Okay, so I worked with this vocalist for one day, and we basically pulled the vocal parts out of our rear end. And it's only the 8th take. I still have to coax a more solid performance out of her, and she'll hit those pitches perfectly.

link
http://archives.djfreaq.com/archive...j_roughmix3.mp3


It's 128kbps, 5 minutes long, and 128bpm. I'm getting better at this whole production think.

Suggestions. Feedback. More input. Something more detailed than music producers promotion.

Thanks

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that was painful

quote:

Originally posted by Krispy Kreme that was painful

You're telling me. Once again. More constructive comments would be appreciated.


Douche.

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quote:

Originally posted by DJFreaq You're telling me. Once again. More constructive comments would be appreciated. Douche.

haha sorry man

The tune is very experimental. Did you layout this track before even thought about adding vocals to it?

The scratching/maracas/hihats, whatever they are, are too forward & maybe overwhelming. Nice pattern though.

There is no bass drum, but there is very low end bass in there. You obviously didn't want a punchy kick in this...

The bass is very complicated and the pattern messes with the vocals in my opinion. Simplifiy the bass a bit, just while she is singing and then bring it back when she stops singing. Just an idea:

Eg:

BB B BB BBBB BB B BB BBBB

Sing sing sing sing sing
B.... B.... BB... B.... B....

BB B BB BBBB BB B BB BBBB

Strip it back a bit. The last thing you want are sounds competing for space.

As for the vocals: She has a very nice voice, she's got talent. You definitely need to do a heap more takes on it. Obvidously the pitch is out a touch in places, but that is resolved easily by practice, then recording her a few more times to edit the best performance. She really needs a bit of reverb on her voice, maybe some echo... Taking into account that havn't done too much about vocals work because it is not something I record; but if i were you id add the reverb. Experiment with some filters. Im sure you will get a bigger sound & the off pitch moments may not be as obvious...

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See this is my first time really going in depth to vocals. I'm definately going to mix some punch into that kick for sure. I like it, and it comes through on the Alesis, but it just isn't doing it for everyone else I take it.

I layed out the track before vocals, honestly because I didn't know where else to go, I didn't just want to end it, and I thought it might sound cool. Once we get more time to work on it, I'll keep coaching her. She's "classicly" trained and still very young. She's used to practicing the same piece over and over again, so once we layout the melody of her voice, and then get those pitches down. It will be a lot better. She ain't bad for 15 though.

It is an experimental track though. Parts are 128bpm, with one 64bpm break. Powers of 2 for the win.

Thanks for the advice Xeno

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LOL at least she had fun with it
maybe she would be better of at higher tempo rates and scream a little bit more.

I actually like her voice and way of singing a lot... Kind of reminds me of some mixture of Kate Bush and some of the irish folks singers and celtic vocalists. She's definately got potential!
One advice: Stay clear of vocal tuning stuff (like Auto-Tune or Waves Tune). She doesn't need it and imho her voice actually benefits from sounding a little "off" (pitch-wise) every now and then. It just makes it more interesting and less mechanic.

However, I do have some critisism to the track:

The sound on her voice is not that great. What mic and preamp did you use? She could definately benefit from better gear. Also it sounds a little bit as if she has a blanket over her. EQ'ing her voice a little different will help that.

In addition, I'm not really sure if this is the right kind of style for her voice in the sense that I feel that there is too much going on at the same time, which makes it sound as if her lyrics don't really belong to the song. It feels like you wanna do "everything". I think it might be a structure-thing.

I would recommend the following:
Make a structure of the song, where you have:
* Intro. Without vocals, but maybe including some vocal-effects like reversed reverb, snipplets, stuttering echoes etc.
* Breakdown. Nothing but strings or pad and then her great voice, cutting through clearly with all the lyrics here. Use the part she sings here a couple of times so the listener really gets a feel for the song at this point.
* Build up. Loop a small part of her vocals and repeat them over and over, while adding elements from your various instruments.
* Main part. Use the instrumental stuff, only with snipplets of vocals.
* Outro. No vocals.


I know, I just described (more or less) your average trance cheese tune, and it's not that I don't appreciate experimentation, however, I feel that in your case, experimanting makes the track sound more messy than interesting and that it's not really needed here. Her voice IS special and even with a basic structure of the song, I think it could very well stand out.

Oh, and also you need to work on the mixing and instruments a lot. The instruments are too "plastic" in the sense that you might wanna change some of the sounds to get more bottom (i.e. from a kick drum or heavy bassline or whatever) and then work a lot on the eq'ing on each track.

Regards

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- Pumping the bits using:
My beloved MacBook Pro, Logic Pro X, UAD hardware and software and tons of plug-ins...

Last edited by RivalMan on Oct-11-2006 at 12:33

wicked intro
the kick in non-existant. it sounds like u have a kick filtered alllllll the way down. layer some kicks on that ( play around with the eq on each so they are fight for space on the spectrum).
sounds like ur entire mix is sitting in the mid range...ur mix needs to be widened, the best way without jepordizing the entire mix is widen a few sounds within the mix. That will at least give impression of space. Ya there is no punch in ur kick.
Cool track to have vocals really nice voice.
sounds like some timing issues with the vocals. not sure how u did it but the best thing to do is cut the vocals into bars so u can move chunks of the vocals around, and if its still off the womans gonna go back to do some recording. It kinda ended out of no where, i like how she laughs at the end that was cool. But the track had no descent to it, unless ur not finished.
Hope that helps

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www.conradrogers.com

She's got a great voice but the tune itself does not have a direction.
Personally, I'd go for an ambient track the way she sounds. Reminds me of some of the Lord of the Rings vocals.
Spend time on it, don't hurry...

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