All Right Now - Free (Rough Demo)
TommyM
Pro Posts: 270
I'd tried to post this yesterday but had to edit the link to Soundcloud, which then messed up the post and put it into moderation so I'm hoping this doesn't double-post. This is the dry vocal I threw over the wedding band's demos and sent to them to mix yesterday for their client. I did my own quick mix and just threw a wee bit of compression and EQ on to sit it above the music, but aside from that it's untouched. I'm fairly happy with it as a basic vocal as it's my first belting with distortion for a long time, but I have a few questions as there's LOADS of stuff I'm not happy about from a technical standpoint...
- It feels like I'm still set to default to distortion when belting up into the 4th octave, but only at volume. This track was the first time in over a year where I really felt I was using a lot of volume and I know I'm still hitting an unhealthy distortion at times. It feels like maybe 70/30 proper hyper-glottal compression vs. bad technique so I know it's improving a bit, but I'm also super paranoid about going too far. Ideally, I wanted to sing this as cleanly as possible but, as I said, I fear I've locked the chord into distorting once I go past a certain level of air pressure. Anyone else hear these distortions as being really sloppy? Would it be best to practice clean sliders with increasing volume to reset the chord at that level?
- I'm STILL struggling with consistently locking into the correct way of breathing. I feel like I can do it really solidly for a few lines, then I'll distract myself with something daft like using vowels correctly in the lower octaves. The feeling is totally different when doing it right, obviously, so falling back into the old "blow it like a foghorn" levels is really disconcerting and is kicking me in the confidence daily. I know this is probably a daft question anyway, but I'm guessing this just needs a LOT more practice. Are there specific exercises that would help with this?
- Vowel modifications are starting to feel more natural, but I'm concerned with the way I'm coming off of them and back into the root vowel. I'm also struggling with the correct mods on some stuff like on the "Love? Lord above, now you're trying to trick me in love" line where I think I'm choking off too much and not modifying early enough. Based on what you can hear here, am I leaving it too late to modify? Also, as an aside, am I handing off to the head too early?
Any help would be greatly appreciated...now I'm off to the dentist to get three teeth removed...hahaha!
- Tommy
- It feels like I'm still set to default to distortion when belting up into the 4th octave, but only at volume. This track was the first time in over a year where I really felt I was using a lot of volume and I know I'm still hitting an unhealthy distortion at times. It feels like maybe 70/30 proper hyper-glottal compression vs. bad technique so I know it's improving a bit, but I'm also super paranoid about going too far. Ideally, I wanted to sing this as cleanly as possible but, as I said, I fear I've locked the chord into distorting once I go past a certain level of air pressure. Anyone else hear these distortions as being really sloppy? Would it be best to practice clean sliders with increasing volume to reset the chord at that level?
- I'm STILL struggling with consistently locking into the correct way of breathing. I feel like I can do it really solidly for a few lines, then I'll distract myself with something daft like using vowels correctly in the lower octaves. The feeling is totally different when doing it right, obviously, so falling back into the old "blow it like a foghorn" levels is really disconcerting and is kicking me in the confidence daily. I know this is probably a daft question anyway, but I'm guessing this just needs a LOT more practice. Are there specific exercises that would help with this?
- Vowel modifications are starting to feel more natural, but I'm concerned with the way I'm coming off of them and back into the root vowel. I'm also struggling with the correct mods on some stuff like on the "Love? Lord above, now you're trying to trick me in love" line where I think I'm choking off too much and not modifying early enough. Based on what you can hear here, am I leaving it too late to modify? Also, as an aside, am I handing off to the head too early?
Any help would be greatly appreciated...now I'm off to the dentist to get three teeth removed...hahaha!
- Tommy
Comments
Sounds pretty good, I'll have to give it a relisten to give decent feedback.
First pass notices: I would personally ramp it up with vamps at the end like Paul did.
Contain. A little less volume. Don't let the notes expand so much, as they will tend to splat and distort. You'll need to cut back on the girth, too, up high. That weight adds to the tendency for the sound to splat.
Bay-be can be made into beh-be. RI-EEEET should be closer to Rah-t or RAA-eht to lessen the EE sound in there and open it up some.
When you hit with all of that volume on those high notes, it is just a touch over the line into loud distortion.
Can't go into much more detail outside of the student areas.
I keep forgetting that this is a public part of the forum...doh! I think I'm going to just stick to asking in the specific student areas and post scales etc, rather than full tracks so I can zero in on this stuff.
Muchly appreciated!
Cultivated and matured? or just a natural beautiful tone?