ronws

Sounds like a folk version when you sing it. You just have to let go of the sound of Morten in your head. It's okay if you don't sound like him. I know, because I sometimes trip myself up with the original singer's voice in my head. Let it go and do the song as yourself.

I used Audacity before, which has horrendous latency. And so, I would record with the music panned hard right, left phone off, and sing with the room. Now, I have an interface with zero latency live monitor but I still tend to leave one headphone can off.

Way cool, Bzean and you have the perfect voice and style for that song.

Weird, now it just shows half a pic and no more vid.

It could be humility on the part of Felipe. Just like, I know there a lot of guitar players who are better than I am.

Something I have teach myself over and over again.

requires me to sign in. You might check the link.

So muffled and low in volume, I wonder if you are singing through a pillow. Except for the loudest and highest notes, many of which are off-pitch. You may want to work on that song some more and try it for a show at a later date. I think you can do the song, it's just going to take some more work.

Another advantage I like of directly into interface, especially for recording instruments, is that I don't have to worry about barking dogs, air conditioning, or tv noise from the next room. With my Flying V, I don't really have to turn on the amp for the sound I am looking for. I have a Roland GS-6, a professional rack mount digital effects processor / modeler that I bought used back in the 90's. I have several pre-set amp models to choose from and can change the parameters of any of the effects. I could even save it, at the cost of deleting on of the factory pre-sets. It has MIDI out, XLR out, instrument cable out. Low, medium, and high impedance selector. High for single coil, medium for dual or humbucker (I have humbucker pick-ups on the Flying V,) and low for bass guitar and other low impedance instruments that have the less than line level signal. I could plug in my dynamic mic into the GS-6 and switch to high (single coil of the mic) if I wanted to do so. Then, after that, I can choose a cabinet emulator in Reaper. It results in this truly monstrous guitar sound. The Casio, I can play bass or drums with that in what is always the "perfect" room. But don't worry, even with all these abilities, I can still mess things up. I have toyed with "Dance the Night Away" by Van Halen, proving that I can take good instrumentation and still make a crappy mix. But I have had so much fun with it that even the doggy doo-doo results have been fun and a learning environment for me. If I have not made a mistake, it is because I did not do anything today.

I have been there, done that, so many times. I may have to force myself, but things turn out better if I record the guitar first. Then record the vocal separately, on another track. Difficult for me because I have always been used to playing guitar and singing at the same time.

And one other thing for a good sound all together. It helps if you can listen to the results on something else other than the headphones you wore in recording. I have a sneaking suspicion that Felipe does that. He may have a set of speakers or monitors, expensive or not, even house stereo speakers. But at some point, he gets the playback into an acoustic space outside of his head and changes balance from there. My car has a USB port. So, I can hear stuff in that, the place where 90 percent of americans hear music. If I have something that sounds good on that, it is good on headphones. The same cannot be said of the converse. Something that sounded okay on headphones does not always sound good in the "real world" of my car, which has a 6 speaker sound system and media center that also takes TRS cable from an ipod and also can link bluetooth to something.

And because most of us do not have the money for a true studio build-out or access to a good studio, we close mic. And because of DAWs like Reaper and Pro Tools having plug-in and routing abilities, you can crank out sound as good as commercial releases. And so, take advantage of direct injection instruments, especially if you are performing on the instruments instead of using a karaoke track. I am crap as a drummer. But I can play drums on the Casio keyboard. Even though I have a nice house, it is not really set up for me to have a full kit with even only one 24" kick. However, I do have room, should I save the scratch to get one, the Alesis Nitro kit. One of the owners of my company plays drums and he has three of these. It has all the drum sets in it you will ever need. You can MIDI control with it or instrument cord and play "live." It is an electronic drum set, so, all anyone else is going to hear is tap, tap. I make more noise washing dishes. All for $300 and free shipping nearly anywhere. These days, all the pro studios direct inject the bass. A player may get snooty and want to play through a real Mesa Boogie and the engineer will let him do that, then use the direct inject track, anyway. Also with keyboard and synth parts. We are talking about us singers working in whatever spare room we have, not a pro label recording a 5 piece band with 5 mics alone on the drums. Also, Reaper has inboard MIDI editor with a piano roll and you can program any musical instrument part and there are free instrument VSTi plug-ins everywhere. It just takes time to program it. Others, like Fruity Loops and Garageband, also have this ability. Then, the only mic you are worried about is for vocals. Word of advice in programming MIDI parts. In order for the part to sound as real as a human playing it, don't make the part so complex that a dummer, for example, with no more than 4 limbs could not play it. Same if you are programming keyboard or guitar parts. Most guitar players are using no more than four fingers on the left hand and plucking with no more than 2 or 3 fingers with the right hand.

