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First post - Can't Fight This Feeling - Please Critique

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This was recorded recently with my band in a friend's home studio.

 

I'm singing the lead vocal, and all the backing vocal parts are also me - these might be incorrect though - it took me forever to figure out the harmonies as I don't have any real musical theory knowledge  :-(  They sound ok to my ear but that could just be me!!

 

In particular I struggled with the high notes on the lead vocal - especially the "I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might" before the choruses.  The more I listen back to those sections over and over, the more I dislike the way I sang them.  

 

Any tips or feedback - good or bad would be much appreciated!

 

https://app.box.com/s/bhaem69pl50osrr4yola

 

Thanks guys

 

Sean

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This is well done like pitch perfect and produced pretty well. The main thing that stands out to me is how just how straight tone it is. There is almost no vibrato like in the entire thing. If you hit a straight tone with that much precision that's really impressive.

 

A loss of vibrato and tendency towards straight tone sound is something that happens with auto tune. ~~~~~~ becomes --------- as the computer pulls the pitch towards the desired pitch (vibrato included), although some kinds of auto tune try to disguise that with artificial wavering. The voice tends to get 'sucked' into a note at transition points which creates like a bit of warble. 

 

Anyway, I'm not saying that as an accusation and legit or tuned it's all good. I'm glad you posted it. I don't have any good critique as to how to go about improving it given my preferences are for more movement in the pitch (vibrato and blues), but you have a little room to breath in this song's song's pitching if you're interested in that. Regardless, one way or another, it's pretty polished so it's not very important for your career as a singer and modern pop producers would probably tune you anyway.

 

If your straight tone is that good, it would be a huge waste in this era of technology. Would be cool if you were born like 40 years ago as you'd stand out.

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Thank you very much for the feedback and kind words Killerku :)

The vocal hasn't been autotuned but I must confess I've never really known how to add vibrato so it's something I tend not to do. When I do try it just sounds so forced, (I do it live when I'm in caught up in the moment, but I never commit it to a recording hehe!) I tend to sing straight almost always.

On that note, if anyone has any tips on how to add vibrato they can share, that'd be great!

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I stand corrected (literally!) - I've had a chat with the guy who recorded us, and apparently there was auto tune used on the 2nd line of the song (but he swears that was it).  

 

I had no idea - I feel like a bit of a fraud now :(

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I stand corrected (literally!) - I've had a chat with the guy who recorded us, and apparently there was auto tune used on the 2nd line of the song (but he swears that was it).  

 

I had no idea - I feel like a bit of a fraud now :(

 

Nah, don't feel bad man. I figured if it was used it would happen like that. You're a good singer, engineers are sneaky. Most of us won't know if it if happens. If you want to be 100 percent confident in something, you can record something outside of a studio yourself. Seriously, it's crazy these days. To my ears, they snuck it on Joe Strummer (my punk rock singing god) posthumously when he couldn't tell them to piss off.

 

 

Don't feel like a fraud it's all good. I was a straight tone singer almost completely for quite a few years. It's a great style of singing. One of my favorite singers of all time (John Lennon) tends to sing almost entirely straight tone and it's fantastic. He was rough around the edges and was pitched less perfect than you. I don't have great advice in how to get a super controlled like operatic vibrato, but i do have a bit of advice in getting vibrato in general. The easiest advice I have is to listen to Elvis. Open a little wider, yawn ever so slightly. For me it's a slight yawnish thing that turns it on. Subconsciously for me it's really similar, where I still just 'do the lennon' for the straight tone and for vibrato, it's not always Elvis, I copped some Bowie and Nina Simone who have some faster styles, (Nina can sound sometimes goatish, almost like a tremelo).

 

Nah, I think you're a great singer. But just pick up a mic, grab audacity or a free program, sing raw, to hear yourself. Even home studios, they got it now. I never touch any kind of tuning. Listen to Mick Jones on the Clash's biggest hit:

 

 

I've got to let you knooowwwwwwww. That's not even a note, Mick! I love it. The cool thing, is if you're a turbo accurate straight tone guy, you'll be able to use precision and blues it up if you want. Pop radio of the lst decade or more? They'll butcher to high hell. It's the modern radio effect, it ain't you.

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It should sound good. It's pretty much perfect and nearly ready for radio. There are still a few aspects of the mix that didn't hit a 100 percent (he said it was a home studio recording), but the foundations in that track are nearly there. 

 

I was never a huge REO fan, but my intent wasn't to compare them to the Clash. It was to say even the roughest and rawest of what we've known of pop music is auto tuned now. REO was already pretty polished and would have been prime candidates for a glossy sheen back then. This approach works now and he doesn't have to feel bad about whatever went down in tweaking a pop song.

 

Regardless, come back with more stuff. It can be from a home studio like this or whatever you record yourself. I wasn't intending to demean or make him feel like a phony. If a sound engineer gets sound, they will engineer it. “I’ll massage a note every once in a while, and often I won’t even tell the artist,” says Eric Drew Feldman, a San Francisco-based musician and producer who’s worked with The Polyphonic Spree and Frank Black.

