JonJon

actually im pretty sure I could do TV/soundtrack type work lol

"finish the production".   When I hear that I hear, "bench press 400lbs".   Quite an uphill struggle. Laptop really maxed out on that song and I had to "freeze" pretty much all of the tracks as I went...so its a bit of a chore to keep working on it.

needs to be totally remixed from the ground up. Dunno.

Besides, I have seen the future.

lol. Folksy harmonized stuff is the truth

yeah. Thanks for the kind words. Have heard enough times already how this mix sucks, this sucks, that sucks.

Spent about a week on this song now, ready for a break. Im no closer to finishing it than before I started it. Good luck finding a "reference track" for something like this.

I doubt ill be tackling anymore 80 track songs any time soon

The whole musical trip is really weird. I started posting my guitar/drum jams on Fbook. People would say "it sounds weird without words". So I take it upon myself to start singing. Now I feel I have my voice responding well. Of course, as you may know, its never enough. Now I have to have a pro mix too. Im assuming that when I get my mixes together someone will want a video so they can really "feel it"

here ya go, a fun little stripped down mix

On the Inside, LSD mix

A couple more from my massive collection of world famous songs. if nothing else I always could write a good, trippy bridge

The Garden

Another Fool

Been working hard on getting my mixes better. This one took about a week. Good learning experience. Not perfect but im somewhat proud of it

Approximately 80 tracks involved

Its going to be a fairly low quality upload because its an MP3 to start with and then uploaded to an MP3 site

On The Inside, scratch full mix #1

EDIT: Rebalanced mix, much better On the Inside, rebalanced mix#1

Enjoy, JJ

just in the first 30 seconds of this there are 4 or 5 different ways to say "I"

"eye" am the teacher

you were lost but "ah" (or "uh") found you

"hive learned a few things" (not "eye've" learned)...as "ive" travelled thru the years (not "eye've""

Thuh magician is mii name

We'll leave "naim" and "nai-um" for another discussion lol. English is a hodgepodge

On 7/18/2016 at 2:53 PM, Felipe Carvalho said:

Hi @JonJon thanks for the reply man.

Not sure I follow on the diphthong thing haha, either its AH or I, isn't it? Are you saying I am doing something different from both? As far as I am aware, I and eye are homophones isn't that so? (not my native language so I want to understand!)

I love the versions from these two guys (as you may imagine), but I also the original, there is a blend going on most likely!

Again thanks for your words!

Well, in the USA, the word "I" can be pronounced at least 2 different ways. Probably more. Im in the "south" so we hardly ever use a diphthong "eye" for the word "I".  So if I say "I am tired", both the "I" and the "tired" are only 1 syllable....they DONT have the gliding diphthong sound "eYE".

So "I" and "eye" dont have to be homophones

in the south if we say "i'm"...it's 'im' not "eyem"

Its a type of laziness where we dont go to the trouble to fully pronounce a word. So we just say "I" with the mouth wide open as opposed to the diphthong which requires more movement etc

In the same way, a person from up in the mountains would say a word like "our" as "ire" with the mouth wide open

haha, its hard to explain in text. if we say "mine" it wont sound anything like "mayan"...whereas if we say "mayan calender" it may come out more like "mine calender" lol

So a lot of times that applies to rock and roll where the singers dont want to sound "correct" or "intellectual" lol. Seriously. If I hear really good annunciation I think of Bruce Dickinson or maybe Geoff Tate style metal...an almost operatic style.    (style?? is it "stile" or "sti-uhll" lol)

Rock pretty much CAME from the south and from southern blues so a lot of that blues/black/country slang and lazy pronunciation stuck.

At least as I hear it, on the DP bridge its "I" know "I" must remain etc....not "eye know eye must remain"

pretty clear example here. 'I wanna rock and roll'....not "eye wanna".  also check "while" and "style"...no diphthong

or this one. about a hundred "I"s..but not a single "eye"

HAHA!! Actually Felipe....I got to thinking about "Holy Diver". Is it "diver" or "deye-ver" and sure enough Dio says something like "deye-vuh" and I checked your cover and you did it just like Dio. But then on "oh dont you see what I mean" Dio just says "I" (or actually it sounds like what ah mean").....and when you sing that line you do it like Dio lol. You do "what I mean" and not "what eye mean"

So you ALREADY use both (non homophone) "I" and "eye" lol

if you go thru many rock songs id say the "I" is used 10 times for every 1 "eye"

Beatles rocking the 'correct' "eye love her"

Good one here. Not only does Sammy say "I" cant drive 55....he actually pronounces the word 'look me in the EYE" as "look me in the I" lol!

