ronws

Guess who just got back today? Them wild eyed boys who've been away, Haven't changed, had much to say. But, man, I still think them cats are great. They were asking if you were around. How you was, where you could be found. Told them you were living downtown, driving all the old men crazy!

A big thing I like about Reaper is that you can change the effects chain on the fly, in real time. If you did eq before compressor and want to try it the other way around, just drag the eq down past the compressor. Also, Reaper starts up in regular recording mode and you can record however many complete takes and it will be lanes in one track, Later, you can snip and each snipped section is called an item. You can then comp in that one track by highlighting the items in each take that you like and it will only play those. Later, you can, with a click, create new track from selected take items and it will create this track out of the highlighted items you want to keep. It also has an auto-punch. Highlight in the track where you want to replace. then start the cursor sometime before that so that you can get back in the swing. It will only record on the highlighted section. And it is default non-destructive. Both the original part and the new recorded part are still there. I personally like the method of Ryan Strain. You record a section of the lyrics once, twice, five times until you have what you like and then click and drag down to a keeper track that is not armed. I did that for "Highway Star." It was the most relaxing recording session for me. Why? I have red light syndrome. That goes away when I can just worry about a section and not the whole thing.

I have not ever heard of a soprano becoming a tenor. This should be interesting.

One of things I like to do in both Reaper and when I was using Audacity, is get rid of any sound, either by generating silence, or just deleting, any spots between lyrics. This is far better than using a gate. Since we are singing close to the mic, any room will do. Also, it increases the signal to noise ratio by making the floor effectively almost zero. In so doing, using compressor only works on the voice instead of also bringing up room noise. Some things, I just like to play as an instrument. I can use the Casio LK-165 as a MIDI controller but I usually just use the headphones out with an instrument cord to interface, playing it like I would a direct bass or, when playing drums, treat it like a summed multi-mic mixer that brought it down to one channel. Then, when mixing, I brazenly steal Graham Cochrane's trick from recording live drums with one mic. Have two extra copies of the track. Eq one to concentrate on the kick. Eq another for the snare and pan slightly right. Cymbals and toms get eq prominence on the third track and pan those left. On my frankenstein'd version of Van Halen's "Dance the Night Away," I played my Flying V through Roland GS-6 and into the interface. Then, in Reaper, used the Tweed cabinet emulator. Then carved out some eq because the guitar was taking up a lot of space. For bass on that song, I played the Flying V like a bass and used the pitch changer plug-in to drop an octave. I compressed, high-pass filter to take out some low end so that I would have room for the thumping kick drum.

I really liked your voice on this one. And I don't know if the aim was to sound more american than brasilian but you succeeded. I really like accents, even yours. But it is also nice to hear someone shed an accent for whatever reason.

Reminds me of Steve Martin's bit on how to make a million, tax free. First, get a million dollars. Second, when the tax man comes around to collect the tax, remember these two words - "I forgot." Great song choice, MDEW. The best parts were the "fake" part. Though I am going to have to channel Jens a little bit. It was not "fake" unless you entire voice is fake. Why? Because it is a sound that you were able to emit with your voice. What's different, whether you imagine an old man voice or not, is how you resonated and how you did the vowels. Which means you do have control. Which means that creating that sound was not a matter of invasive surgery, it was a matter of disregarding things told to you in the past. Singing is mental, as mental as is martial arts. One of the few things I have had "official" lessons in is martial arts, assorted combat, armed and unarmed. In 1977, and it sticks with me to this day, my Kenpo Karate instructor (who was also my scoutmaster and a lead person in the church I was attending) pointed out that the kicks, blocks, and punches were ten percent of the art. Mentality was the other 90 percent. He was right, as I would later find from my friend who was a SEAL in Viet Nam. And would see in the Dao of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee's viewpoint in the subject. And I think it holds true for singing. Doing the work of training is a thing we can do. Changing our minds to accept the instructions, AND the results, that is the hard part. Keep faking.

Good stuff, Robert. I have liked everything Croce did. My favorite, I think was "Bad Leroy Brown." But "Operator" was great, too.

