Make plenty of reference tracks with your guitar. Go through the board and be as PLAIN as you can. Lay down single-string notations that the vocals are keyed with. Make make PLENTY of harmony tracks, again, one string at a time.
Then...as you on the mic doing a take, get that particular reference track up high in the headphone mix...or put it in one ear with the rest of the tune into the other...but lots of studios DO NOT have stereo heaset mixes.
Follow the ref track...get it right...then dump 'em!
Along the way...EXPERIMENT with your harmonies. Actually, just sit at the console and "play the faders" with tracks marked (for example) R 4 5 7 9 m3...etcetera. This will also help GREATLY in sorting out STRONG and MEMORABLE 'middle eights'.
This was good enough for The Beach Boys.
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
I've often thought about doing something like this, but I've never tried it. Now that most DAWs include some form of pitch correction (and 3rd-party plugins are widely available for the others) I don't know whether many artists use this method.
It seems better than pitch correction, as it will lead the voice naturally to self-correct--ridding us of that nasty robotic slur that marks many pop records these days, :evil: the tell-tale sign of pitch correction software! (I know that some artists use pitch correction as an effect--still, yuk!)
This is not a moral criticism, merely a dislike of the robotic sound. I think the guiding pitch track is a fine idea. If pitch correction software can ever get beyond the robotic slur, I'd like to see it incorporate something similar. Imagine being able to record your voice and have it automatically pitched to a midi track! 8) (They can't do that yet, right?)
Anyway, I'd like to know if anyone has experience using a guiding track for pitch.
G'day, JJ...
Surprising how this discussion has "gone dead" as far as your question about it. I don't get it, Matey! Person after person's wondering how they can get their voices "right" and...here's the easiest/best/no problemo/yes indeed/sure-firest way to do it!
This is ESPECIALLY good if you are prone (as I REALLY am) to "stealing" your way back to the root note of the song as you inadvertantly drift away from the extension (harmony) you are on...
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
Thanks for the tip Cat,
I've been doing something a bit similar, but your suggestion defines and refines it a bit more.
Last week I was trying to work on something and I ended up with two sets of headphone on, with the left can of one going into my left ear and the right can of the other over my right ear. One was going into an arranger keyboard, and the other into a computer output. :shock: It more or less worked, but I'd really like a quadraphonic set of 4 ears, with separate headphones to match. I wonder if you can fly to Bangkok and have some extra ears added in some back alley somewhere....
Chris
My forté/bread and butter/retirement fund/taxes is off the back of jingles. Upon many occasions I onsold the deal convincing the client that I could cut THEM into the vocals:
"No way! I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket! Yer nuts!"
"If I get you sounding right...you'll buy the thing???"
"Okay, wiseguy...PROOVE IT!"
And I do...time and time again. People with NO idea at all of ever trying to sing come off like The Beach Boys! So imagine how someone with a DESIRE to sing will come off???
Chris...lookit the thing this way...if you follow this "reference track method"...and don't accept any take unless it's "on"...(and you TUNE the freakin GUITAR!!)!...how COULDN'T it be nothing shy of great???
No kiddin'!No kiddin'!No kiddin'!No kiddin'!No kiddin'!No kiddin'!No kiddin'!
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
Chris...lookit the thing this way...if you follow this "reference track method"...and don't accept any take unless it's "on"...(and you TUNE the freakin GUITAR!!)!...how COULDN'T it be nothing shy of great???
Cat
True... :)
Good point about getting the tuning spot on too. So far, in my extensive singing career (i.e. it must add up to several whole minutes of practice now... :wink:) I've been using the piano to sing to. As well as the ease of playing a melody one handed on a keyboard, the digital piano has the great quality of always being in tune every time I turn it on. Pressing a key always gives the same reliable and consistent sound. So whether it's for practising hitting pitches on a scale, or accurately making jumps of various intervals, or matching a melody line, the DP seems like a good tool. If I try and hit a C at least I know that it IS a C and not a pitch somewhere roughly along a line between C and C#.
I've also got various software tools which will generate very accurate reference lines, so that's another option. Currently, it seems that the more difficult part is finding a way to balance at all well enough so than I can hear clearly enough once I start singing and the sounds coming from inside the body try and drown out the ones coming from outside. But, like the rest of music, it looks like a bit of tweaking and fiddling, and a heap of practice gets you there. Very satisfying when it works...
