That 'ee' sound in vocal recordings - or is it just me?

Okay, kind of a strange topic but one I’ve been mulling over for a while. Have you noticed in many commercial recordings that the pure ‘ee’ vocal sound is often modified to something else approximating to it? E.g. kind of a ‘ee’ slant on ‘ay’. And I’ve been wondering what the reasoning behind this is. Is it just the vocalists who sing like that (so many seem to have affected accents)?

Recording my own voice I am aware I have a certain reediness in it in small peaks between 2 - 3 kHz. This is especially apparent on pure ‘ee’ sounds which causes an unpleasant ‘ringing’ to the vocal sound. I usually filter this out with a couple of dynamic eqs. But despite my best efforts whatever I do affects those frequencies on all aspects of my voice resulting in too much de-essing and general drop around those frequencies.
I need to take out that ringing and then pull back up the remaining frequencies. Is there a recognised technique for doing that?

Now I totally accept I am not the world’s best vocalist but I produce guide tracks for lead singers and now just sing the odd backing vocals. But I want my vocs to sound as good as they can be.

So my solution is to modify my vocal takes (as in many commercial recordings) so I sing a kind of alternative ‘ee’ which isn’t so pure. And that’s surprisingly difficult as it involves modifying tongue positions which have become embedded in my singing technique over many years.

I just wondered if anyone else has come across this issue and what your solutions might be.

Hi,
that is not a simple question. I agree, that there is a tendency for much smoother vocal sounds. Not only vocals but the overall sound has changed over the past years.

Nowadays, there are much better ways to deal with unwanted resonances, harshness or deessing (for example Soothe 2 by Oeksound). Moreover, there might also be a tendency to simply favour singers who don’t have this sort of natural timbre/formants. And of course, that is also a question of vocal technique and attitude.
Personally, I am grateful for this development. There are tracks from the 90s and 2010s which make me turn down the volume the moment the first wave hits my speakers.
To sum up: If I were you, I would try to use a combination of all the aforementioned aspects. Have you tried Soothe 2 and co? I assume you have already checked different compressors which have a huge impact, too. Along with your singing technique/attitude, of course.

Coming back to the title of your thread: No, it’s not just you. I have noticed this as well. So there are at least two :wink:

Oh goody that makes at least two of us then. I have a Corrs album from way back and you are right, the vocals are over-compressed and hugely harsh to my ears. I had a look at Soothe a way back but I think my FabFilter Pro Q3 can do pretty much everything that does and with a high degree of accuracy.

I appreciate your comments. Thanks.

You are welcome :wink:
Actually, Pro Q3 can not do the same as a tool like Soothe as it can only adress a limited number of frequencies dynamically. Even Pro Q4, which has an additional Soothe-alike option, reacts differently, especially when it comes to transients. But that is just my personal opinion, doesn’t mean I am right.

I am sure you have tried all sorts of mics already to adress this nasal, nasty “ee” sound you are referring to. Have you tried to vary your mic position/distance/angle? Sometimes, there is even a huge difference if you have the mic positioned more to the left or to the right as each singer has a sweet side (I only found out about that a couple of years ago, I was very sceptical at first to say the least…). As this annoying sound has not only something to do with the way you work with your facial muscles and your body tension - there are also mental strategies alongside physical techniques that help to mitigate this issue. And most importantly, help the singer to feel good, which is key. Yeah, vocals are tricky.

Oh I didn’t know about the sweet side. I’ll have to try that. In my case it will be the least ugly side.

I have been looking for my least ugly side all my life. No luck so far…:wink:

EDITED to correct bonehead error

Actually it’s mostly part of vocal technique. An ‘ah’ sound is a wide vowel and even physically feels wide in your throat. Wide vowels work nicely in your low to mid-range. But as the pitch transitions from your chest voice to head voice you have to move from a wide to a narrow vowel for the head voice.

You can easily see how this feels. Sing a sustained note. Start with an “ah” sound and then change to an “ee” sound. Your mouth will open a bit wider and you can feel your vocal chords go from wide to narrow.

