Singing Tips & Recording Questions

[Guest ashchronicles]

sorry to be asking the same question..(if this question was already asked) i'm sorry~~!it's hard to look for the answer coz the thread is too long...

can somebody please list out every single recording programme and software out there,,?that u guys are using? free or bought..please3x...

[Guest flyaway.]

For those using Adobe Audition 2.0:

I was wondering how you guys merge 2+ tracks into one to save as mp3.

Like... I sang along with the instrumental music and now there's two tracks (the instrumental & the track with my voice), but I can't seem to merge it into one. o.O

How do you do it?

[Guest lccyn]

does audacity help reduces noise from the song?

[Guest Fook You]

@ashchronicles:

I'll just list the most common ones:

Audacity (This one is free)

Cool Edit Pro (Now known as Adobe Audition)

Pro Tools

@ANITA: Uh...i don't quite understand what you are saying. With the multitrack option, when you choose to export the project as an MP3, it should automatically be merged. Uh...make sure the tracks are set to master and you are exporting the master tracks?

@Iccyn: Yes and no. Not automatically, you have to use the mixing tools built into Audacity, which from my experience can get frustrating some times.

[Guest kayzpal]

Okay, everyone seems to ignore my question so I'm gonna post here again.

I'm sorry if it's been asked before, but how do you make an Instrumental mp3? I thought you can't really do anything about the song but I heard some of you have done it. So, how do you guys do that?

By the way, I'm using Audacity and Sony Sound Forge.

[Guest Fook You]

@kayzpal : You can't make an instrumental. The closest thing you can come to is a vocal rip where you use mixing tools to edit out the vocals in a sound track.

[Guest flyaway.]

@ANITA: Uh...i don't quite understand what you are saying. With the multitrack option, when you choose to export the project as an MP3, it should automatically be merged. Uh...make sure the tracks are set to master and you are exporting the master tracks?

OH, woops. No wonder. I skipped over "export"... that's why I couldn't save it as an MP3.

I guess I was too used to seeing it as "export as MP3" on AA1 that I didn't expect it to change to just "export."

Thanks!

[Guest myanh_tran]

i'm in choir of the church

i feel like i sound good at home( when i sing to myself)

but when i'm in the choir, i sound horrible, my voice so weak, cracking, because of the high notes even i try alot to make it more powerful,

i'm not shy, because my choir sucks ( we dont have the chior for teenager, so my aunt put me in her chior that mean people 30 and up we even have 60 grandma in the choir, and i rather go or die) thier voices so horrible, and loud, and they sing the fale notes alot

but there are somepeople sing really well,

sometime i cant sing the right notes, it's really hard, when you practice alone with your gruop, then you have to sing with other gruops with different notes ( they sing different than us, like men and women sing different notes ( it's hard to say because my English is not good). the men usaully sound really loud, and i lose my notes.

some songs we have to have the long breathe to sing the endind part( which is really long, powerful, loud,...) but i never have enough air, i stop before the instructor signals.

" may some body advise me how to get the big breathe?

" and i really dont know how to stretch the voval?"

[Guest Fook You]

Well for big things like choir, I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that the song has already been tuned and meant to start on a certain note. But of course, different people, especially male and female, will have different singing ranges, intervals, octaves, whatever you want to call them. So I think what's going on here is that even though the male and female singers are in harmony, they are starting on different notes. I don't really have any easy advice on how to fix this, because it mostly involves just focusing your mind, or hearing notes.

Telling you to "focus harder" wouldn't help at all though. But what I suppose you could do is selectively listen to the people around you. Like...for a certain number of notes or measures, focus on your singing and your notes. Then, for the next few notes or measures, listen to the people around you and make sure you are in tune.

As for breathing, not much you can do about that except practice. If you swim...then that's great, cause swimming (or at least it's supposed to) is supposed to be able to help your breathing timing and lung capacity a lot. But if you don't swim, then...well it's really your choice. I'm not telling you to go swim, I'm just telling you that swimming is good xD.

As for expanding your vocal range, all you can do is practice. Practice by starting at a note that's not exactly your highest note, but make sure you aren't cracking at it. In other words, pick your highest and strongest note. Then just start going up a scale until it feels your straining just a little bit. Stop there, start over, and repeat.

Hope that helps .

[jj.exot5ia]

i have a question ^^

for goldwave, is there something i can do to make the transition

from the background to me voice clearer?

actually... in other words is that even though i have a really good mike

it doesn't sound like it's TOGETHER, it still sounds like separate mixes.