Same thing for many words in rock. "mii mii mii" not "meye meye meye"

and again, im not saying there is any right or wrong in rock n roll lol. I just pointed that out in the DP song because I have heard that song 9 million times and the 'eye' stood out a bit to me

Peace, JJ

I saw it on fbook. All I could think was "someone will surely step on that guitar!"

24 minutes ago, MDEW said:

Thanks Killer

 

My Grandmother had Cherokee blood. Maybe it was that Akashic thing. I tried searching through those records....... I cannot read akashic.  Besides, I usually fall asleep before I access them.

lol

11 minutes ago, MDEW said:

Now that I would have questioned. But I was purposely creating a TONE in the pharynx which has similarities to "Blowing across a Bottle". A tone separate from the sound of the folds vibrating against each other.

100% coincidence that I mentioned laryngopharynx....then again I do have native american blood on both sides so it could be a case of unintended clairvoyance, or even a low level diffused spurion from the akashic records. Dunno.

1 hour ago, MDEW said:

I was aware of that. Why else would a man who is so against "Terms" and "Technical jargon" say such a thing. There is usually some truth in jest. 

 

well, its like my grandma always said.... we all need to be more aware of cross harmonic bleedoff due to unchecked retrograde tension fields forming in the mylohyoid membrane

yeah. hard for me to exactly explain but there is a power there lol. I know its a "gift" for sure, but then again im sure its a 'craft' that she studied.

You can look at her peers from that era, Debbie Boone, Abba, Linda Ronstadt, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Stevie Nicks, Cher, Carly Simon. All great...but NOBODY had that mesmerizing presence like Olivia.

one trick of the trade. She rarely blinks. not sure if she is rocking eye drops or just a practiced discipline or what. But that whole "stare into the camera and dont blink" deal is pretty strong. if you watch clips from the movie "Jesus of Nazereth" (1977). Jesus hardly ever blinked lol. Whether it was a child actor or the adult Jesus....dude never blinked. Like I said, a type of hypnotism/mesmerism

check the "Magic" video. that look at 2:26...a little spooky actually lol

And this. almost hard to look at....yet hard to turn away

Dunno if its a gift, stagecraft, witchcraft, mesmerism, hypnotism, lol...not sure. EVERY male of my generation was bitten lol. And I was hooked in by the music which I heard when I was around 7 and I heard it on the radio..... because I never saw any of those vids until the internet era.

In any case there is huge power in music and stage presentation. Im sort of glad im old now....I dont have to worry about mesmerizing anyone hehe

3 hours ago, MDEW said:

I am most likely doing that on purpose because these things that are supposed to happen naturally do not happen with my voice. Create a tone or ring or ping whatever...... tune the space of air to the note required. The frequency of the lower chamber of the pharynx to one partial, the Sound created by the friction of the vocal folds(Metal in the voice) to another resonance area.

Too much thought going into it?   You betcha........ The idea of just singing and having everything sound good was destroyed long ago in my youth. And "Having to look for answers" was probably more harm than it ever was good, but it is what it is.

 

hehe

I hope you knew I was being totally facetious

I personally think that if you want to go from a certain sound to a significantly different sound, that it might be good to sort of "overshoot" to start with....just to free up your mind a bit to new perspectives etc. You can get so far painted into a corner that you make a move towards the center of the room and you think youve reeeeaaaaaalllllyyy made a change....yet you really only went a few inches.

You ever play golf? Well there is a more or less "ideal" path for the downswing. Some people call it "the plane" or "the slot". Well of course it has a lot to do with perspective. One's perspective gets skewed over time. A better golfer tends to try to stay a bit "inside" the plane coming down. In other words the club and his arms are really hugged close to the body. The weekend hacker on the other hand is almost always "outside" as he swing down towards the ball and he hits weak popups and/or slices.

So I went thru a phase where i was so worried about being "outside" that I had gotten WAY too far inside lol. I went out one day and was playing terrible. My answer of course was to try to get even FURTHER inside lol.  Finally my buddy says "dude, your swing looks weird...the club is about to hit your ankle" lol.    So I figured out that I had gotten too far inside.

