what is going on in your musical life

the time of day can really affect how i sound. baritones = morning, falsettos = evening. That's what I've found. I'm not sure where I sit on the vocal scale, think i might have a fairly wide range but it would be interesting to speak to someone who knows their shit and tell me what range i'm best at.

Anyway, back to this possibly-tedious side-track w sarahell--

I'm going to ignore the personal comments and stuff like "weird persecution complex" because it suggests there are hurt feelings involved? which there aren't, glad to be here etc.--

And wrt "there are no shitty songs" that is an inaccurate paraphrase of what I was saying above, but for clarity: I am saying that it is rare in my experience that an album can be sunk by shitty songs alone, mix has to be bad too--

but in response to the perceived specificity of my argument to the Pitchfork set-- not an unfair assumption I guess but still an assumption-- tbh the two records I was thinking about most when it came to "mix makes the record" were Godspeed's latest (two-inch-tape, Neotek board, best sounding room in the country) and the Goslings record that won the Archive Records poll which was according to the press release: "lovingly recorded to two-inch tape" also the disparity in quality between the good C Spencer Yeh records and less good ones, all mix issues to my ears as his writing is consistently good, and loads of classical recordings where the performance is secondary to the recording quality. Also when I say "it's a good mix" or "well-mixed" that doesn't necessarily mean "hi-fi" at all, it means that the sonics of the recording are great, the terms of which vary from genre to genre

xpost

Haha, thanks dude! I was functionally tone deaf as a high school theater kid to the point where I could only get non-singing roles in musicals (so I never got to realize my dream of playing Pontius Pilate) and I still think of myself that way sometimes but I've come a long way and I'm feeling pumped about this new album.

Also definitely agreed re time of day, early morning is Stephin Merritt/Tom Waits/Leonard Cohen time.

xp - thanks for the thorough explanation!

catching up w/ this thread

i really like recording vocals. they are my favorite thing to record! a lot of the feelings expressed itt about recording vox apply more to recording guitar for me.

the one advantage to recording vocals over recording guitar is that when I botch a vocal line, I don't have the ability to fling my vocal cords across the room in anger.

(this is one reason I quit playing guitar).

something about recording makes me sings better than normal. something about the pressure and the concentration and the otherwise silent room

my musical life is ruling atm

- old band that was in what looked like a terminal rut now blazing hot productive and making our best music ever after some instrumentation changes (went from 2 guitars, drums to guitar, bass, drums) and spending our writing block learning covers & getting high and just generally bonding as bros (if not as musicians). playing a sweet bill next weekend and i think we're gonna kill it

- putting on a show this weekend as a fundraiser to meet my radio show's goal in the station's upcoming funding drive. i had been really lazy and shitty about it and thought it was not going to happen until i got my shit together and everything fell into place so beautifully at the last minute

ps just wanted to say i love reading this thread/board so much because of the variety of backgrounds of everyone posting in it. even if i don't always understand some of the technical stuff the real heads are talking about it's just so rad that artists coming from such difft places can support each other & give tips, advice etc. \m/ <3

I might have found my Twitter niche; a capella champion. Just had two separate a capella groups follow me, including a group who made the finals of The Sing Off the year Pentatonix won.

I don't know precisely how I feel about this but I think it might rule?

plz start a capella beefs a la azealia

omg that would be AMAZING

"hey Vocal Point, I heard that Urban Method ganked your arrangement of 'Wrecking Ball'" *sits back, smiles*

dreamt that I fucked up somehow while trying to set up a guitar and ended up with scalloped frets.

Did you unleash the fucking fury?

had really good band practice yesterday. playing first show next month!

I tracked lead vocals for 6 more songs over the weekend. I tried to start on a 7th but it was one of the hardest to sing and my voice was feeling pretty ragged at that point so I decided to end the day there. 9 lead vocals done, 2 to go, plus an assload of harmonies, which I keep adding to every time I think about it. Things have been moving pretty quickly though, and I think I like how it sounds.