Chris
I should re-stress the point I made a few posts ago about the headphone monitors. Obviously, you have come up on the same hassles with all the interfering sounds. Self-applause is necessary...seeing as you're on the right (IE: difficult!) road!
If at all possible...get the ref track in ONE ear and bulk of the tune in the OTHER ear. For hearing YOUR own live take...DO NOT put it into the mix. Instead, slip the first digit of your pointing finger under the headphone just on that little bone a bit under and a little forward of yer ear 'ole. Put the tip of your ring finger on the outer edge of your eye orb. (Vulcans are adept at this method!) Bone conduction is better than any monitor I've come across.
Personally, I use a guitar for the refs...only because my subconscious has such a hookup with that particular instrument. If I were a pianist, first...sure, I'd use me a piano.
If you could...before you try your voice over the refs..."play the faders" to see how you prefer the structure of the harmonies. (No sense in devoting the time and effort to lines you won't sing on, in any event.) In ashamed reality...THIS is how I come up with all my own stuff that goes "out there".
Another reason to do this...is to stop "drifting" off the note you are supposed to be on. This is my personal bug-a-boo, Chris. I am relentless in coming back to the root note as opposed to the extension. The ONLY way I can get over this is to dump out all the other refs except the one I need.
Keep at it. Sooner or later you'll get it spot on and totally amaze yusseff!
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
If at all possible...get the ref track in ONE ear and bulk of the tune in the OTHER ear. For hearing YOUR own live take...DO NOT put it into the mix. Instead, slip the first digit of your pointing finger under the headphone just on that little bone a bit under and a little forward of yer ear 'ole. Put the tip of your ring finger on the outer edge of your eye orb. (Vulcans are adept at this method!) Bone conduction is better than any monitor I've come across.
Cat
Thanks for the finger tip Cat, I'll try that one out. :) My current gear is relatively basic too, so I'll do a bit more study and see if I can improve on the whole issue of track balance.
Cheers,
Chris
This is not a moral criticism, merely a dislike of the robotic sound. I think the guiding pitch track is a fine idea. If pitch correction software can ever get beyond the robotic slur, I'd like to see it incorporate something similar. Imagine being able to record your voice and have it automatically pitched to a midi track! (They can't do that yet, right?)
I use Melodyne. After you sing a track you load it in Melodyne (or use it as external FX in your DAW), which will analyze the track and display each syllable/word as a block, visually showing volume and average pitch, with a line in the center showing the exact pitch modulations. I haven't looked for it but there's technically no reason why you can't print it as score or export as MIDI, the data is already in the program. The 'robotic sounds' are mostly when using older versions of Antares Autotune and the like, the modern ones allow you to change the vocals entirely transparant. If you hear a modern pop-track with such a robotic voice then you can be sure it's a producer lacking either skill or taste, depending if it's only minor or very obvious all through-out.
The problem I have with using it is the same as I have with correcting MIDI data of piano performances: it's very hard to express certain musical ideas in digits or with a mouse while it is completely natural on the instrument itself. Technically a MIDI-build piano track or a heavily corrected vocal track could be absolutely divine but in practice it's best used to get the last few details done after you nailed it 95% in the performance.
Ignar... "The problem I have with using it is the same as I have with correcting MIDI data of piano performances: it's very hard to express certain musical ideas in digits or with a mouse while it is completely natural on the instrument itself."
That's why you just do it quickly, and easily...one note at a time...using a real instrument.
As far as "mechanical sounding"...this doesn't matter when it's only a ref track...but it DOES when you try to take these voicings "for real". I've recorded in umpteen studios (even a fine university)...have MANY high-profile album creds...and stand by the fact that "human is better".
Mechanically...a state-of-the-art system (IE: Waves)...will STILL merely parrot the input note (it gets "paper dolled") and...GONE...are the subtle differences that you get when you re-use a real voice.
Indeed...modern stuff (techno/hip hop/etc) use this machinery...as well as doing things like cutting out verses and re-dropping it back into place after place. For me...the jury is still out if this is a good way to go...
But...if new kids with emerging stuff nowadays cannot pull it off...a good engineer can certainly do it for them.
It's like asking one of these kid, "What do you play in the band?"
"Duh? Who? Me? I press duh button!"
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
