fake empire - the national.
the kick drum, piano and bass are all reason'd although i recorded the guitar stuff without a metronome so it's all played "live" rather than sequenced. mistakes aplenty.
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Fake Empire Cover
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Fake Empire Cover
sunday afternoon cover time!
fake empire - the national.
the kick drum, piano and bass are all reason'd although i recorded the guitar stuff without a metronome so it's all played "live" rather than sequenced. mistakes aplenty.
fake empire - the national.
the kick drum, piano and bass are all reason'd although i recorded the guitar stuff without a metronome so it's all played "live" rather than sequenced. mistakes aplenty.
Last edited by Reece on Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
A bit of a recording tip -
Try singing slightly further back from the mic, or sing a little more across it. You're getting quite a lot of proximity effect (bass boost from being too close to the mic) and as you move slightly closer and further away from the mic the proximity effect moves with you and you get an uneven bass response that's difficult to fix with EQ (you'd have to automate the bejesus out of it and it would be near impossible to get it to sound natural). It sounds good now, but I'm guessing that if you had a bit of a go at EQ'ing you found it difficult to do much with the vocal because of it.
I think you were aware of the proximity effect (perhaps doing the vocal take with headphones on where you could hear yourself?) and the way you've sang it have made it a little more nasal than your natural voice would be as you try to avoid the proximity effect booming. You also pick up a few little clicks and things through having your mouth close to the mic.
It's a cheesy method but spread one of your hands out, put your thumb on your nose and let the tip of your little finger reach the mic. You can probably go a bit closer than that but it's a reasonable and 'versatile' distance for vocal recording. I remember engineering a session with around 10 kids, all about 10 years old. They wrote a song in the morning and recorded it in the afternoon. I came up with that stretched out hand method as a way to make them remember to not get too close to the mic (although in their case it was mostly for volume jump reasons rather than proximity effect), and then I think I saw the same method used somewhere else so perhaps it's a standard thing.
Anyway a bit further back and you'll lose a bit of that bassiness and be able to EQ a little more freely, it'll also get your more of that 'breathy' sound that it sounds like you want.
Try singing slightly further back from the mic, or sing a little more across it. You're getting quite a lot of proximity effect (bass boost from being too close to the mic) and as you move slightly closer and further away from the mic the proximity effect moves with you and you get an uneven bass response that's difficult to fix with EQ (you'd have to automate the bejesus out of it and it would be near impossible to get it to sound natural). It sounds good now, but I'm guessing that if you had a bit of a go at EQ'ing you found it difficult to do much with the vocal because of it.
I think you were aware of the proximity effect (perhaps doing the vocal take with headphones on where you could hear yourself?) and the way you've sang it have made it a little more nasal than your natural voice would be as you try to avoid the proximity effect booming. You also pick up a few little clicks and things through having your mouth close to the mic.
It's a cheesy method but spread one of your hands out, put your thumb on your nose and let the tip of your little finger reach the mic. You can probably go a bit closer than that but it's a reasonable and 'versatile' distance for vocal recording. I remember engineering a session with around 10 kids, all about 10 years old. They wrote a song in the morning and recorded it in the afternoon. I came up with that stretched out hand method as a way to make them remember to not get too close to the mic (although in their case it was mostly for volume jump reasons rather than proximity effect), and then I think I saw the same method used somewhere else so perhaps it's a standard thing.
Anyway a bit further back and you'll lose a bit of that bassiness and be able to EQ a little more freely, it'll also get your more of that 'breathy' sound that it sounds like you want.
Shabba.
i always sing too close, it's a strange habit. it might have been me subconciously trying to get my voice a bit bassier than it naturally is. the original singer's voice is lower and has a bit more of a booming presence than mine.
i wasn't really going for a breathy sound though, i was just singing it as it comes naturally to me. i could have done it a bit louder i suppose but i get proper self concious singing in halls.
i think ima redo the vocal take and see how it goes.
i wasn't really going for a breathy sound though, i was just singing it as it comes naturally to me. i could have done it a bit louder i suppose but i get proper self concious singing in halls.
i think ima redo the vocal take and see how it goes.
cheers mike, i love the piano in the original song, it's so simple but it works really well.
updated vocals, less boomy. i tried to go a bit louder but my voice was being arsey, as heard during the last verse & chorus. cheers for the tip james, hopefully it'll stay in me head now.
i also changed a few other things i think.
updated original post too.
updated vocals, less boomy. i tried to go a bit louder but my voice was being arsey, as heard during the last verse & chorus. cheers for the tip james, hopefully it'll stay in me head now.
i also changed a few other things i think.
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robert(original)
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