So I got to a nice long par 4. I pull out the driver and I say "okay, im not going to get the arms stuck way inside, im going to keep them out a bit more in front of me." So I did a few practice swings and I was so used to being way inside, that the swings felt weird. They felt WAY outside!!! But I went ahead and swung like that. CRACK!!! I hit the most beautiful long draw ive ever hit. Even when I played good I never started the ball out to the right like a lot of pros did. But this shot started out to the right and drew back beautifully into the fairway. So even though my current perspective told me I had shifted the practice swings way outside, the shot itself proved I was actually STILL a tiny bit inside since the ball started off to the right.

We got people at work...they talk soooooo quiet. Then they try to read something out in the morning meeting and no one can hear them. So we yell "SPEAK UP!!!". The person clears their throat and THINKS they are really speaking up loud but the 2nd try is no louder than the first lol. They probably think they were yelling.

So im not sure what sound you want to get, but sometimes its a matter of perspective. If you feel you are way off to one side or the other, sometimes you have to make a pretty big feeling shift to even get back to neutral.

if you want to study an absolute master of stage presence and facial expressions  etc, your fellow Aussie ONJ would be a good place to start. Nevermind that she is a great singer

and this one. yeah, styles have changed since 1978...but she gives a clinic on facial expressions etc at numerous points. :28 - :41 could be studied in great depth lol. Lots of subtle stuff happening

sounds great to me. Maybe distorted the mic a bit on the loud parts (or vibrated stuff in the room lol)

You are probably coming to the point where you just have to keep developing your own ear etc. In other words there's generally not going to be anything glaringly wrong with the singing. Just continue to sing and train and further strengthen things. Continue to find stuff to sing to challenge yourself etc

Cute girl too, Chase your dreams but dont sell your soul.

Peace, JJ

sounds like you are inadvertently setting up a Hemholtz resonator in your laryngopharynx possibly due to excess tension in the superior belly of the omohyoid. I had to quit singing in turtlenecks because of that very issue.

hehe. seriously though, it was pretty euphonic

I feel ya. Yeah, the compressors are a bit voodooish lol. some sort of black art

I just notice it gets quieter for instance "how hard it can be"....or like at 1:20, it just drops all the way out.

out of curiousity, is that 1 take all the way thru?

4 minutes ago, Jeremy Mohler said:

Thanks man.  And yeah I hear you man, appreciate the criticism.  

u using a compressor?

pretty nice. Nice tone

The only issue that jumps out is that it drops out in a few spots

you dont have to "quit" something just because it doesnt come easily and you dont have to quit just because you wont be a star overnight. Sometimes you just have to take your time and look into it a little bit

ANYONE can sing to one degree or another and maybe you are just missing something basic like decent breathing or something similar?

Many people told me I cant sing or play guitar etc....but I cant quit because I suck at gaming too...so im stuck.

Tony Rice was born in my hometown lol. (though he moved away as an infant)      He did a show here a few years back. he was still getting it pretty good.

I gotta say it....you reference your childhood and your perception of families expectations or feedback they gave you or whatever. at some point though, as regards singing, you need to let all of that go

Im only reading between the lines because I dont know your background that well.

Im gathering that you are saying that you came up with a strong bluegrass background, or other traditional "mountain" vocal style. But now you want to get into more traditional, middle of the road rock type sounds

In that case maybe youd be better off to actually try to OVERCORRECT a bit.  For instance maybe actually go for a real Dio sound. A really heavy compressed, super supported sound. Or maybe even a Bruce Dickinson tone, which can be a heavy covered sound.

Those sounds are OPPOSITE of what you have now. and you may never actually reach those sounds....but in doing so, you'll probably end up dead in the middle with a good basic rock tone

its kind of like if you have $50 and want to become a millionaire. Whats the best way? Well a good way is to aim to make $10 million...then even if you only get halfway there you easily reached the 1 million lol

sometimes it better to make a radical mind shift as opposed to inching along

Peace, JJ

one of my fave songs ever. When I was a kid in high school that keyboard intro gave me chills

Pro. lots of soul and emotion. Nice sibilance in spots. Nice chorus vibe

Con. The delivery was a bit "syrupy" at times...in other words maybe a bit too laid back and behind the beat in spots where it could have been a bit more snappy and on top of the beat

Some tiny little things are off like the annunciation in "I know I must remain".  if im not mistaken, the "I" should be a one syllable "I" not a more 2 syllable diphthong "eye". Tiny point that I only notice because I have heard the song a million times. I bet I heard it 20x in the last week alone lol

I could be wrong though, dunno. On "I am returning" he does the diphthong "eye"

actually listening to it closely, on that bridge he almost sings "I know AH must remain"....but neither sound like diphthongs

Evidently it is a very hard song to cover. The Jorn Lande and Bruce Dickinson covers arent THAT great lol.