 

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/27/3964406/seduced-by-perfect-pitch-how-auto-tune-conquered-pop-music

 

If you want to get on modern pop radio, someone will tune you. And if you are an old timer like Bob Dylan who is holding your ground, after you die you might be fair game to get gussied up. There may be a shift at some point where a backlash occurs, kind of like prog to punk, or hair metal to grunge, but it's not that likely. So if you're aiming for the commercial industry, it'd be a huge uphill battle to keep your integrity as a young artist. DIY is pretty much the last bastion of certainty.

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Thanks for all the comments and feedback guys.  Although I must confess to being a bit annoyed that the guy who mixed the song corrected that line and didn't feel it necessary to tell me until I asked the other day.  He swears blind that was the only line he 'tweaked', but I guess I'll never really know.  From now on I'll be sitting in on any mixing we do!!

 

I'll try and record something a bit more 'honest' ASAP - something that I know for definite hasn't been messed with :)

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Thanks for all the comments and feedback guys.  Although I must confess to being a bit annoyed that the guy who mixed the song corrected that line and didn't feel it necessary to tell me until I asked the other day.  He swears blind that was the only line he 'tweaked', but I guess I'll never really know.  From now on I'll be sitting in on any mixing we do!!

 

I'll try and record something a bit more 'honest' ASAP - something that I know for definite hasn't been messed with :)

 

All is well and I look forward to it. You're good, if you sang really out of tune there would likely be more 'digital tug' in the sound anyway. There's this inflection that would have to tug a voice further to get it into pitch that I didn't hear.

 

It will be a privilege to hear you raw in case you hit the big time. If it isn't 'perfect' your secret is safe with us. It's part of why I love this place, the singers here just don't know the tricks and sing from the heart. I listen to you guys more than the radio. It really connects with why I began singing in the first place.

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Thanks for all the comments and feedback guys.  Although I must confess to being a bit annoyed that the guy who mixed the song corrected that line and didn't feel it necessary to tell me until I asked the other day.  He swears blind that was the only line he 'tweaked', but I guess I'll never really know.  From now on I'll be sitting in on any mixing we do!!

 

I'll try and record something a bit more 'honest' ASAP - something that I know for definite hasn't been messed with :)

I mentioned this a long time ago and it hurt peoples' feelings and cause great waves of denial and of course, I am painted as an idiot, as I could NOT possibly know what I am talking about.

 

Nice to see someone besides just me to confirm that yes, other there in the grown up up world where men wear long pants, drink coffee, shave every day, and pay bills, recording engineers will autotune stuff. Especially if it is a small part and other attempts haven't worked or there isn't enough time.

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I think you did a really good job!

 

Hey Killer, how did you know it was used autotune? generally I realize when it is used because of the robotic sound... but in this track I don´t hear anything like that...

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I think you did a really good job!

 

Hey Killer, how did you know it was used autotune? generally I realize when it is used because of the robotic sound... but in this track I don´t hear anything like that...

 

 

There is this warbling metallic sound that occurs when a note is subtly tuned. The voice will normally bend in a more 'organic' way which includes a slight vibrato but no real alteration of timbre. The phonation and airflow will have a logical sound to it. When a note gets tuned, it will often bend inorganically in a more digital warble that doesn't reflect the phonation, alters the timbre, and then 'tries to lock onto' the next pitch with varying strengths.

 

People have various sensitivities in being able to detect it. When it is done correctly only those sensitive to the warble will hear it. Whatever was done to this track was very subtle. This song was posted in another thread and the original poster admits to not being able to hear the auto tune:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUozJJTgXbM

 

Where to me it is painfully, in my face obvious, her timbre even mashes into a robotic sheen. It's for this reason that auto tune will likely exist indefinitely from this point on in every recording setup moving forward in the pop industry. People hate the idea of auto tune, but the average listener can't hear it unless it's really obvious, so they have 'nothing to rebel against.' It was easy to rebel against prog rockers. It was easy to rebel against hair metal, but if they can't hear it, they can't rebel.

 

That article I linked had a great example of how guys might hate the idea of 'fake tits' but in practice, they just like tits, fake or not.

 

It's pretty common for people to shake their fists at the T Pains of the world and go back to listening to their auto tuned records thinking, 'thank god these people aren't fakes like T Pain.' He's one of the most honest artists on the radio. I listen almost exclusively to recordings before 2000 and am an organic singing affectionado so I'm abnormally sensitive. When I turn on the radio, it's just a bunch of robots tugging ptiches to me. All songs pretty much use it.

 

It's almost less about authenticity to me and more so I just genuinely don't like the sound of tuned vocals. I like the organic pitching sound better. I like the way voices naturally phonate without a computer tugging on their pitches and timbres even if they are less in tune.

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     I feel the same way about electronic drums and sampled tracks. It is too uniform and boring.

    There is going to be some kind of electronic manipulation on the vocals. Lets face it, EQs, compressors, noise gates, reverb units all change the sound of the vocals in some way. You are not going to get just the sound of the raw voice and have it sound totally musical and fit into the mix. There will be tweaking.

Auto tune on a line or word would be acceptable.

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