In addition to 2 mics on a guitar, which you can do with a basic 2 channel interface, there is another thing that can be done. For example, my Spectrum Acoustic has an onboard pickup and volume and 3 band equalizer. The mic is piezoelectric, what others call "the bug." It produces a type of sound different than a room. But you can plug in that to one input and a regular mic into the other mic. What kind of mic? Small diaphragm condenser is usually recommended for acoustic guitar, if you have the budget. Otherwise, any condenser mic will work better than dynamic mics. Then you can either pan or sum the inputs and do all kinds of crazy stuff from there. Dynamics are better for really loud and high transient sounds like live acoustic drums, amplified guitars and bass guitars. Here is the funny thing, the cheaper you go in dynamic, the more iconic. Shure 57 is known to have a boxy sound that accentuates the mids and rolls of lows and some highs. And literally every famous guitar part you know of was recorded with this mic. And they are less than 100 USD anywhere. They are also good for really loud singers who like to eat the mic. Again, I would like to repeat the wisdom of Glen Fricker. As a singer, do not cup the mic, if using a dynamic. The bottom part of the grill is covering tuned ports that are designed t cancel signal from side and rear directions. They are what makes the mic cardiod. Keep your hand off the grill and your voice will sound its best. Condenser, especially large diaphragm condenser, has fixed back plate. The flexible sheet of metal that is the front plate picks up your voice. The fixed back plate tends to reject sound from anything behind it. If you put a dampener or something behind the mic, you defeat that purpose. Better to put sound shields to the side, if you must. When I sing, I have a piece of foam that was packing from a pool system controller (picked it out of our trash at work) and put it the right of my mic do deaden sound from the living room. Left side nothing, I am next to a curtain over the sliding glass door the back yard. Back of the mic faces the computer and what not. Then I sing through a pop filter about 6 inches away except for high loud notes. Then I edit the track, deleting sections of "dead air" between lyric passages that may have other environmental sounds, even me clearing my throat.. What's left is a track where the only thing you can hear is the voice, and none of the rest of the environment. Another thing about killing reflections in a room. Sound cancellation is about trapping rather than absorbing. So, a curtain over a wall or window does better than carpeting over the same surface. Because the low frequencies go through and around curtain but get trapped back there. The usual problem in a room treated incorrectly is that the highs are absorbed and the lows are not and you get a sonic mudpit.

And to answer G's question, yes, Felipe plays guitar. So, a handsome man with the beauty of youth on his side, a great singer, a multi-instrumentalist, awesome recordings and he could be a recording engineer or his own label, even. It's just not fair to the rest of us. Survival of the fittest, and all that. Seriously, I do learn stuff from Felipe, even if I am old enough to be his father.

That is a neat effect. Obviously, naturally created chorus because of doubling the melody. But also the phase difference gives the flanger/phasor effect one could get on a guitar effects box or modeler. But it also gives the effect of reverb, without being reverb and that certainly thickens the result. that is a neat trick to know.

Diamonds and Rust was pretty cool though I have never heard it interpreted quite that way. But good effort.

One of my replies got eaten by the system. Oh well, I will consolidate here. I thought Felipe's cover was perfect. And he hit every point. and I enjoyed Killer's cover. Different but very Bowie-like and of the singer/artist type people here, I think of Killer as the most like Bowie in temperment and artistic style. And that is one of the biggest compliments I can think of to make. And Jeremy, you also have the spirit of Bowie. You have that free spirit in your voice, no matter what you do. It is always fun with you. We are all heroes just for one day. Makes me want to put on my red shoes and dance the blues. First, I need to get some red shoes... And there are other important artists who have passed this year and years before. But I do not mind the predominance of Bowie songs. I could be prejudiced. One of my favorite Christmas songs is his duet with Bing Crosby that I recycle every Christmas season. And I always knew, from the first time I heard him sing, that GSoul could do Prince convincingly. You have that funk in your soul. And MDEW doing justice to Glen Frey. Don would get the lion's share of publicity at times, but Glen had a huge effect on the Eagles, as well as one of my favorites from his solo work, "Smuggler's Blues." Favorite line - "The politics of contraband ...." (it's a CIA thing)

Outstanding, Felipe. Perfect.

At first, I was not going to listen to it because I am human and I can only imagine Gnarls' tone. But Killer's post made me listen. And I liked it, precisely because it is a different approach than the original. You made this a cover instead of an attempt at tribute, and that was a wise move. Singing the song as if you wrote it.

I liked it. Totally the right song for your voice and vice versa. Keep doing that. And have fun.

Reminds me of a cute line from a young lady I knew who's boyfriend was 100 percent Cherokee, medicine braid and everything.

I think the problem is you are singing against a full track with the original vocals in place. Can you find a karaoke track without the vocals?

I did not hear pitchiness at the last. In fact, pitch was good all the way through and it sounds like you got the vowels behaving just right. I mean, sure, there is still a little accent and this was during the Eagles' "country" phase. And though Glen was from California, Don is from Texas and probably influenced him. This is your best performance and best recording to date. Excellent job.

^ well, it is very well done.

By the way, Jarom, great song. Are you recording or MIDI programming the instruments or do you have some guys with instruments. Those drums are tight.