Singing Tips & Recording Questions

[Guest My Sweet September]

I have a question about mics.

I have noticed that most soompiers have nearly flawless recording quality....my mic is absolutely horrible and I really need a new one.

Sooooo...if anyone could direct to where I could buy a mic (it doesn't matter if it is online, I can make online purchases) thats decent (or mroe than decent!) I would appreciate it very much. I don't know where to begin to look, and I dont want to waste my money on a mic that i thought was good and it isn't

Thanks!

[Guest tsububu]

Anyone know how to remove instrumentals from songs rather than remove vocals?

Ta

[Guest mmitsjojo]

what is head voice and chest voice my chorus teacher always goes sing this in chest voice sing this in head voice and i`m all confused but i dont want to ask her =x lol

[Guest Raix]

^ Head voice, I think is falsetto. It's like softer than your chest voice. Chest voice is stronger. I'm not quite sure on this though

[Guest Diamond_]

From wikipedia.com

"The head register is generalized to be the range of vocal notes above middle C (C4). Technically, it can be said to be the upper half of a person's vocal range. It is called head voice because the pitch resonates through the upper mask in your face and forehead, as opposed to vocal notes in the chest register, which resonate in the chest cavity (and are deep and colorful). As you pitch your voice higher, the side muscles (in a properly trained voice) close the lower ends of the vocal cords, shortening the vibrating length (think of a guitarist using the thumb to change the pitch of a guitar). Vocal notes around tenor C (C5 - one octave above middle C) have a light trumpetty quality. As the pitch increases (and access to the chest cavity further decreases), the notes become lighter and lighter. Around A5 (the A below soprano C), the notes start becoming "squeaky" as the chest cavity is nearly completely removed. Going higher to E6 (only the most flexible of head registers allow this), the outer fringes of the vocal cords remain and the note loses any color. This is the beginning of the whistle register."

^^ BTW... this is a recording question. You know with songs by artists such as Ashlee Simpson, other rock songs and in Kelly Clarkson's songs... you can hear like their voice has got some sort of effect on it.... Anyone know what it is?

I use AA/Cool Edit Pro... so any help on making the voice sound more... songish... professional[?] with the FX's would be awesome help.

[Guest appledapple]

I just wanted to recommend all you Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition users check out this forum for tips (JOHNNYMOON you should add this to your first post as it has lots of info):

http://homerecording.com/bbs/forumdisplay.php?f=41

You have to join the forum or else it will say there's no posts. Lots of info in there

answer from that forum to **tsububu's (i had the wrong poster before, sorry >.<) question about making an acapella:

ThaArtist

Registered User Join Date: Sep 2005

Posts: 51

Rep Power: 1

Creating Acapellas from Songs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well I've seen this asked a few times and seen people say its impossible. Well its near impossible.. But we can come pretty close or at least get a useable sample.

Heres a little tutorial I put together using part of the information from Adobes Resource Center. The following is a link to Adobe's Web site where there is a video (which you need Quicktime to view) on using the Center Channel Extrator. Take note when the guy uses NEW settings in the acapella filter. Then come back here I got more tips. So go check out:

Center Channel Extractor video on Adobe's Web site

http://studio.adobe.com/us/tips/tip.jsp?p=...l=aud15ttvoices

So heres a quick run through...

In Adobe Audition 1.5 go to the wave editor view then open the file you want to to extract vocals from. File -> Open.

Highlight or trim down the section you want to use. Go to Effects -> Filters -> Center Channel Extrator, then choose Acapella. If the Preset settings work then great. For me they never do. So heres what we do... Change the Frequency Range to "300Hz to 12000Hz". Feel free to play around but I found them settings to work best for most songs. Click OK.

Now you'll notice that your drums are still pretty loud. What I did to combat this is went through the Dynamic Processing effect by clicking Effects -> Amplitude -> Dynamic Processing.I then used the the Limit Hard -12dB Preset which limited them loud drum noises. Now they are softer...

Now after them steps if you want to try a little more. I usually do this to get the vocals louder and try to drown the music more:

Effects -> Filters -> Center Channel Extractor -> (Preset) Lift Vocals 10db

Effects -> Filters -> Center Channel Extractor -> (Preset) Amplify Vocals 6dB

Effects -> Amplitude -> Dynamic Processing -> Limit Hard -12dB Preset

Play around and see what you can come up. In other vocal extractions I used other Presets and then the Limit Hard -12dB. Don't be affraid to make your own Presets too. If it sounds good it sounds good. Let your ears be the final judge. And then... if you find something good. Share it here.

[Guest mmitsjojo]

when yu start recording on cool edit pro right? you press the red record thing a thing will pop up? well i would like to know which numbers and which stuff do i have to choose in order to get good rec0rding? and do i save it in .mp3 file after? && also i need help with soundclick i dont know how to use it and add the songs, i tried numerous of times, doesn`t work out for me =[

[Guest Raix]

^ Go to the first page and download Hmaster's tutorials. I can't help you with Soundclick right now, sorry

[Guest mmitsjojo]

^ Go to the first page and download Hmaster's tutorials. I can't help you with Soundclick right now, sorry

hmaster's tutorial expired already. =[

[Guest HmmlOL]

Not sure if you guys will know the answer.. but if you have any thoughts please respond..

