great songs.

Ray

[Zoltan]

There's lots of good info being shared here. I don't have anything to offer. I'll just hitch a ride and see what others are saying.

Oh, maybe try a bit more EQ and go nuts with the reverb / delay. Rays advice is certainly sound, but you sound like the kind of guy who doesn't go crazy with any settings...

So perhaps a short trip to the "otherside" with some sweetening effects could result into new findings. You could always dial it back. Then again... It would be interesting to hear Johnbee go psychedelic once in a while.

One thing is for sure. You're not doing anything LO-FI.

If everything else fails i can trade my MicroBR to your Avantone microphone!

[Farrell Jackson]

Hi John. I agree with all that has been said above. To highlight a couple of thoughts; Most people don't like the sound of their own recorded voice. You have a good microphone with the Avantone. EQ and vocal effects can really spice up a vocal just use them sparingly but once in a while more effects does work. My favorite thing is to double vocals, be it physically or with a doubling effect. That fattens the sound and can help level them out. Ted's comment about good and bad vocal days is right on. I have those but in my case it comes down to good and bad hearing days.

Personally, I've not heard a bad vocal from you and I'm always envious how clear your vocals are.
     
If you need more, there is an interesting vocal topic in the SC menu section that has some great tips on vocals. The one by Pipes is a good place to start:  Vocal Technique :Part 1/2 and now part 3!!:)

Farrell
 

[TPB]

Every vocalist think s their vocal could be better most of the time it is because they are comparing it to somebody else I have sometimes have good vocal and a lot of time what I think they sucks but it is what it is I like your vocals just fine. If you think your vocals are thin there are a couple tricks one is the Hass effect this was used to thicken guitar sounds but works for vocals copy your vocal on another track and put a slight delay start with 9 mil sec  and adjust up or down to your liking or you can try just whispering along to the main vocal. One other thing to try is eq the second track take out the lows add reverb it will sound weird on it own but will blend with your vocal
Good luck let me know if you find any good solutions
Tim

[SteveB]

Right, JohnB, you'll have to bear with me on this because my sound-system isn't very good at the moment, but I do have a decent pair of ears, borne out by over a decade's worth of DJ bookings very often working with bands and solo artists. I've posted on here before that when I finally stopped Deejaying, Karaoke was just coming in and I endured several months of being paid to listen to drunken people enjoying themselves, usually because of too much booze, but also making an absolute tit of themselves. Because of the songs they chose, wrong key, no breath control etc and etc.
So, let's come to you. There is NOTHING wrong with your singing voice as such. You are never going to be a Pavarotti, but that's not what you're aiming for, is it? What I think is wrong is what you are putting your voice up against, and here I admit that I've only listened to the top song in your playlist: Minstrel etc. Imagine Frank Sinatra singing with just an acoustic guitar backing, would probably sound like sh*t! You appear to be going the opposite way, trying to fight against a full-arrangement. Try stripping your songs down to almost no backing, double your voice in whichever DAW you use and experiment with gentle reverb and delay and see how that arrangement sounds. It's worth a try, and you may find the results to your and your audiences liking. Good luck.

[SteveB]

JohnB. First let me apologise without reservation if my comments have offended you at all,  (if in fact you have seen my previous post), they certainly weren't meant in that spirit. The problem with the Internet is that it doesn't do 'nuance'. What would sound quite normal in conversation between people in the same room, can come across the Internet sounding Cold, Crass, Arrogant or Clumsily-Worded amongst many other things, so as I say, I apologise if that's the way it seems to you. (And to any other Songcrafters whom I've commented on over the years and who have felt the same – Sorry!)

JohnB – I've re-listened to Midnight Minstrel (several times in fact, as I like to do with any uploads on Songcrafters upon which I comment). It's a wonderfully arranged song and your voice sounds fine within it. But your question in this thread is that you are not happy with your voice. Hmm? Well, I'm sticking to my original opinion and advice, double-track your voice: it's usually better if you sing it twice rather than just duplicate the track. DON'T pan your voices tracks too wide, 10% 20% max. Most DAWs have a 'nudge' function, go between 2 or 3 between the tracks and experiment by sending the tracks to a bus and adding varying reverb and delay effects. There are also 'grit'-type Vsts available, try one of those, and also as I suggested, try a stripped-down version of one of your songs and make the vox prominent. See how it goes and good luck. When I have my proper speakers available I promise to give your music uploads a definite listen. 

[bruno]

Vocals are always hard.
All good advise hear. However, I suggest that you watch some Youtube videos. I particularly enjoy Beth Roars and the Charismatic Voice. They both give great insight in the process of singing and the techniques. Head voice, vocal fry, posture etc. All great stuff and (for me at least), plenty to learn. I'm sure there are many others to watch, but it will really help.
B

[StephenM]

Every vocalist think s their vocal could be better most of the time it is because they are comparing it to somebody else I have sometimes have good vocal and a lot of time what I think they sucks but it is what it is I like your vocals just fine. If you think your vocals are thin there are a couple tricks one is the Hass effect this was used to thicken guitar sounds but works for vocals copy your vocal on another track and put a slight delay start with 9 mil sec  and adjust up or down to your liking or you can try just whispering along to the main vocal. One other thing to try is eq the second track take out the lows add reverb it will sound weird on it own but will blend with your vocal
Good luck let me know if you find any good solutions
Tim

I like this idea Tim... second track, take out the lows... and add reverb... I do something similar sometimes but I did not really understand what the effect was... I do this with bass sometimes... copy track, removed everything below 130 hz on the second, add some other effects such as dirty, distortion etc to the higher freq track... now this has me thinking to remove more of the highs from the first bass track.