napoleonboot

Thanks Ron for all your feedback. I work with a group of about 20 people in different combinations. We don't have a name. I dont kjnow about "George W and the Rascals", although I feel my singing is developing. I was sorting out some stagnant (stuck) projects earlier today (I got up early with toothache as I couldnt sleep), and I realised how much I have come on. I loved doing this softer song, it worked out really well. It's fairly understated. Great bass part, as you say. The bass player is of Indian descent (Asia not North America), who lives in Canada, we are very cosmpolitan. Actually I have just started on a song even more different from my normal fare, sort of 1920's vaudeville/burlesque!

Constructive criticiams is welcome as always. http://soundcloud.com/george-williams-8/grand-southern-view This is not the final mix, and we are trying to convince a real drummer to replace the programmed drums. This may be my softest track so far, and it turned out pretty well I think.

Very good. Can't find much bad to say which couldn't be fixed with better recording equipment. I don't recognize the song?

I need that aswell, my vibrato is rubbish :o

An original prog rock song (epic) "Lost In Izmir" Available via two services: http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_14269343 I tried something different on this by incorporating some Arabic influences. Izmir is a large city in Turkey. The project was fun when it started, but took a while. To make the asian vocal wobbles work in context and stop them being repetitive was hard work. It turned out OK in the end, probably not one of my best, but a bit different and an interesting exercise. George

You are cutting the notes short. I suggest you work through some exercises, such as from Kevin Richards on youtube.

Lots that is good about this, mostly pitch problems here and there. I have found in the past if the it's difficult to get the pitch right, then go through the section just doing 'la la' it helps to focus.

Hi - thanks for your comments. We are retracking the whole thing currently, as we weren't happy with the sound and dynamics.

My take on it. What a great blues song http://soundcloud.com/george-williams-8/jesus-just-left-chicago

Robert I love the idea of multiple people having a go at the same song to compare notes. The trouble for me here is that I really can't hit the scream. If you pick something a little less challenging on range I'm up for it. Geerge

Aha! I expecting grunge when I listened to the recording you posted but got soft stuff instead. Good tuning and enunciation. You sound a little 'contrived' to me, singing over-soft and throaty for my taste. Also, I wonder how do you sound on loud stuff (rock!), I supect the approach you used for this will only work on softer stuff. As for mics, it depends on your budget. At the entry level Shure SM58 is a sort of industry standard and a good starting place. The Senneheiser E845 is a very similar mic, which I use myself if I do live work, however most of my own singing is home recording for which I use a large diaphragm condensor, which unsuitable for live work. The recording you posted of you singing and playing guitar is fairly good quality, do you have decent equipment already?

Ron that's a great album title "My Voice Is A Weapon" George

Very cool. I think I might give this a go also, I'm a sucker for a bit of blues. You don't get any more Amercian than ZZ Top, so I'll apologise in advance for being so British! George

Funny, I also prefer Keith's version to the original. It's a great song, but I think the singing on the original is but lacking. I find that in the original the vocals at times seem contrived and sort of 'over pronounced'. Of course Keith doesn't sound like the original, but like himself, and that's fine. It's very 'listenable'.

Besides the very minor point below it's great, well done. At 1'12 where you sing "aint no sunshine when she's gone" following I Know, I Know. It sounds to me like in that line you arent confident of what the melody is, and so are 'bluffing'.

Dr Evil, actually the process of recording your own singing and being honest with yourself when you listen back to it is a fantastic tool for improvement. If you think it doesn't sound good, dont abandon the process - try again and try to figure out what to fix.

Ron said it all, all I can add is that although it wasn't what I expected ... it made me SMILE! It did however make me think of Eurovision An explanation of Eurovision for my American friends Eurovision is a european(ish) musical circus/nightmare which happens every year and is watched by 100's millions of people on TV all the way from Ireland to Isreal. When it's on my wife and I make an evening of it and watch it from start to finish, armed with drinks and nibbles, and do our own private voting on the winner. The only year I got it right was 2006, when Lordi won: If you want to get a feel for the sheer awfulness we put up with these compilations alone should make you glad you live on the west side of the Atlantic:

Well I am failing this challenge without even posting the results. Actually I think I sounded pretty good on some of it, but I just couldn't hit the high screams they were out my range. I thought for a moment abnout pitch shifting in my audio editor, but (a) that's cheating, and ( I didnt want to sound like Cher. ;)

We just finished the final mix today, now including a real drummer, and some of the vocals re-tracked. I will update the links in the earlier posts to point to this final version.