I want it to sound more like... together?

am i making sense?

-Rebecca

[Guest Fook You]

mmm...not really making sense but I'll take a guess anyways. It's either

A.) Your mic's timing is off which would slowly cause the background music to lose sync with your recording

B.) Your input volume is wrong

C.) There's not enough harmonizing? Dunno.

D.) The quality of whatever tools your using (mic, preamp, sound card) are not...I don't want to say "good enough", but rather...fulfilling the sound you want?

E.) The setting you're recording in.

A.) Anyways, if the timing is off, there's two cases. If your using a regular computer mic, which you just plug in through the regular port, there's this thing called "latency" involved. Pretty much it's lag. In simple terms, the time it takes to go from the mic hearing your voice, to the actual recording software, is too long. This is not a problem with your mic though. It's a problem with your sound card. Since I'm not sure if this is actually your problem, I'll leave it at that.

The other case if your timing is off is that even if you are using an actual recording mic, you're not channeling it through a preamp or a converter. If you really want a good timed recording, you need to record through the USB ports on your computer, not through the sound card ports.

B.) Your input volume doesn't match the instrumental. So you'll either sound too loud and the instrumental will sound too soft, or vice versa. If you're using an actual recording mic, then you need a preamp to fix this and tweak it, along with software settings, to get the volume you want. With other computer mics, you'll need to change the input volume in the settings.

C.) The mixing isn't done well. I guess if you compare to an actual studio artist's tracks, yours might sound a bit bland or boring. Well, this is because a lot of songs, in many parts, have layers of vocals that are harmonized together, which blends the recording deeper into the instrumental.

D.) Quality of your tools. It could just be that your hitting the limit of your tools. Particularly the sound card or mic, there's a certain range of sounds they take. Too high or too low will just get fuzzy.

E.) Obviously it has to be quiet. But in a studio, all the walls are padded such that there are no echoes whatsoever, so that the recording is as crisp and as clean as possible. Basically, in a studio, if you turn your back to someone and say something, they shouldn't be able to hear you.

I don't know which one exactly it is, so if I described one of the problems, just reply or something and I can go into more depth.

P.S. I just noticed I've really been whoring this thread.

[Guest sikkony]

Hmm... I think we greatly appreciate all the help by you, Fook You, but I would just like to make a few corrections here and there where I see fit since I noticed quite a few mistakes already.

Just don't inhale by sucking through your mouth. It's much more like inhaling by using your diaphragm (it's faster this way, and makes less noise).

Inhaling is done by both the mouth and nose. The reason why half of the inhaling is done by the mouth is because it's fast, and very quiet. The reason why the other half of inhaling is by nose is because it resets your larynx position from any faults to a default position. This is a very important concept in singing.

As for increasing your vocal range...don't do what I see and notice a lot of people doing, which is constantly practice a high or low note. That's gonna hurt your vocals. In fact you shouldn't even be trying for the highest, maybe a few intervals lower (if going high) or higher (if going low) than what you can reach, and practice that instead. And then while holding that note, try bringing it higher. Of course, there will always be limitations as to how high or low you'll ever be able to reach.

@|300|3L355: You can damage your voice by doing a lot of stuff. Coughing, singing too much, eating something bad, smoking. Anything that is capable of doing harm physically or straining any part of your upper body will pretty much hurt your voice. As for what happens...it changes, or it just dies completely. But that doesn't mean it can't come back. Resting and letting it heal with good living habits can help it come back to not necessarily where it was before...but close. Then all that's left is to practice that last stretch.

Clear up on how high you can reach section. It doesn't matter if you go for the highest note or not, it only matters if it hurts or not. Obviously, if your voice sounds different from when you started vocalizing/singing compared to when you finished, then there are signs that something is not right.

You cannot damage your voice by singing too much. You can only damage your voice by singing incorrectly too much. You probably forgot the word 'incorrectly' in that sentence.

As for expanding your vocal range, all you can do is practice. Practice by starting at a note that's not exactly your highest note, but make sure you aren't cracking at it. In other words, pick your highest and strongest note. Then just start going up a scale until it feels your straining just a little bit. Stop there, start over, and repeat.

Hope that helps .

I'd just like to add, you must practice the right way, not the wrong way. You could practice a year long straining to hit your high notes, and be no where at the end of the year.

