Vocal Take (What Am I Doing Wrong)

[Johnbee58]

@Jim RoseberryThanks for your input.  I think you're right about getting away from music for a while to get a better perspective of it.  I've been thinking of that myself for a little while. ?

@Gswitz I apologize to you for over reacting to what you were doing.  To tell the truth, at first I took notice to an improvement in what you did.  For a few seconds I was going to ask you what you did (sounded like some kind of EQ or compression correction) but then when it got distorted it started to bother me.  There was a long time when I didn't allow for my stuff to be downloaded because about 10 years ago some smart ***** decided to download something of mine and distorted and made it ugly.  This person essentially murdered it, in my mind.  This person MEANT it to be a mockery.  I realize now that that was not your intention and I sincerely apologize for jumping to conclusions, but perhaps you can understand now why I did.  The whole climate of the thread at that point was getting a bit hostile (thanks to me.  I accept full responsibility) and that's why my first reaction was to be offended.  Let's just call it a PTSD of sorts.  ?

@TVR PRODUCTIONS I also hope you'll accept my apology.  You're not a troublemaking troll and it was just your way of offering advise.  And you're correct.  My voice isn't good.  I don't know about yours.  Maybe it's better than you think.  What I plan on doing is connecting with a vocal coach and get his/her evaluation.  He/she might not be able to make me ready for "The Voice" but hopefully can, as Tezza was suggesting, give me some pointers to make it a bit better and more pleasing to listen to.?

I also regret I took down all of my music from the internet.  I might work on putting them back but then again, maybe I won't.  It was a stupid knee jerk reaction on my part.  Some of those older tunes are going to be hard to re locate.

You're all good people.  I'm sorry for acting like such an *****.

?JB

 

[Gswitz]

@Johnbee58

No sweat. I can see how the misunderstanding happened.

I'd be glad to make you a video to show how you can use melodyne to inspect your own work. You can also adjust it, which i did to your vocal track. I then measured your bpm manually and fixed the clip to an exact length to fit 80 bpm.

After pitch adjusting, i bounced the clip to commit the change.

I then looped the clip and played with exciter, compression, side chained limiting, eq distortion... Etc. I was trying to make it awesome from my perspective and have enjoyed it over and over.

I don't really think you have any problem or any reason to stop making amazing sounds.

Keep rocking. ?

[Johnbee58]

3 minutes ago, Gswitz said:

@Johnbee58

No sweat. I can see how the misunderstanding happened.

I'd be glad to make you a video to show how you can use melodyne to inspect your own work. You can also adjust it, which i did to your vocal track. I then measured your bpm manually and fixed the clip to an exact length to fit 80 bpm.

After pitch adjusting, i bounced the clip to commit the change.

I then looped the clip and played with exciter, compression, side chained limiting, eq distortion... Etc. I was trying to make it awesome from my perspective and have enjoyed it over and over.

I don't really think you have any problem or any reason to stop making amazing sounds.

Keep rocking. ?

See, you guys work your magic with exciters, compression, side chain limiting, etc.  I know the basics of these things but I still can't come to grips with how to master them like some of you people have.

?JB

[Gswitz]

We are all white belts. There are no masters. Well... Scook and bapu maybe.

[Tezza]

5 hours ago, Johnbee58 said:

 TVR is right and Tezza is right.  I can't sing and it's too late to learn. 

I didn't actually say that, I reject the "I can't sing" mentality and also the "it's too late to learn" mentality as well.

What I said was that you were an untrained and/or inexperienced singer that could do with some lessons. It could be that you have just never learned to sing properly or you've forgotten and need some refresher lessons.  Our voice changes as we age, typically in males we may lose flexibility and range in the higher register but we gain resonance and range in the lower register. It is true that some people might have a genetic advantage in that, for various reasons, their voice might have a good natural tone and some people might have a less pleasant natural voice. It's not really possible to know where you stand with this until you've at least had a few lessons and got opinions from professional voice coaches.

All human beings can learn to sing, to hold pitch control their voice and identify their comfortable range, maybe some voices age differently as well, I don't know. You won't know how much your voice can improve until you try. I've listened to a lot of artists as they age and their voice in general still sounds fantastic. You should listen to some of the older artists, they feature on Daryl Halls "Live from daryl's house" on youtube for example. There are artist's in their 70's and 80's.

