a Helloween-inspired original

[darkclaw3000]

My songwriter friend wrote this song and asked me to do the vocals for it.

what do you guys think? would like some comments n critiques on my singing!

[Keith]

The chorus is a bit pitchy, but overall I love it - just as I love Helloween.

[ronws]

I agree with Keith, pitchy spots only I couldn't pick just one word or section of lyric to point. What clouded it up for me was the layered vocals in the chorus. I have a feeling that the second or third voices were actually sung separately and not quite in tune with the lead. Though the lead may have been off. One idea I had is when you re-cut the vocal track, copy bits of that and use that for track doubling. And then, on the duplicates of the lead track, you can eq and echo those differently and it will give the illusion of a true "chorus." Unless someone else sang along on the chorus. In which case, someone was off and I'm trying not to hurt any feelings. Trust me, I know about being off-pitch. Ask anyone. :lol: Ask my brother, slstone. :lol:

Your pitch started to get better near the end and then went just a smidge flat again. Maybe I am sensitive to it. Since I have had pitch issues, myself, I have become attuned to problems with it and it's now my "thing." (Maybe others are thankful this is so.)

Even for myself, I no longer care about the highest note. But I care that whatever note it is, is on pitch. And I only have relative pitch, which is about right for 99 percent of the known world.

On the plus side, your timing is excellent and, in recording, that is most of the battle. The rest is just fine tuning. For you, that would mean shading the vowel away from your language and accent, the toughest battle of all.

On the plus side, excellent emotion and delivery. You sold this song as if you wrote it and that is most excellent.

[darkclaw3000]

thank you very much for the comments! this is what i'm looking for. i never really realized im off-pitch till u mentioned.

yes the backing vocals were done by another person n on a different time. this is due to each members schedules. which is too bad really, but for a school project, i think it is quite good.

its quite a hard song to nail, n my just recovering doensnt help. i've posted here previously about a loss of voice, n a week after gettin my voice back, but not fully recovered, i've been asked to sing this song. i wanted to postpone it but he was rushin for time.

then again, im just havin an excuse for having a bad ear for pitch. i will practice more on this.

true rowns about my accent. its the most hardest thing i have to overcome.

thank u so much.

i have two more songs which i would like comments on, this next one i think covers most of my range. not to the extremes but it pretty much covers a whole lot.

pls comment!

this next one is a normal one for me, i think this song is very comfortable for me.

again, pls pls comment n critique.

thx guys u all are wonderful people!

[ronws]

Bless your heart, Darkclaw.

Don't worry, I've made excuses, too.

"When I See You Cry" - you must channeling some Rob Thomas (Matchbox 20, solo with others) Though your higher end reminded me some of Myles Kennedy. This is a perfect song for your voice, though maybe it's just my penchant for 70's style ballads. This song will be a chick magnet, keep it. Whereever women go, their guys follow and spend money, too. Even soccer moms. They'll buy the download for the ipod, then the ring tone, etc.All you need now is a caesar haircut and a knit shirt.

Down side, the lead and the harmony are still off but I listened as carefully as I could. You are on the oh or aw sound and the harmony vocals are on the ah sound. This will cause dissonance that sounds like off pitch or, at the least confuses the issue to hear what was true, or not. It is part of what I learned in actively tuning myself. I might sing along with a song and realize that I need to use a vowel sound different than the original. All voices are unique and tune just a little differently.

"A Friend Like You" - monster mega-hit because it' a cross-over. I could already hear this song in different genres. Pop, r&b, even hip-hop, certainly country. Maybe even a growly shredder by Metallica. What was better about this one is that the harmony vocals were not as prominent, which means they were better blended in the mix. Mixing is not about making all parts of a song equal in volume. It's about making sure the right things are prominent at the right time in the song. This song, mixed as it is, is nearly ready for release.

The last one and this one are hit songs. Copyright it, release it, start playing it in public. Unless, of course, you guys are collabing on line. In which case, the recording will have to do. This last song, Bon Jovi could cover easily and their management pays blanket fees to songwriter orgs like ASCAP and BMI and SESAC (international) and those orgs pay the songwriter(s) directly. Even with an independent release through digital download, make a contract of percentages between you and your friend and you get money for mechanical rights, which is reproduction of sound in a medium. So far, digital download is still considered a mechanical rights deal.

If you do re-record these for release, expect to do a few takes of the song and someone is going to composite the final vocal track. Forum member James Lugo is a voice teacher and he is also a professional singer, solo and with such groups as Nazareth, with whom he was recording a few years ago. And he shared a video of himself in a studio. And the engineer was comp'ing him. Singing parts of the song 2 or 3 times. The pieces being dragged and clicked together in editing software.

When you get into that process, there will be no excuses. The engineer won't stop until he's got you at the right pitch, especially if he does not use autotune. For then, he won't just fix one note, the take will have to be perfect.

So, really, not a lot of technical or performance issues, here. More of ideas about recording for professional release.

[darkclaw3000]

reps for u my brother. now thats an amazing critique.

yes i realized there's something wrong with the harmonies after the song was done, (i was just in for my parts, wasnt there when other parts came in) and i couldnt place a finger on what was makin it sound wrong. n u explained it nicely. thank you.

my friend who produced the song "when i see you cry" also said that the song was meant for me. (n he gave it to me too haha). im gonna re-record this song, but this time without backing vocals. just straight up rock vocals hahaha! also it's gonna be played by my band and we're a very progressive metal/hard rock/symphonic metal influenced band. this will be an interesting one to rearrange.

agreed on "a friend like you" (or A FLY for short as my friend say) about it being a hit. found out everyone who heard this song loved it, n its also the top fav among all the 3.

thank you about the info on copyrighting n stuffs. this is useful for my friend.

just one thing i dont understand. u said "The last one and this one are hit songs".

my friend was asking which are those two.

