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May 2003
Posts: 425
Location: SE Michigan | Slipkid and I just burned an afternoon running through songs and recording our performance. When we played it back the vocals sounded terrible. How can you think you are sounding so good when you play, then when you listen to the recording it sounds so much worse. Is this just a phenomenon of recording? The guitars actually sounded pretty good, it was the vocals that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I have heard that there is an aversion to hearing one's own voice recorded, that it sounds so different coming from an external source. So is this just a quirk of recording or should I quit singing and become a strict instrumentalist? We have played for people before and they seem to like us, its just hard to think you are doing so well then listen to the tape. |
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Posts: 180
Location: Chicagoland | I think it's impossibel for us to say unless you play us a clip. ;) |
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May 2004
Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | I've encountered the same (or similar) phenomenon. When I play, say, 'Babe I'm gonna leave you' I don't notice (many) mistakes. When I record it and play it back and I almost feel compelled to sell all of my instruments in the interest of sparing others from the horror. The Christmas Song as driven me right to the edge...and I don't record vocals, just guitar. =(
If you are both singing on the recordings, why don't you both just focus on the other's voice and decide if what is coming off the playback is the same as what you're hearing when you perform. If Slipkid sounds the same during playback as you hear during recording, and he thinks you sound the same, then you can chalk it up to the 'own voice' thing. |
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Posts: 613
Location: Zion, Illinois | Brian,
What kind of recorder? Digital, analog? Mics?
Guitar? Oh, wait. I forgot where I was... |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | It does have a way of making you never want to sing again. That is, unless it's very drunk out. Guitars on the other hand usually sound pretty good, it's just that they play the wrong notes sometimes. |
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May 2003
Posts: 425
Location: SE Michigan | We were using two recorders, an old tascam porta-studio mark 2 fed off of the tape out on the mixer, and slipkid's new zoom recorder using it's own internal mike. We played plugged into a small mixer, two SM58s, Two Ovations, then the mixer out to an acoustic amplifer. I do have to admit that the tascam is a pretty crappy recorder, lots of hiss. The zoom sounded better.
Dont get me wrong, some of the stuff was pretty decent, it is just amazing that you think it is sounding so good when you play it, then when you listen....oh the pain! But actually what we are trying to do is polish our stuff, analyze and make improvements. Thanks |
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Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Without hearing it, as someone posted, having the vocals too hot can really be harsh, even if you are singing dead on. Remember your vocals, or at least elements of your vocals are part of the overall sound and should mix into it. Just think how your guitar would sound if lets say just the A string was much much louder than all the other strings... that would sound pretty horrid. |
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Posts: 627
Location: Cherry Hill, NJ | I do a lot of recording, and yes, for some reason when listening to my own vocals played back, I'm super sensitive to mistakes. The best thing to do is listen objectivly to your material, about a week after you record it. You can judge it better than. One thing I learned about recording is that I'm a musician, and not a sound engineer. Recording and mixing is a world onto itself. I guess the most important thing is to experiment and have fun.
Tommy |
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Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | Matt Smith made an interesting observation that the way you play, and I'm paraphrasing here, is not the same as you sound, because you are actually playing in the moment ahead of you. That's why it's important to tape yourself. I believe this is especially so if you're like me and can barely read music. If I misinterpreted it, I'm sure he'll correct me. It's just a matter of pratice with the tape, listening and seeing what you need to change for that moment. As for the oddness of your own voice, it's just a matter of getting used to it, eventually it's not your voice but an instrument. |
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Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Brian and I are new to recording our efforts. I have had my new digital recorder for less than a week. I'm still reading the manual. Once we get an sample song recorded we will post it.
"If you look to long into the abyss...the abyss looks back at you" |
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Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | W2- 'too drunk out' HAHAHHAHAHAHA! Thanks for that.
I've noticed that it's not just my Ovation guitars that seem to play the wrong notes at the wrong time...it's all of them. I think it's a conspiracy against me. I've started just playing jazz-type stuff. That way if I hit the wrong notes/chords I can just claim that I was 'outside'. OTOH, I keep telling my instructor that no matter what note I play, I'm never more than one fret away from the 'right' one, and that's pretty damn good accuracy.
YMMV. |
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Posts: 100
Location: Warren, OH | Another thing to be aware of is that when you hear yourself sing, the sound you hear includes not only the sounds that travel through the air (which everyone else hears), but also those that travel through your head - particularly the lower frequencies. No one ever hears things the same way the singer does when he sings.
As long as the levels are OK on the recording, however, what you hear on the tape should be pretty close to what another listener would hear.
It's nice if you have a multi-track machine and can modify levels and equalization after the fact, but most folks don't have that luxury. If you have a good friend whom you trust, you can always have him set levels during the recording. Or listen to the mix via headphones.
Regardless, I think that recording yourself will only improve your performing technique... Just don't be too harsh a judge of yourself. |
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March 2002
Posts: 15682
Location: SoCal | I have always hated the sound of my own voice, and when I hear a recording of it, I'm always certain that it's off key, and wandering all over the place.