I used to use Audacity and it is free. And it will cut out a significant chunk of vocals. But it can also create sound quality issues for the rest of the track, making it sound more scratchy and "under water"-y. I switched to Reaper and paid the 60 dollars and it has been worth every penny. The plug-ins are great and even Glen Fricker recommends those. With Reaper, you have real time adjustment of effects. You change signal chain and effects chain on the fly with drag and drop, side-chain effects with drag and drop on the fly. The advantage of the system is that the inventor, Justin Frankel, did not spend decades plugging cables into patch bays. He spent decades making computers do things really fast and easy. But he has always been a fan of music. He invented the music player that became standard option in desktop computers. Sold it to Google and then worked for them for a while. Anyway, so it is a good DAW and worth the money if you can save for it. Here, at the forum, Robert has a link to a karaoke site that has just about any song you will ever need for 1 to 2 dollars and you can custom order it. With or without background vocals. With or without lead guitar, in case you want to record your noodling on your axe. Available in mp3 and wav. I have a basic thread on Reaper with some links to vids that make it easy to use. In fact, seeing it can be easier than reading my writing.

Great jobs from MDEW and G. G, I knew you would sound great on that song and, of course, I was right.

"Space Oddity" by David Bowie https://app.box.com/s/833kbbutu5ygsbr66sbp

video blocked by copyright protection. RJD is smiting you from the grave.

I did a Bowie song a few years, Space Oddity, though I had mislabeled it Major Tom.

G, you should definitely do that song. It is totally your style, the slow torch song. You certainly have the range and timbre. It will be legend - wait for it - ary.

Bravo, Bzean, bravo.

Well done. And congratulations for graduating. And, also, I wish you lots of fortune and success for your career.

And I am out because even though I did not say OMG, I am being quoted as saying such, only because I said not everyone programs drums. Because I realized, I dared to disagree with or counterpoint to someone else's review. So, evidently, it is not okay to disagree with a review. So, ignore my rules for review and come up with some.

The only thing I can offer for that is to not think of it as a phrase of text. Break it down to sounds. I mean, that's all it really is. But instead of worrying so much about the words and the order, how does it sound as da hahs ee s ehts ee f fee? At pitch, volume, and speed, no one is going to miss that w and right now, it will drag too much of your mouth forward and through everything out of alignment.

And not everyone is going to have the same ease with this stuff that you do. And I know because I have dragged and dropped and it takes a while. That's why it is easier to play the casio because at least that is like drumming on a desk top with my fingers. I guarantee if he had come up with even a basic 4 on the floor boom-chuck, others would have pooped on that for not being expressive enough. Nor do people have to be multi-instrumentalists to be good musicians. There were and are other good musicians besides Prince in the world. Just to trust me on that, I have been around just a little longer. Last, maybe he really did feel that this song is best without percussion. And now, all I see is talk about is how it needs percussion. I thought we were going to be supportive of songwriting. Or is this because not enough people give kudos to good songwriting, so it is easier to pick apart the one thing the song does not have? For example, one favorite song of my wife and mine is "Leader of the Band" by Dan Fogelberg. Not a drum or anything but guitar in there. Even live, the rest of the band actually will leave the stage for a potty break while Dan would do that one. I really do promise, it is okay to do an acoustical guitar song without drums on it, really and truly.

As for programming drums, it is one thing to have ez drummer or something like it, it is another thing to know how to use it well. If someone, like Killer, already actually knows how to play drums, then it is not so bad. But I would not expect a singer here just picking up the guitar to play as well or as easy as I do since I have played guitar since 1974. I can play drums with my Casio LK-165 by hand, on the keys. And guess what? It sounds like someone who doesn't normally play drums is trying to play drums.

Listen to an opera singer and hear how they do ah, eh, oh, ee, and oo. Then, do that.

When I read the thing about songs for cities or states, I immediately thought of "Fool for the City" by Foghat.

You are still speaking instead of singing. The p's are too hard. Consonants should be softer when singing.

And think of the words as vowels to sing, not words to speak. Breath management is necessary, yes. But singing is different than speaking in use of vowels and articulation. Quit speaking and sing.

Quit speaking the words and sing them, You hung way to long on the r sound in "girl," for example. Listen to Brandon. He is not reciting, he is a musical instrument.

Reminded me a smidge of the vocal bridge in "Whole Lotta Love."