[ronws]

A FLY and When I See You Cry. Those are hit songs, right now. Re-mix, copyright and release. Then, when they get airplay, you get mechanical rights. If you helped in writing those, you get songwriting royalties. Which means every time some other band or artist wants to record or perform that song, you get paid, directly from the org like BMI or ASCAP or SESAC. For that, you want to organize as a publishing company. Though you can also register with the orgs as just a songwriter.

If the music is to be used in an motion picture (music video, commercial ad on t.v., radio ad, or movie) that is synchro rights (synchronization of music to a motion picture.) That is a separate licensing deal for which you would get mechanical royalties as the singer on a reproduction of the music being synchronized. There is also synchro rights as a songwriter. You can do this by starting your own record label but it means taking time out of your singing and recording schedule to do all the phone calls, paperwork, filings, as well as promo. It can be done. Pat Benetar now handles all the business for her recording career. She and huband Neil Giraldo have their own label, do their own tour logistics. They have to put up all the money but they keep 100 percent, minus what they pay staff.

You can release without having a contract with a record label. itunes, amazon, cdbaby are all good sources and my brother, slstone, is his own record company and he recommends cdbaby. Now, his business is here in America (New England area, actually) and I don't know what country you are in. However, many countries adhere to the international copyright law, which mimicks copyright laws in the USA. However, business law may be different in your country. So, I have reach the limit of my knowledge once I swim 3 miles off shore.

However, I know that SESAC is the org that collect royalties for reproductions sold outside the US that belong to US-based artists and groups. As for BMI and ASCAP, you belong to one or the other but evidently, not to both.

Often, management for a group or record label pays a blanket fee to one of these orgs and this allows use of all material in the catalog of that org.

The other hard part is promotion. Getting your songs where they can be heard by people who are not able to attend your live shows. That can happen anywhere and in any way. Arnel Pineda was singing in a band that did cover songs. One of the members of Journey saw him in a video on youtube. The rest is history.

Old school, most bands lived off of money from live shows, especially if the album was a slow mover. And all the advances and percentages ate away at theirs. Many artists did not take home a paycheck until the album went gold (US - 500,000 units sold.) But the live shows would also increase album demand, kind of a bootstrap effect or which came first, the chicken or the egg?

These days, hard copy album sales (cd's) are dropping fast, as people can download whatever they want. So, you can still make some money on initial digital download release, at least before pirates start duping your files for file share nets. Until recently, their duping software was not very good and dupes were of significantly lesser quality than dupes from the master file.

Just as often, album sales can be the loss leader to drive demand for live shows. It used to be the other way around. Live shows supported the album sales. And it was also just the way things were done. These days, however you can market yourself is up to you. Many bands are learning that getting music licensed into a game often drives up interest in the album.

[darkclaw3000]

ah thank you brother! currently i'm in a PRO called Compass ( http://www.compass.org.sg/cIndex11.aspx ) which is based in Singapore (where I'm living right now).

i'm gonna get myself in cdbaby soon. read about them and Tunecore, and decided that cdbaby is more beginner friendly so to speak. i'm still reading and understanding about the business side of music making, and there seems to be a lot of info to take in.

thank you again for the very indepth reply. this is very useful to us all whos reading.

[ronws]

ah thank you brother! currently i'm in a PRO called Compass ( http://www.compass.org.sg/cIndex11.aspx ) which is based in Singapore (where I'm living right now).

i'm gonna get myself in cdbaby soon. read about them and Tunecore, and decided that cdbaby is more beginner friendly so to speak. i'm still reading and understanding about the business side of music making, and there seems to be a lot of info to take in.

thank you again for the very indepth reply. this is very useful to us all whos reading.

I am glad to help in whatever small way that I can. I know just enough about the music business to get in trouble. But it is a business. And the more of your business that you control, the better. For example, as a standard number, it is not uncommon to have a deal of 50 percent digital distributor, 50 percent artist. Which beats the standard record label contract. With a big record label like Sony, or Interscope, you get 12.5 percent of gross. After the gross is adjusted for 10 percent loss and breakage (a holdover from the days of vinyl phonographs.) Out of your 12.5 percent, the recording producer usually gets 10 percent. Your manager gets 10-12 percent. Any advance to you comes out of that. You also pay for recording costs. You are lucky if you are clearing 3 percent of adjusted gross.

As opposed to 50% of digital download. You keep more but you might be paying your own staff, if you have one. Someone to do the phone calls, paperwork, business filings.

And, in America, as a company, you have to file 941's, quarterly tax payments of profits. Even if the profit was zero, you still have to file. And, as a company, you are more likely to be audited than as a person. So, you have to keep receipts for everything. Paper, printer ink, payments for internet service. Wages to staff. It's overwhelming. That is why Sharon Osbourne is worth more than her weight in gold. Ozzy can sing, write songs, and has the uncanny ability to pluck virtuoso guitar players out of thin air. But he cannot take two pennies and come up with two cents. But Sharon can. Call her whatever you like, it's because of her that they have a pot to pee in, to borrow a local expression.

[darkclaw3000]

thank you justin for pointing that out to me! yes i was having trouble singing the higher notes n this is really due to bad technique. now i know why! thank you so much!

i guess i wasnt relaxed enough and i myself hear that i was almost straining on the high parts. (cuz after the take was done, i had trouble doing it again)

i agree it was a mistake on my part on not really practicing the song before recording, but this is mainly me not knowing HOW to practice. which ultimately leads to my downfall. your post sure helps me a lot on this part.

thank you justin! really appreciate it!