A.) Anyways, if the timing is off, there's two cases. If your using a regular computer mic, which you just plug in through the regular port, there's this thing called "latency" involved. Pretty much it's lag. In simple terms, the time it takes to go from the mic hearing your voice, to the actual recording software, is too long. This is not a problem with your mic though. It's a problem with your sound card. Since I'm not sure if this is actually your problem, I'll leave it at that.

The other case if your timing is off is that even if you are using an actual recording mic, you're not channeling it through a preamp or a converter. If you really want a good timed recording, you need to record through the USB ports on your computer, not through the sound card ports.

E.) Obviously it has to be quiet. But in a studio, all the walls are padded such that there are no echoes whatsoever, so that the recording is as crisp and as clean as possible. Basically, in a studio, if you turn your back to someone and say something, they shouldn't be able to hear you.

A) The soundcard's 3.5mm ports should suffice. USB is not required.

This so called latency you refer to can be set. Adobe Audition has setting properties that can access the LATENCY panel of your soundcard, provided your soundcard driver supports this function. Other programs might have the setting properties too, you just have to goto the HELP menu and type in LATENCY into search.

Pre-amps and converters should not be the main cause of latency problems though.

If I understand his/her problem correctly, I assume they are having problems blending the vocal track with the instrumentals track. Playing around with the mixing options (ie, reverb, volume, compression rate, EQ, whatever you can see in there etc) is the only thing I can think off.

E) If you stood behind me, you can hear me talk/sing whilst in studio:P. The walls absorb sound waves, but it doesn't mean it absorbs all soundwaves. Besides, sound travels in all direction and not in one direction from your mouth anyways.

[Guest Fook You]

Thanks for clarifying some things ^^

Although, just one thing (But let's not turn this into an argument @_@)

Yes, you can set latency in Adobe Audition, but sometimes regardless of what you set it at, some sounds cards just can't handle it (for instance, mine).

And sorry I did not mention "incorrectly" when describing singing too much. I probably should have.

As for the "How high you can reach": I would rather prefer not to state it as "until it hurts", but rather...well, the way I described it earlier as "strained".

In my opinion, I have tried the method I suggested earlier and it has worked for me, with no damage etc. However, it's just personal experience, and it might not work for someone else.

As for expanding your vocal range, all you can do is practice. Practice by starting at a note that's not exactly your highest note, but make sure you aren't cracking at it. In other words, pick your highest and strongest note. Then just start going up a scale until it feels your straining just a little bit. Stop there, start over, and repeat.

I guess I should state this now. I am not an expert on any of these things. I'm only speaking out of personal experience and/or observations. So I'm terribly sorry ahead of time if the things I suggest don't work or don't address the problem correctly.

But anyways, what am I doing , this is no place for a conversation haha.

Oh yeah, big props to you sikkony, thanks for clearing/fixing/patching/etc. things up .

[Guest soyabeangirl16]

so when you're not in your range its strained? i used to think you just couldnt make it sound like a note if it wasn't in your range.

and i'm trying to make my throat straight, but it feels really weird to stand like that. is that normal?

thanks if you can answer these.

[jj.exot5ia]

B.) Your input volume is wrong

C.) There's not enough harmonizing? Dunno.

B.) Your input volume doesn't match the instrumental. So you'll either sound too loud and the instrumental will sound too soft, or vice versa. If you're using an actual recording mic, then you need a preamp to fix this and tweak it, along with software settings, to get the volume you want. With other computer mics, you'll need to change the input volume in the settings.

C.) The mixing isn't done well. I guess if you compare to an actual studio artist's tracks, yours might sound a bit bland or boring. Well, this is because a lot of songs, in many parts, have layers of vocals that are harmonized together, which blends the recording deeper into the instrumental.

i think these are my problems <333

but it seems like everytime i mix my voice and the background together

my voice is louder but i can't tweak it down because some parts would be

too quiet and if I bring the volume up, some parts will be too loud O.O

-Rebecca

[Guest sikkony]

Thanks for clarifying some things ^^

Although, just one thing (But let's not turn this into an argument @_@)

Yes, you can set latency in Adobe Audition, but sometimes regardless of what you set it at, some sounds cards just can't handle it (for instance, mine).

And sorry I did not mention "incorrectly" when describing singing too much. I probably should have.

As for the "How high you can reach": I would rather prefer not to state it as "until it hurts", but rather...well, the way I described it earlier as "strained".

