Being 40+ years and not having sung into a microphone ever before in my life, Cubase inspired me to try it, just for the fun of it!
I am only a hobby musician playing with my DAW (I started with Propellerhead Reason two years ago, but bought Cubase recently to get VST support and other Cubase features). I have a day job and raise two kids, so I struggle to find time for music. With that in mind, do you have any tips how I can improve my singing abilities a bit without spending several hours a day?
that cheered me up,thanks. i think for all people in general the only way you can improve is by actually singing more and more and record your performances to check how you are doing .the more confident you are, the more it will sound that way.even singing in front of your kids ,they will probably be brutally honest with you ,mine are and i do take on board what they say ,i`m no great singer but it is nice to have a singalong now and again.
Well…your first time is better than my first time was
as polgara said though, you can not become a better singer without singing a lot practice makes perfect.
Thanks a lot for your comments and thanks for being gentle to me!
Yes, I realise that I need to sing a bit to get better. Not being trained at all, however, I guess I would benefit from some instructions too. I signed up for a singing course at Udemy - now I just hope that I will have the patience to finish it too. It is of course more fun to just sing tunes than doing exercises.
All I did was keep singing…didn’t do any exercises…how longs your journey to work? if it’s half an hour you’ve got 1 hour a day to improve your singing…just sing, sing, sing, in the car…
Good advice there from Kevin,you need to keep that throat muscle worked out, cause just like any other muscle if you dont use it, it will drop off. there are plenty of vocalists on u tube giving advice for free, dont know if it will be of any use .Just the basic question "how to sing " brings up this lot. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+sing+
Actually it is half an hour drive, but during winter I travel by bus and I am not sure that the other passengers would appreciate the torture! I will sing on those rare occasions though when I drive my own car.
Well, all I can say is pretty much what has already been said. Best way to get better at singing is by… singing
Your pitch seems good in this recording though I did find the performance to be somewhat ‘mechanical’ overall.
When I first ventured into singing… I used to to knock back a couple of stiff drinks before fronting up to the mic. It really did help. Now, I don’t need the ‘chemical aid’ so much but I do think it’s a pretty good way to loosen up and lower inhibition - particularly in a dry sterile studio environment. Singing live is the ultimately way to go though. Confidence, and therefore improved performance comes with repeated public humiliation I did this weekly for several years and really noticed a vast improvement in my performance. Now, that’s not to say I’m necessarily a good singer of course, which I certainly am not… but then, neither was Dylan, Cohen, Waits etc, but in the end, I think being confident and comfortable in yourself and in front of a mic counts for a lot.
Though I think most of the mechanical performance comes from not knowing the song so well and being too stressed; this was recorded one day when I suddenly got a few unexpected of hours of free time. I picked a song, googled youtube for melody and lyrics, and started recording not knowing how much time I had until I would get interupted…
I don’t get any chances to perform where I live, but I too believe in public humiliation to finally relax and maybe even think of myself as a singer. That’s the main reason for uploading the song to soundcloud and not the least present it at this forum that hosts so many great musicians and producers!
Hi svenh! For a first attempt this is awesome! So you played guitar and sang all the harmonies or was it virtual synth and a harmonizer?
You have no worries really just do as the others have mentioned…repetition is the key to refining your vocals.
From a mixing standpoint, I would simply encourage you to go back and listen to the orignial Beatles recording (mono and stereo if you can find them) and listed to how the voices and instruments were panned and their relative volumes to one another. Then you can also work on adding reverb etc to mimic the sound of the original recording.
I sang the melody and harmony myself. (In addition to having fun trying to sing the harmony myself, I thought it would sound more natural than using a harmonizer.) The instruments (bass and guitar) are VSTs. I used the Ample Sound AGL guitar - I love the sound of their guitars!
I used Variaudio for some light pitch corrections of my voice here and there, but not that much. A bigger problem with my singing was my (lack of) breath control. I did quite a bit of manual editing to tone down all breaths, especially in those parts that I sang in the end when I was getting tired. This is one of the main reason that I beleive that I need to learn at least some theory or at least watch a few video tutorials about singing technique…
When it comes to mixing, I find it difficult to listen to a complete mix/song and from that dissect how the different tracks were treated. I will probably have to continue just experimenting myself…
practice makes perfect.
I did this weekly for several years and really noticed a vast improvement in my performance. Now, that’s not to say I’m necessarily a good singer of course, which I certainly am not… but then, neither was Dylan, Cohen, Waits etc, but in the end, I think being confident and comfortable in yourself and in front of a mic counts for a lot.