Please Give Me Your Honest Opinion

JanEarl

This isn't a power belter...matter of fact it's an "undersing" song, so I had to hold back in order not to take away from the styling of the song.

naj rellim · Fragile Cover

Klaus_T

wow, this sounds pretty professional

JanEarl

Thanks very much Klaus! I'll try to record a song that has more "oomph" or should I say "dynamics" to it. But I just love this song by Sting. The song is so good that the singer only has to not screw it up.

My "recording rig" is very simple and inexpensive.

• A refurbished Mac mini ($225),
• GarageBand DAW (free on Macs),
• a Sennheiser dynamic mic ($125),
• Ibanez nylon string guitar ($300),
• my old M-Audio M-Track ($50 used),
• and a Rogue violin bass ($125).

GarageBand is so user friendly that I practice my KT exercises on it: one track for Ken's audio, another track for me so I can record each day and play it back immediately to pick my scales apart.

Wigs

I think you did a good job with it. The breathy tone suits the song and I could hear you pushing into the sound then quickly pulling back to not over sing it. I guess that's the only real thing that stood out, just finalising that consistency for the whole song.

JanEarl

Thanks Wigs! You're so right about that urge I kept feeling to "push into the sound, then quickly pulling back to not over-sing it. Way back in 2004, I sang that with a live band and a string ensemble in a theater in front of 2500 people. It was an internal struggle for me then to not do my usual "rock band roar" and instead keep it breathy and "Sting-like".
Then for the past three years I worked as a lead guitarist/backup singer in an acoustic trio, after I had spent ten years fronting a rock band. In the trio when we were doing our sound check, the lead vocalist told me that I needed to back off the mic. I asked "How far do you want me to back off?" He replied "About two city blocks would do."