Music doesn't have to be a fully on or off activity. But it can be very beneficial health wise, especially mental health. When music becomes painful it's time to reassess why your doing it. Perhaps your just stuck in a rut doing the same thing over and over. I ask myself what I am going to do in the next couple of hours with music, sit with the acoustic and sing the old songs in half voice or do piano lessons or sing to big band midi files in full voice or write a new song or learn a new cover. For me, it is like meditation. When I get back to civilization, I will put it all together but there is no rush, the journey is just as important as the destination.

Music should never be boring or a drag or become tedious or unsettling at any age. If it does, your doing it wrong. Do something different with it. It should improve your mental health not destroy it! There's nothing wrong with a break now and then either. You don't have to "give up" music, even if you take a long break, the skills you have learned over the years will still be there if you decide to pick it up again.

If the whole vocal thing is really driving you nuts, then concentrate on the producing side and get some singers to try out with your songs. Nothing feels better than giving your massive problem to someone else. Collaborate with a local or try the Bandlab thing or the "fiverr" thing.

 

Edited June 7, 2019 by Tezza

[mettelus]

I was going to respond to this thread earlier, but then it sort of exploded. Some of these comments are already mentioned, but worth repeating.

First and foremost, if music it is something you enjoy, then do it for that reason. Doing it for any other reason is something to reconsider.

Vocally, in addition to advice above, know your range and limitations, and leverage those. A chromatic tuner is an awesome tool to practice with and will help you with determining your comfortable range as well - the reason I say this is that while singing to a piano note is great, you also need to know where you are. Practicing duration for notes will yield a lot of insight into what is most comfortable for both range and duration of passages (esp. for your own lyrics). Once you know your normal range and capabilities, you can choose songs in a proper tuning for your voice. One big reason 432 tuning is used is to remove stress from the vocalist... there are many options for this. The focus here is to leverage the true range of your voice, not to "force" it to where it doesn't want to go.

With asthma, takes lanes and comping can be your friend. If running out of air, rather than strain yourself, leverage this tool. Do passages multiple times individually if necessary, but over time you may find you can do more and more in one pass. Practicing is like exercise, so simple things like "karaoke" where you sing to a recorded track (in your range), then mix the commercial track down (or even mute it) will yield a lot of insight. Again, these are tools to know yourself, adapt, and improve.

In-ear-monitor (or headphones)... people sound differently (higher) when recorded than they do to themselves because the bones between the vocal chords and the ears actually dampen higher frequencies. Listening to the mic in real-time allows you to hear and adjust your singing dynamically. Once you get used to this, you will condition yourself to sing the way it gets heard (by the mic and your audience). As was mentioned previously in this thread, a lot of this comes from singing technique and learning yourself.

If you have never seen the movie "The King's Speech," it is worth watching... but will leave this with a simple scene from it:

 

Edited June 7, 2019 by mettelus

[Grem]

Gonna watch that one Mike.

[TVR PRODUCTIONS]

Wow! I just read all of the responses to my mean feedback. I missed all of this. I was not being a troll. You asked what you are doing wrong and I said it. I never said to give up or that you have no talent. All that matters is that you enjoy doing what you do. It is amazing to create something. That said, I wrote hundreds of songs and many of them down right are not good. Heck, the other night my old drummer and I were watching a live show we did in 1989 and we were laughing at how we looked and at the songs. How dare he laugh at my babies.  But he is right. If I were watching us, I would be mocking us to an extent too.. We cannot listen to our stuff objectively. Its like thinking that everyone has a beautiful baby when some are downright ugly. No one is going to say it. And the baby really is beautiful to the parents. I can sing a bit and even when I auto tune it, it is on key but my voice is not all that pleasant to listen to. I know it. I am not offended by it. A voice is an instrument. Someone''s $25 guitar is not going to sound like someone else's $10,000 vintage strat.  It doesn't mean you cannot improve and you may not even want to. 

Maybe I am wrong. Then again, I am not too fond of Bruce Springsteen's voice along with Neil Young and Bob Dylan, though I like their songs. It is all subjective. I am sorry I gave my honest opinion. I didn't mean to offend you but you might want to think twice about asking users in a public forum to critique you. If all you want to hear is how good you are, just ask your family and close friends.  When I was in a band, I was the same with the other members. I would constantly tell the bass player and drummer what they were doing wrong. I would not settle for less that it could be. And if I can play their parts better than them, then they might not be the right one for my band. They got mad when I would stop a song every time I heard their mistake but in the end, they played them much better.  

Anyway, keep doing what you are doing. It makes you happy and you are creating something. I would concentrate on breathing technique. Best wishes.

Edited August 19, 2019 by TVR PRODUCTIONS