In my opinion, I have tried the method I suggested earlier and it has worked for me, with no damage etc. However, it's just personal experience, and it might not work for someone else.

I guess I should state this now. I am not an expert on any of these things. I'm only speaking out of personal experience and/or observations. So I'm terribly sorry ahead of time if the things I suggest don't work or don't address the problem correctly.

But anyways, what am I doing , this is no place for a conversation haha.

Oh yeah, big props to you sikkony, thanks for clearing/fixing/patching/etc. things up .

Bigger props to you for helping out the community unlike me, being lazy, reading and running off. Without your commitment, people wouldn't be better off.

In regards to the AA's latency setting, it is true that some soundcards require a higher latency to record.

[Guest j00n]

Does anyone know what the standard recording equipment is for most Korean studios? I've seen the standard ribbon mics or condensors with attached pop filter, but i don't know what the make or models they are. I've tried to see what they're using in some of the music videos like this one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=50XexvtDEeA but haven't been able to figure it out.

[Guest ` k s]

Any tips on improving range? I do scales often but is there anything else? Specifically, I don't know how to reach those upper notes. Like I either have to belt it out like crazy, like SG Wannabe's Neh Saram's Chorus, or get super nasally. Either way, I don't sound good and I'm cracking all over the place. I can't figure out the right technique if you get what I'm saying. I'm not sure how to situate the sound in my nose/mouth/throat/whatever. It's just a mess.

Also, is there a thread in here for music composing/producing? I have the hardest time trying to compose Korean style ballads/slow songs and would love some tips on theory and composing for a newbie. I usually try to think of a melody in my head and then figure it out on the piano or I just play simple chords and try to make a song to that. Either way, I'm never happy.

[Guest kakasensai]

Hmm are there like any computer programs where u can practice ur vocal range or try improving?

[Guest myanh_tran]

Well for big things like choir, I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that the song has already been tuned and meant to start on a certain note. But of course, different people, especially male and female, will have different singing ranges, intervals, octaves, whatever you want to call them. So I think what's going on here is that even though the male and female singers are in harmony, they are starting on different notes. I don't really have any easy advice on how to fix this, because it mostly involves just focusing your mind, or hearing notes.

Telling you to "focus harder" wouldn't help at all though. But what I suppose you could do is selectively listen to the people around you. Like...for a certain number of notes or measures, focus on your singing and your notes. Then, for the next few notes or measures, listen to the people around you and make sure you are in tune.

As for breathing, not much you can do about that except practice. If you swim...then that's great, cause swimming (or at least it's supposed to) is supposed to be able to help your breathing timing and lung capacity a lot. But if you don't swim, then...well it's really your choice. I'm not telling you to go swim, I'm just telling you that swimming is good xD.

As for expanding your vocal range, all you can do is practice. Practice by starting at a note that's not exactly your highest note, but make sure you aren't cracking at it. In other words, pick your highest and strongest note. Then just start going up a scale until it feels your straining just a little bit. Stop there, start over, and repeat.

Hope that helps .

yeah it helps a lot thank you so much.

but i cant go swim, i love swimming.

i had practiced breathing 30 exhale only ( is that right?)

instead of swimming, can i just use the sink to practice my breathe?

my aunt said she could let me in the vocal class in college, but i'm not sure about what she said,she might change her mind like crazy right after that

i can sing ( short hand wrighting) Do R M F S L T D R M F Sol, and that's it

i think because i have to sing the high notes and i also release alot of air to make it sounds louder, so that's why my voice 's craked

the intructor always says that the solfrano( i dont think i spell it right) is too weak but we have many people ( alot of them just lip sync, they move thier lips but voice stays in side thier throat, i think), then i use all my energy to sing loud, hehehehe,

i know it's not good,because i can hear my voice on the mike ==> speaker,

my sis said when i sing the high note and loud ( choir) my voice sounds sour ( translate 100% from vietnamese) ... like so ichy to hear, the ears are just cant accept that voice( it's horrible), i cant describe it.

and i have breathing problem,

do you know when the dogs, after they fighting or running they breath so hard, and ever open thier mouths to breath, and the sound is just like HUH...HUH..HUH... that's waht my sis describe me when i work out, exercising or, dancing joking aroung with her.

so when i dance i cant sing.

( did i write too much? sorry about that i'm a talker

i never be honest like this before, telling people my negative side)