The Flight of the Great Machine

[Consul]

I finally have a complete and more or less finished version of this song, which some of you have heard. Better vocals, and more instrumental fills and textures.

http://soundcloud.com/darren-landrum/darren-landrum-the-flight-of

I'm a little nervous posting this, since I know I'll be ripped to shreds over the vocals, but we all do the best with what we have, and to be fair, it's a pretty tricky melody (there are several phrases that end on notes not in the chord). Maybe not for some other singers, but definitely for me.

As far as the mix goes, I'm still unsure of the lead vocal during the second bridge. I might need to bump it up a bit.

 

[Consul]

Based on the lack of response and this board's tendency of "if you can't say anything nice..." , I'm going to assume that it's not all that great. And to be honest, I have to agree. Not about the song itself, mind you, but the vocal. My voice seems to work well enough on all my other songs, but this one has always felt out of place for me. A lot of other people agree.

Oh well, at least it's not about my pitch problems this time. Unfortunately, my voice is all I've got. That gives three options:

1) Keep it as is and live with it.
2) A lot of people have been recommending a Vocaloid-like effect, basically that "robot" thing that's been popular in dance music lately. I don't really want to do that simply because it's been done to death everywhere else, but I might play around and see if I can achieve some other similar "impressionistic" effect on the vocals.
3) Re-record my vocals an octave lower for that soft, whispery sound I tend to get in my lower range. I'm not sure I like this idea either, because my pitch problems are worse in my lower ranges.

On idea 2, I have given some thought to recording the vocal in the current range with a talkbox, then doing a whisper track on top of it to add to the enunciation as well as atmosphere. Anyone know if anyone's tried that? It would give me an excuse to finally build that talkbox.

Of course, there is the as-yet unspoken fourth option:

4) Look around my uni's music department for a female vocalist with that kind of sixties psych-jazz-fusion style that the song is really calling to me for. Anyone who's seen Fantastic Planet will hopefully get what I mean here.

One other question: should I have put this thread in Studio A?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Consul]

I think I might have figured out what's been bugging me about this song. Somewhere along the way, while trying to create a powerful vocal, I ended up screwing around with the original melody I had written.

Tonight, I decided to mess around with my singing style, and somehow rediscovered what I'd originally written. I think it sounds a whole lot better now.

http://soundcloud.com/darren-landrum/darren-landrum-the-flight-of-1

 

[ruairioflaherty]

Hi Darren,

I can't listen where I'm at right now but I promise to check out the track tomorrow at the studio and give whatever feedback I can.

Cheers,
Ruairi

 

[rob_gould]

Hi Darren,

I didn't hear your first version so I don't have a point of reference on this vocal vs the first one.

Overall I'd say it is not a bad effort but it does sound like you're straining to get the right notes in places.  Is this version recorded an octave lower for the more whispery effect, or is this one also in the higher range as with your first take? 

Definitely persevere with your 'real' vocal though.  I'm not sure how a more robotic effected type vocal would work in this track is because the track sounds quite organic to me.

I think the arrangement is decent and I really like the sax (?) solo.

Listening on Sennheiser HD25s via the laptop by the way.

Hope this is constructive.

Cheers

Rob

 

[Consul]

Thank you for your reply.

This one's recorded in the same range, just with a quieter head voice. Going an octave lower just made me sound like I was trying to be Leonard Cohen.

The criticisms I've been getting about this track so far are all over the place. My singing's fine, no it's not, the pitch is fine, the pitch is all over the place, it's okay but a little strained... None of my other songs have gotten this kind of response. It's leaving me a bit stuck on what to do, since of course I want the song to be as good as possible. One person (who did not mince words about how much he thinks I suck, but I don't let that bother me) suggested I do a bunch of takes and comp together a final. What you're hearing now is one take for each verse or bridge-verse, plus one punch-in.

Part of the problem I think is on the second line of each verse, I end on a note that's not in the chord ("bits of lore"... "forgotten shore"... "flying high" and so on) and for some reason it's a really hard note for me to hit. I might have to stop being stubborn and just rewrite that line.

The sax solo is a $3 penny whistle from the Cracker Barrel that I retrofitted with a balloon reed. It's going through a tuning plugin because the mod changed the pitch relationships between the notes enough to be noticeable.

ruairioflaherty: No worries. Thanks!

 

[Consul]

Just out of curiosity, Rob, what changes to the arrangement would you make?

Also, I made the version in the first post public again so you can hear it.

 

[bluebird]

Hey, I think the song is is super cool and spooky. Its got a real vibe. I can tell its coming from your  heart and the lyrics bring me to a weird place. Which is good.

I think what may be putting some people off is the pitch-y singing. lines like "I wonder if she could ever return to us some..." are really off. I wouldn't hesitate to slap auto tune hard on the vocal. Bring it to the robot rap style...Might sound cool. Make sure the auto tune is in the right key.