Had a GREAT concert with the spiritual ensemble in CT yesterday; now just need to gear up for next week's concert with the church choir

My ex R has loaned me his Tele for a bit. I need to PRACTICE MY GUITAR PLAYING BECAUSE IT SUCKS.

so I go to my caroling company rehearsal the other night. I've been doing this four years, and I know most of the songs, but don't know all 70+ of them (as most don't). nonetheless, it's all going well, but we get to Good King Wenceslas, so I pull the lyrics up on my cell phone cuz I'm notoriously terrible memorizing words and still need help on that one. Pretentious tenor guy was like "WOW, THERE MUST BE SOMETHING REALLY INTERESTING ON YOUR PHONE", to which I shot back "I'm...just looking at words" and he replies "glad you're still with us."

DUDE - THIS IS A SEASONAL CAROLING GIG IN CENTRAL FLORIDA. where do you get all that pretension from.

so I killed him in front of his kids natch

I made accidental vaporware today

all my songs are sounding like songs now btw I am really happy

those of you singers, what mics do you swear by (if any)

live or studio?

studio

i have a gefell umt70s which i think almost any voice sounds fantastic on

i thought i was happy with how my new EP sounded but then i heard it on Spotify via my girlfriend's laptop's speakers and i wanted to die.

― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, October 8, 2013 4:28 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

update to this, i heard Yeezus on the same laptop speakers and now i don't feel bad at all.

lol Jordan

re: mics, I have a Yeti Blue with both USB and XLR outputs that I probably paid too much for but I've been happy with it for my ILX comp contributions

I carry around a Sennheiser 431, it's great for any live situation and good in studio.

I have a RODE NT1 on loan from a friend, and I love it. Its not high end but it poos all over the beaten up Shure I'd been using. That said, being a studio condender mic it picks up every tiny sound and reverb around, so I am still trying to work out how to fix my room to stop all the icky room reverb. I dont have the space or means to make any kind of vocal booth sadly.

condenser mic. Gah I need coffee.

i like those NT1s a lot

although lately for small instruments and percussion i've just been using the internal mic on my sampler or my Edirol, i feel like it gives it a little more character and grit to start with.

Yeah, unless I want to record something just to fuck with for sampling or beat-making purposes, I just use the mic from my Sony recorder

something = small instruments and percussion

you make beats, sarahell?

My roomie has a handheld digital recorder of some sort. I imagine that'd be handy for field recordings/sampling. Must borrow it off him and try some DiscoInferno style mishmashes.

xp - I do for one of the bands I'm in. It made more sense aesthetically for me to have beats on a sampler than play drums live

My wife got me a PPA ID-3 a few years ago and I just use that for everything. I've got some 57s somewhere too but I'm not sure where.

I had a pretty unprepared and pedestrian jam session this weekend, still it was nice playing amplified with others for once.

Finished tracking vocals today! Whew. Now it's mixing time.

here's my next gig:

http://friendsofjcmc.org/

whoa, looks awesome!

wow, do you know what tunes you're doing?

Nope! Arrangements are still being written.

We have a list of 11 songs from our rep that are on the table, the only one I know is definite is a medley:

I've Been 'Buked
Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child
Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen
You Must Have That True Religion

and there's a rhythm section, right?

do you know this record?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uC3_DAysO4

They have a rhythm section, yeah; we're a capella except for the as-yet-unarranged pieces we're doing together. The concert is basically three sections, with each section having a bit done just by NESE, a bit done just by JCMCE, and a bit done by us all together.

man what a record, i forgot about it until now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfoou9UKUls

also I did not know this record and I will be consuming this over the weekend

played 2nd to last at a rager of a Halloween party -- was drunk enough to have plugged the sampler into an output channel of my mixer, but not too drunk so I was able to realize the error and fix it before complaining to the sound guy.

played at a halloween masquerade show thing on thurs with some of my girlfriends as the GoGos. it was really fun, and my experience playing lead guit in public!

sadly, there was a huge clusterfuck of equipment by the stage (every band brought their own gear, nothing was shared - p dumb tbh) and lots of things were stolen, including my guitar. :(

same thing happened at the show I played -- re: the clusterfuck of gear -- having to forage through stacks of amps and guitar bags to find your gear when everyone was wasted -- yeah, I'm sure someone accidentally walked off with someone else's stuff.