Heck, even Deep Purple never played the song that great live as far as I ever heard

haha. Nice cover and song choice.    Im tempted myself to do Harry Chapin's 'Changes'

That song has such a sad story behind it. Croce had plunked around, struggling singing at coffee houses etc. He quit that and drove trucks etc for a while. Thru late 72/early 73 he had some success and toured some etc

He finished recording his album "I got a Name" in Sept '73 and a week later died in a plane crash, after a concert, the day before the song "I got a name" was released.

He had written a letter to his wife saying he had decided to give up music and settle down more with her and his young child and that he would write short stories and movie scripts. The letter arrived after his death

Dude was only 30

Not too bad really. The raspiness is good.

It only gets a little iffy where it does get into a slight kermit the frog feel like on "longing for sheltERRR" and "i keep SEARRRRCHIN". The "er" needs to be modded a bit to get away from the kermitty feel IMO.

To my ears (I could be wrong) it still sounds very unsupported...like you are barely breathing and therefore not getting much sub glottal pressure. Maybe thats where the kermitty thing comes from. Sounds like you arent getting enough air in to really engage the throat resonance and the only thing left is the nasal cavities etc

Just for kicks, I could blow OUT all of my air and almost get that tone just from the neck up lol. Then if I just get a decent gut full of air and sing the exact same thing, it just automatically gets way more full with more sustain etc.

As an experiment, get a big ol' gut and chest full of air and sing a few of those same phrases while trying to not let out much of the air. See how the tone changes. I dont mean a little 'pip' of breath, I mean a nice big inhale like you are at a Motley Crue concert hehe

And/or, do this: record maybe the first verse or whatever again, but make sure to include the breathing in and out thru the microphone so we can hear it

like this. remember when I posted the thread about this breathing lol?

Do it that way and let us hear your breathing

Reaper is incredible. I probably only use 3% of its features and power. So far I have only used free VSTs and I use mostly the internal Reaper stuff. Even at that I only use maybe 10 of them...there are hundreds more to wade thru etc.

There is of course a bit of a learning curve but it really isnt that bad. I started on it maybe 2 years ago. I hadnt recorded any music since like 2004 maybe, and that was on a standalone digital 8 track. I was clueless and I was like "whats a DAW??  Interface?? whats that?"

So I got Reaper, I got a focusrite 2i4 interface, I already had an sm57 and an akg C3000 mic. I got a bass a little later. I got started and stumbled in the dark and as u go it gets better and better. Then I got EzDrummer2 and went thru that small learning curve.

I respect studio owners and producers etc but ill be danged if im going to pay someone $1000 for a 2-3 song demo when I can get 95% of that quality myself

4 hours ago, Javastorm said:

Will take a look at those for sure! I fixed the peak in the original mix and the timing towards the end and updated the file.

Well those were just 3 of the top of my head from back in the '79 - '90 era showing that style of song.

Dude, we should collaborate on some songs! lol. Seriously, I have approximately 14.5 million original songs on my HD that are essentially backing tracks with no vocals. I'll probably never get around to putting vox on all of them.

I have put some of them on wikiloops.com but for every one I put on there I probably have 10-15 on my HD.

here is one from like 2 weeks ago that needs vox. Somewhat in a VanHalen style

http://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-72377.php

one from a year ago with a nice anagram title hehe http://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-39112.php

I can write stuff like that in my sleep generally, but I only recently started singing so I have dozens and dozens of such tracks rotting on my HD.

Anyway, thats a nice site if you are looking for material to sing on. there are only like 10 singers there and a zillion people wanting singers to add vox to songs lol. There are also lots of nice drum tracks etc to start writing your own songs on etc. I have uploaded lots of drum tracks their recently

Pm me if you are interested in writing some stuff together, could be fun

love to hear you on some nice power ballads...similar to these maybe