Dr Evil, I think that you need to put up your own material if you comment on others it's only fair! Ron, Keith and I all do that regularly. Mind you, I hardly ever post covers, which gives me the advantage of not having someone else's version for listeners to compare me against. Mostly the comments people give are supportive, and sometimes they are constructive, interesting, and useful, and just occasionally they are just negative (and hurtful). That's how it goes. If we were all perfect we would be called Ian Gillan Robert - I will take up the challenge of Child In Time. I'll scout around for a backing track, I thought the one you used sounded a bit too 'midi', but it was also the first one I found when I looked. I hope that others may then join the challenge :)

I totally agree with Keith. I used to be pro guitar player (back in the day - 1980's) my youth in a Heavy Metal band. I never could sing and play guitar simultaneously. I'm not to bad at either on their own, but when I do both together they distract from each other and neither is as good as I want it to be, or even as good as it can be.

Singing some DP is a nice way of remembering the great Jon Lord who passed away on Monday. I've had DP going round the iPod since. Robert I enjoyed this a lot. But.. you semed to put on a slightly odd David Bowie'esque type voice on the the less extreme sections, which isn't as good as your more normal approach that I've heard elsewhere. It distracted a bit form how excellent your delivery was otherwise. Kudos for the screams, which are spot on, and for tackling a classic. It's right up there with Gethsemane as songs I'd love to be able to sing, but don't have the balls or chops to.

Ron The area where Glenn Hughes comes from is about 25 miles away from where I grew up. Actually, over the years his talking voice has altered and is now mid-Atlantic, somewhere around the Azores. George

Ron just a thought on how to get a cheaper PC, I replaced my the system unit on my Dad's PC a couple of months back with a refurbished from a retailer on eBay, it had 3 months warranty on it and he had good feedback. This is the spec: INTEL P4 2.8GHZ 2GB DDR2 MEMORY 80 GB HDD 16 X DVD REWRITER WINDOWS XP HOME It cost only 90 British pounds = 140 U.S. dollars, including delivery. It plugged in and worked right away, and has been great ever since. You might be able to find something similar on eBay over your way? George

LOL! Ron ..."It was good, as I expected." I guess I'll have to critique myself to improve. I hope I am improving over the months. I am definitely getting better at writing vocal melodies which suit my voice. I don't write the backing music, others do the backing music and lyrics and I have to create the vocal melody myself to glue it all together. Sometimes the lyricst creates a guide vocal track, which I listen once to get the rough timing, then mostly ignore what he sang and do it all differently. I felt this came out more relaxed than I normally manage. I changed my recording approach and sat down to sing this, I usually stand up. I often sing while reading the lyrics which I hold in one hand in the eye-line beyond the mic, so I think that sitting down made me feel safer, as I was less likely to bump into the pop shield by accident. When I concentrate on singing/performing and also reading lyrics, I dont think my brain can manage much else. I also managed to put more expression into the performance this way. I struggled with accent on this one. I am English, but I think I always benchmark my singing against the prevalent sounds in the genre, which are American. I don't try to do an American accent when I sing, but I have to rework things whenever I find I sound too English. I found some lines of the chorus "Let's put an end.." and "The stupid war's .." came out very English sounding and I had to rework it several times to sound more acceptable to my own ears. Mind you the other guys in my (virtual) band are all American and quite like it when I sound English, they say it make me sound more intelligent. MMMmm... In the last verse I wasn't happy with the line 'They caught him with a bag and a set of scales', I seem to linger too long on "They" at the start of the line, but I couldn't find another way of doing it. George