Isn’t it the other way round?

As to the general context of changing pronunciation while singing:

I think it’s been documented widely, that pronunciation (sometimes also expressed as “accents”) is often different while singing. Some of it on purpose, some of it occurring naturally.

For example, typing “do singers change pronunciation to sound better” into a search engine yields quite a few discussions around that general topic. From individuals “losing” their ESL (English as a Second Language) accent to the Beatles supposedly having deliberately chosen US pronunciations for their singing over their native Liverpool (or “the Queen’s English”) accents.


More specifically, relating to the long “ee”:

I seem to remember already as a kid singing in a choir, that the long English “ee” sound (in German, it would be “i”), was considered problematic and my early music education taught me to shy away from that sound, since it simply didn’t sound all that pleasant.

I think the explanation was, that it’s more cramping on the vocal chords and throat (never a good idea) – so therefore not merely an audio recording problem, but already a problem when performing live without amplification. And a problem for both singer and audience, therefore to be avoided. This even became engrained deeply into my understanding of writing lyrics. i.e. going out of one’s way to avoid words with that sound.

So it makes a lot of natural sense to me, that when the lyrics make that sound unavoidable, that singers end up modifying it to make it easier on their own voice and easier on the audience.

While “fixing in the mix”, is a valid approach for recorded music, this wouldn’t help the performer’s voice, and also would make them sound different when singing non-amplified. And great singers want to (and do) sound great when singing without amplification.


p.s. As a result of the above, I try to avoid long “ee” sounds even when writing for and using Synthesizer V. :slight_smile:

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Yes indeed. I shouldn’t try typing before coffee.

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Yes, it has a lot to do with vocal techniques and it is much harder to keep a good balance between your head- and chest voice if you are singing an “ee”. It takes up a big part in classical vocal training for a reason. Skillful vocal coaches know how to avoid these pitholes - very helpful in a vocal booth.
However, it is not only a question of technique but also a question of sound aesthetics and the underlying attitude. I have got the feeling that this has changed in recent years.

And not to forget: each singer has its own unique voice and sweet spots when it comes to vowels. There are singers who prefer certain vowels and detest other vowels. Lyricists who know about these individual traits take this into account when they pitch a song. That is one of the reasons why one singer might love to sing a certain song and another one says that this one is not for him/her. I’m with @Nico5 : there are vowels which are much harder to sing and which are therefore likely to be avoided.

I think it is difficult to narrow this down to one specific aspect. Apart from vocal techniques there is improved studio gear and related techniques, a shift in vocal aethetics as well as attitude… To me it feels more like a change of Zeitgeist.

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I also think there’s something that has changed around the use of “ee”.

My entirely non-empirical (and therefore highly questionable) sense is, that the long “ee” is lyrically much more common in more recent popular music, and if that’s actually the case, it would make sense that recent singers would be more likely to find/use workarounds?

Might be an interesting topic for a thesis for a graduate student - the use of “ee” (and/or other vowels) in mainstream (western) music over time - and/or across varying cultures.

And as I was typing this, suddenly this (old) song sprung to mind:

Weeheeheehee dee heeheeheehee weeoh aweem away
Weeheeheehee dee heeheeheehee weeoh aweem away

:slight_smile:

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Haha, that took me quite a while to decipher the song :slight_smile:
If only Blur had published their most successful song now that the Zeitgeist has finally changed: Weeeeeeee Heee!

We are so off topic…

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Off topic is good. This has driven me potty over the last few days and Nico5 you are right, it’s the song I’m currently working on which has more 'ee’s than previous stuff. Lyrics just can’t be changed because they flow so well. So I’m the one that has to change, I’m going to try to re-record the offending words in small phrases and then drop them in.

As an interesting aside while severely truncating certain frequencies I seem to remember someone commenting that it’s amazing how many producers severely curtail the overall frequency response for vocalists, i.e. nothing below 200-250Hz, or even higher, some severe notching in places above, and not a huge amount over 10k.

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