My philosophy regarding auto tune (or melodyne) is that these are just tools like eq or compression. Your obviously not going for a live sound so why not go as far out as possible?

Some people may think its cheating but auto tuning a soul-less voice just makes an in tune soul-less voice.
But for someone with an interesting voice and some depth, it can do wonders. Auto tune on automatic will sometimes put notes in places you haven't thought of.

Keep rockin...

 

[riggler]

Just listened.

Awesome song. PITCH IS A PROBLEM. But you have a cool unique voice man! And I like your tracks a lot. Make them go somewhere in the mix. Maybe when a vocal section is done, some tracks come up a little bit?

Totally sweet vibe, reminds me of one of my favs, the Pet Shop Boys.

I would lightly stack another sound on top of your snare sound.

So the pitch. Try venting one ear from the cans a bit. Play with the monitor mix, sing the scale of the song a few times in between takes. AND make sure you are getting good support from the diaphragm.

Just my 2 cents. Worth the effort for better vocals cause the song is worth it man!!!

 

[abechap024]

Really Like the song, the vibe is awesome.


(this comments are just my opinon
Now if i was mixing it, or whatever, I would cut down the intro a little bit. Maybe take out that little snare fill in the beginning, i would take out 0:22 to 0:44.5. I would then low pass the vocals around 16khz or lower.

But there are a million ways to do it. No wrong or right way.

Vocals might be a touch loud for my tastes.

Not advice or anything, just thinking outloud.

very cool synth sounds and arrangement. I kinda like the really brittle sounding snare....kinda cool for the style.

 

[12afael]

I think when people sing out of tune there are two main problems, how they breath and how they listen. how you breathe is 70% of the work, you must sing standing in the front of the mic, try puting your arms over your head, that`s a trick for pregnant singers to breathe better ;D.
if you are listening the backing track too loud you will not able to listen if you are in tune or not. try to sing with one ear free. try to use a compressor and some reverb in the voice for monitoring. you can write a midi melody as guide. you can try also record without headphones, it is more natural, just don`t turn up the click too much.

 

[Consul]

Can someone give me an idea of the magnitude of my pitch problems? Is every single note whole-steps off? Is it just an occasional note here or there? That will help me a lot more than anything else right now.

 

[radiance]

Can someone give me an idea of the magnitude of my pitch problems? Is every single note whole-steps off? Is it just an occasional note here or there? That will help me a lot more than anything else right now.

In the first version about 30% of all notes was off....
Might be an idea to play the vocal melody with a synth or so and try to sing along....

 

[Consul]

Ah, see, I know I have a lot of off-notes in the first version. Consider that one dead, now. I left it up only for historical reasons. In fact, I'm going to go disable it right now. I care only about the second one now.

I appreciate the comment on the snare sound. It's a sound I designed by flicking a ruler on my desk, flicking a piece of paper in the air, and tapping on a plastic candy container. I think it works well in this song, but since I have a snare and kick drum sitting down in the basement, I'm going to play around with them this weekend and see if they work better.

 

[Consul]

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as extremely frustrated with this whole exercise. I have a long commute to school, and the entire way home today, I had zero troubles singing along to the music in the car, in tune. I know I can do it. I just wish I knew what the mental block is with my own material.

I've tried guide tracks before, but one thing I didn't try is to mute everything but the drums and the guide track. I'm going to give that a go and see if it helps.

 

[Consul]

I decided to go the guide track route, with these results:

http://soundcloud.com/darren-landrum/darren-landrum-the-flight-of-2

At this point, I'm not even bothering to say myself whether I think it's better or worse.

Does anyone think the vocals are too loud?

 

[Consul]

I give up. Nobody likes my singing. Nobody thinks I'll ever be able to do it. This album is not going to see the light of day unless something changes drastically.

I've removed everything I uploaded to Soundcloud. It's time to drop back and punt.

This was only ever supposed to be a hobby, but ever since I found out major local businesses have blacklisted engineering students from my university, I've been depending, maybe a bit too much, on music for a mental escape if not a financial one.

 

[bluebird]

Ahhh dude, You just need to move on to another song. Everyone gets frustrated with they're ability's. Your putting to many eggs in the result basket. Didn't you have fun creating the song? I hate to say it, but in music it has to be the journey, not the destination.

You got a lot of good feedback, Like I said I think your voice has a lot of interesting things about it. Just practice...and keep making songs.

 

[Consul]

Don't worry, I've moved on to other things.

I just tried to make a post to the local Craigslist to see if I can find an interested singer or two, and when I got to the part about not having money to offer, I suddenly felt like one of those Craigslist filmmaker douchebags trying to get free labor from people. There must be a better way.