If someone doesn't have a really nice sounding voice.. can they "practice" to make it sound nice? Or are they stuck with that voice?

My voice is pretty okay.. its not bad.. but it doesn't have that "sweet" sound to it.. could I practice to achieve it or what?

Also if someone doesn't sing very strongly.. does it just take practice?

I'm just kind of confused about the singing thing.. b/c singers have trained for years and debuted.. so I'm wondering how much worse their voices could have been before..

and I'm kind of hoping I could get my voice to sound good with practice lol.

[Guest tsububu]

Not sure if you guys will know the answer.. but if you have any thoughts please respond..

If someone doesn't have a really nice sounding voice.. can they "practice" to make it sound nice? Or are they stuck with that voice?

My voice is pretty okay.. its not bad.. but it doesn't have that "sweet" sound to it.. could I practice to achieve it or what?

Also if someone doesn't sing very strongly.. does it just take practice?

I'm just kind of confused about the singing thing.. b/c singers have trained for years and debuted.. so I'm wondering how much worse their voices could have been before..

and I'm kind of hoping I could get my voice to sound good with practice lol.

practice + passion for music

could get vocal training? work on your voice that way, i'm not too sure

[Guest chigusa707]

Ive asked this before but the answer failed me. lol.

anyways, anyone know a software I can download that would change my files from .wav to .mp3? something really easy to use.

and if possible can you provide a link? sorry for being so demanding.

Thanks!

[Guest pinklegirl007]

I download Goldwave, but I don't get how to use it.... I want to record the instrumental with my voice to create a demo, but I don't get how to do that. Could someone please explain...

[Guest Raix]

Pao: DBPowerAMP didn't work?

hmaster's tutorial expired already. =[

Umm..First post.

http://www.savefile.com/files.php?fid=2500203

[Guest chigusa707]

^ rai, unfortunately it didnt. I succesfully dl'd it but when I was gonna use it.. It says its not compatible with my pc. TT.TT

[Guest Raix]

x_x What kind of PC do you use?

[Guest Sakura Li]

For me, I couldn't get a .wav to .mp3 until I downloaded a mp3 converter from download.com (and I do have GoldWave). I downloaded GoldWave by typing in "Goldwave download" in Google.

pinklegirl007: I'll try to explain it but it might get messy. XD You want to mix your voice into an instrumental, correct? This is what I do: I usually open a new recording and play the song as wma. Once the singing is about to start, I push the red record button and stop it once I'm done. After that, I go to "open" and get my instrumental.

Once I have both my recording and instrumental in the same window, I copy my recording and go to the "Mix" button. A window will pop up with a timer 00:00:00:00000. This is where you insert how many seconds the instrumental has to go b4 your singing would start. Let's say I pushed the record button at what I thought 25 seconds. The third set of zeros is seconds so I would type in 00:00:25:0000 and push the green play button to check if I was correct. Let's say my recording was just alittle faster than the instrumental but if I put it at 26 seconds, it would be behind. That's where you can put some numbers in the section with 5 zeros. Once you find the right starting time, just push ok and you're done. ^^

I hope that helped. If you need me to go into more detail about something, just ask! ^^

mmitsjojo: Hey there! To add songs, go to the main site and on your top right hand corner, click on band adminstration. Then click on your band's name or artist's name. The in the section called "Songs" you click on add new songs. You click I agree, and you'll probably do "Robust Upload" (click go), type in the song's stuff, Proceed, Proceed, find the file in ur comp by clicking on the browse button, upload mp3, wait, pick a pic or not, and you're done! Hope that helped! ^^

Yay! I got to help! XD

[Guest appledapple]

Ive asked this before but the answer failed me. lol.

anyways, anyone know a software I can download that would change my files from .wav to .mp3? something really easy to use.

and if possible can you provide a link? sorry for being so demanding.

Thanks!

Music Match Jukebox

http://www.musicmatch.com

However, many people think it is a piece of crap. Myself, I use a very old version (version 6) because I haven't liked a version since then, thank God I'd backed it up But you can give it a whirl, some people love it.

[Guest chigusa707]

rai: a very ancient one lol. hehehe.. I dunt know.. why it wont work..

apple: oh~ thanks.. I'll try that one.

[Guest ONExHEAVENLY]

IT DOESN'T WORK

I have Adobe Audition 1.5 & I tried filter out the acapella of a song to make it into an instrumental but it doesn't work. I read the instructions of a soompier ^ up above.

I went to Edit View, Filters, Center Channel Extractor & the following.

Is it just me like did i do it wrong?

Can someone please give me a more clear instruction?

( Those instructions above were very clear but it didn't work for me but htanks for posting )