Monday, February 23, 2009

My voice singing Dixie, second attempt

The previous version of 'Dixie' ( http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-voice-singing-dixie-first-attempt-at.html ) I used just two vocals tracks. The latest version, linked to in this blog post, I used four vocal tracks.

The production process was that I had a track that was a loop of about the first 20 secs of Dixie, repeated seven times. To this was added vocals recorded four different ways using different audio effects.

The previous version I just took the vocals that accompanied the first of the seven repeats, from two of the four vocal tracks.

This version, I used: the vocals accompanying the 6th repeat of the 20 secs of Dixie from one vocals track; the vocals accompanying the 6th repeat from a second vocals track; the vocals accompanying the 5th repeat from a third vocals track; and the vocals accompanying the 2nd repeat of the 20 secs of Dixie from a fourth vocals track. I had progressed in techno-knowledge to the point where I could do this.

I found that the first ten attempts I made at singing the first 20 secs of 'Dixie' were incompetent. But after this the attempts became better and better until at the end the majority were competent attempts.

Problem is that the later attempts that were more competent, were made using hyped up audio effects that produced a sound that was too loud and too echoish.

I was able to correct the extreme loudness and echoishness and improve the sound on these attempts simply by creating a 'voice envelope' and reducing the volume for these attempts.

The vocals for this version, were done as follows: mouth about two feet from microphone; headphone playing music I was singing along with on shelf about two feet from my head (so a very low volume of it was heard); 'echo', which produces an unrecorded echo of the input into the microphone on, but heard only at a very low volume through the headphones. Perhaps for the track that was made using no effects whatsoever I had the mic closer to my mouth not sure.

I felt that the echo I could hear of the input into the microphone, by turning the echo option on, was very important for someone who has a pathological tendency to be out of tune such as myself. I also realized how being able to hear the music I was singing along with would help with this. But I had gotten so sick of hearing 'Dixie' that I could no longer tolerate hearing it through the headphones on my head, and so simply listed to the faint noise coming from headphones on the shelf.

Time and experimentation will tell whether I should have the headphones playing the music I sing along with on my ears when I sing, what the optimal setup for hearing the echo of my voice is, etc etc.


The vocals for this version were produced before I went on my six mile jog, not after, although I suspect that such vocals will come out better after the jog as opposed to before.

The vocals for this version were made while I was what I call "under the weather".

The vocals for this version were all done at a low volume so as not to disturb the neighbors, at night after most everyone had gone to sleep. This also was, I estimate, a disadvantage.

I wonder whether I am too critical with myself. Being incompetent at singing for two to seven minutes, and then attaining to a moderate level of competence, is not that bad for someone who basically has'nt done any singing for years.

Could be music is similar to other subjects I have improved alot in simply through: perseverance, attention, application of cunning/wiliness/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, effort.

The version linked to in the previous blog post and this version are both based on a recording session of Feb 10, late at night.

This latest version of Dixie can be accessed through the following link:

Feb 23 version of Dixie-- 4 vocals tracks + tambourine percussion added to 1916 version of 'Dixie':
http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=5772523.wav

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