But others ask me to sing (good for a laugh?). So I do the best I can and let others tell me if it's good or bad. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | I heard my voice once. It was a long time ago, a reaalllly long time ago. nuff said. |
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October 2004
Posts: 48
Location: State College, PA | Bob Mintus's remarks are right on.
I did public radio for about sixteen years (between 1972 and 1989), including a lot of music production, both live broadcast and live onto tape, as well as multitrack production in a home studio (my own songs, demos for others, radio ads, etc).
So - two things:
First - Let's separate timbre from pitch. Forget pitch for the moment. Just timbre. Your voice WILL sound different to you when reproduced over speakers or headphones than it does to you when you're simply speaking. It's the bones in your head (well, maybe I should say it's the bones in MY head). They're denser than air. See, the sound travels from your larynx to your eardrum by two paths: through the air (out of your mouth and eventually picked up by your ears), and directly as vibrations from your larynx transmitted by the bones in your head. When you hear your voice reproduced, presumably accurately, over speakers, you're hearing yourself as others hear you - and it's different. In the biz, you eventually get used to the difference - you eventually get to the point where you know how you're sounding and how to make your voice do what you want it to, so that you can sound, over speakers, the way you weant to sound (again, here I refer to timbre).
Second point - microphones. It really, really helps to use a decent mic - the best you can get your hands on - and to know it's characteristics. Carioid mics have a tendency toward what we call "proximity effect" (as a result of their directionality). This is a boost in the low-mid and low frequencies as you move in closer to them. It's this effect that the typical FM announcer gets by practially touching his lips to the foam windscreen of a broadcast studio mic (like a Shure SM-7) and then speaking softly - very deep & close sounding. For a natural sound in broadcast, we used to use the rule of "thumbing your nose at the mic". Thumb your nose with an open hand. The mic should be at the tip of your fifth finger. That's your working distance. Many performers like to do live work right on top of the mic. PA deals with different issues (additional issues) than recording.
So - if you've got a nice, flat mic with decent high frequency response, if you're not eating it or slobbering all over it, if you're not blasting it with your percussives, and if you've got your levels set so you aren't pushing the preamps into clipping or the tape (if you're using tape) into saturation, what you'll hear on playback over decent speakers (another jungle we could wade into) should be a pretty accurate representation of what your voice sounds like to others.
Enjoy!
Michael Pelikan |
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September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Thanks for the advise. It will be a learning process for both of us. We'll just have to get used to the "sound of you own voice" factor. Hell, if Willie Nelson can handle it, so can we. Hitting the correct note is a whole other matter.
Also on the learning curve is becoming familar with the tools. The Korg Pandora PXR4 has more features than Mr. Spock's tricorder. There is alot of potential jammed into that little box. |
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Posts: 623
Location: Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey | I don't claim to be a good singer by any standard, but experience has taught me enough to get by so that tomatoes generally aren't thrown in my direction.
One of the things that I found helps (other than recording yourself) quickly is to rehearse through PA that has a louder volume than the sound of your voice in your head. If you have the speakers across the room shooting back at you, you get a pretty good idea of what "others" will hear, as to opposed to what you hear in your head. It's also great practice for mic technique. You can also get a better mix balance between your guitar and vocals than you can just playing straight acoustically, where you may be competing with the guitar's own volume and possibly straining your voice. A better mix will help you sing better and help your voice last longer than if you're pushing it.
(Until I bought one, I used to rent a PA for gigs. It was like $25-40 overnight, depending on the gear. I was surprised that if I rented it for an entire month, it was only like $50-60! If I gigged twice a month is was worth it, plus rehearsing with it made a big difference in my vocal technique. [Better you learn what works on your own, than at the expense of the audience]. Something to think about if you can't afford one immediately. Finally, I just bought that system used from the music store).
Ultimately, recording yourself is really the best way to become familiar with your voice and sound, to get a good realistic review. You're doing SO much simultaneously when you sing a play, that only so much of you attention can really listen objectively. You're strumming/fingerpicking with the right hand, playing notes/chords with the left, keeping time, remembering chords, remembering lyrics, AND keeping track of the song's structure, while, in your case, paying attention to your music partner. If you come to a hard guitar part while singing, surely your attention will go to the guitar and getting through that part-meanwhile, your vocal pitch can go pretty sour with your awareness elsewhere. A recording will help you spot weak spots and correct them.
I also use recording to review a song I'm writing. The tape won't lie...but your passion/excitement about the sound/song can make something sound/seem "better" in your head than it really is, until you hear it back.
There will ALWAYS be days when you think you should just give up sell your gear. That's part of the process. Then there are days when your music touches/inpsires someone, and you realize your heart was right on purpose and the critic in your head is a useless, judgemental prick that you can't believe you ever listened to.
Johnny |
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The agony of recording yourself
