haiduc

Hey Nick, Thanks a lot for the comment! Only recently I have started looking into vowel modification, that is doing it on purpose - I think we all need to do it to a certain degree to keep connected at higher pitches. Needless to say I'm far from having it all figured out. Still working on coming up with a recipe that checks out every time... Yup, you spotted the main problems dead on, splatting/high larynx/distortion on high notes. I'll keep working on it :)

Thanks man! :)

https://soundcloud.com/haiducable/hard-to-say-im-sorry :lol:

Yeah really had a blast great atmosphere. I hope Kip keeps doing these small venue acoustic gigs, I'll definitely go again when I get the chance.

Well, I used to record back in 2002 with a P4 laptop and a USB 1.1 audio interface using ASIO direct monitoring so your system is 3 years ahead of that But I know how crappy hardware can really mess things up. I just got a new laptop for about 500 euros last month (ridiculous compared to the price paid for the one in 2002) and I'm very happy with the performance in terms of recording, latency is around 5 ms with my Focusrite Saffire I/F so I can use live effects. The thing with PCs is that they don't gain any value as they become older, compared to guitar rigs I have a Roland D-20 synth somewhere in the attic... Never played a Flying V, I was always wondering how the thing would not slide off your leg when playing sitting down... :P

Hey Ron, Yeah, I was using a lot of volume on the headphones and they have quite a bit of a bass response. I also mixed the song wearing headphones and, interestingly, I couldn't hear any pitch issues while mixing. When playing back the song on speakers I can hear I'm slightly off pitch. Of course that makes a lot of sense now after what you've said. I remember tracking using studio monitors once, set up in a triangle with a hyper-cardoid mic, so that the speakers would be in the dead-spot of the mic. Pitching was perfect then. However, I can't repeat this setup in the room I'm currently using so the goal is to get the same result with a headphone mix. Regarding your latency issues, does your hardware support ASIO direct monitoring? That should fix it, the downside is that you only get a dry vocal signal so you'd have to use external processing (compressor, EQ, reverb) for your headphone mix.

Thanks folks! Doing these covers is very interesting, I'm discovering new stuff about my voice all the time. Ron, no I didn't do this in one take, I wish I could - but on the other hand, I didn't really rehearse the song. I just wanted to record a complete song to have something I could refer to later, like a snapshot of my current level of singing. Thanks for rating it "performance quality", that's a great confidence boost for me. I constantly browse YouTube for good backing tracks, I have quite a catalog by now - enough for the next couple of years Regarding pitch issues, it's very interesting to see how the monitoring influences pitch, still trying to find the sweet spot there. Monitoring through headphones (which I did in this case) always seems to throw me off pitch a bit. I tried different monitoring levels, moving one side of the headphones a bit off the ear, etc. Also it was fun to see how different vowels have their own "magnetism", dragging me toward a certain pitch or resonance and how I would go about steering against it. Sometimes, especially in the higher passages, the navigation was quite a bit of a challenge. I noticed Perry using a rasp and I tried to mimic it, then I found it can actually help in disguising instabilities. Of course I don't plan on using it as a crutch but it's good to know what it can do. Strain is also interesting, it really seems to have a lot to do with mental attitude. When I do a "difficult part" my mind keeps telling me that it's difficult, so I keep holding back on energy and volume to make it safer to save myself from the embarrassement of voice cracking. However, it comes out strained that way, as if hitting the gas and brake pedal at the same time... Anyway, lots of things to learn. Thanks for the pointers! :)

Ah well, it really makes no difference if there are 1000 or 1001 different covers of that song right? So here's mine, real quick and dirty: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/48158209/Faithfully%202012-10-06.mp3 I think I start to like doing these karaoke tracks, had great fun with this one today. Looking forward to any feedback! Please be critical! :)

Woohoo!! Thanks a lot folks!! :D

I feel I need to share this it was pretty damn awesome to sing this one with Kip - lots of fun too, his voice is a beast BTW. Alright, I had my share of beer before doing this so don't bash my "performance" TOO much I highly recommend Kip's acoustic gigs to anyone, everyone was having a great time that night and he was delivering a hell of a performance, not to mention pouring some drinks after the show with his fans... :cool:

Hey! The notes in the chorus (lady, won't you save me...) sound like pure head voice to me, not like a mix, so they're lacking the "meat". Milijenko still has some "chestiness" in those high notes (not talking about those super-high wails, they're pure head). I'm having trouble myself getting the notes around my second bridge (A4-B4) to sound full, seems that I need an enormous amount of volume to do so - something I still have to explore when my neighbors are away... ;)

Hey, thanks! Yeah, tension creep is always a danger, especially for me who used to shout on chest voice only before I started training my voice and discovered mix / covering / curbing (whatever ). I guess I tend to apply too much air pressure sometimes, when doing the high parts I was cracking pretty often until I reduced the amount of air pressure - of course the tone got more heady. I didn't feel much fatigue after doing the song though, so I guess my vocalization wasn't unhealthy per se - but yeah tension can creep in anytime so it's good to be aware of it. As for the larynx position, I'm trying to keep it balanced during vocalizes but doing a song I'm probably getting carried away and it'll start moving up (a bit, not into any choking extreme). I find it hard to keep it dead-on constant, not sure if it makes that much of a difference but I'll pay special attention to it from now. As for finding support, the only thing I'm doing is breathing naturally. I'm not doing any "abdominal compression" or anything like that on purpose (maybe subconciously). Anyway, I know that I need to work on it. Do you know of any particular exercise to strenghten that area?

Just listened to them. Tomorrow is great, a bit more interesting from the composition's standpoint, I'll give it a shot in while. :D

Hey Ron, thanks for the positive feedback. I'm really flattered don't worry it won't get to my head... Thanks also for the pointers about vowels. Actually I'm really only starting to get into vowels (and their effects on my voice) right now, I've never paid attention to them and it'll be fun disecting them a bit technically and conquer them one by one. Cheers haiduc

Thanks Keith! I'm especially glad you like the tone, I was really trying to get a lot of resonance and edge into it and I guess I went the right direction. Do you mean I should sustain the volume towards the end of the phrases more other than letting the "tail" of the words fade out? Good point, I really didn't notice this, but you're right - it would certainly make the words clearer to understand for the listener.