When John Drinks

May 26, 2014 9:49 AM

Cover of When John Drinksby AstroZombie For all the Johns I know.

AstroZombie's original hit me like a punch to the stomach.
I hope my inept rendition won't hit him like a slap in the face.

I know so many Johns. They are all miserable. I wish I could help them, but I don't know how.

I gave up trying to make the main vocals sound good and instead decided to post my results so far and ask for help.

Please help me. In my head I sound ok but recorded I sound like I sing through a pillow. Am I making any obvious misstakes?
I'm recording with a Behringer C-1. Instruments and speech recordings sound reasonable so I think it's my singing technique thats faulty.

posted by AxelT (5 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

I love it.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:10 AM on May 26, 2014


Fun track! I think your voice sounds fine here, but I used to think the pillow thing about my voice, and the answer for me was just moving farther away from the mic. If that doesn't do it for you, maybe add touch of reverb on the vocals. The pillowscape is notorious for it's lack of reverb.
posted by TheNegativeInfluence at 8:23 PM on May 26, 2014


@Bunny Ultramod
That is a joy and relief to hear. Thank you!

@TheNegativeInfluence
Thank you!
It is true that my lips were basically touching the mic. I will experiment with the mic placement in the future. I think I need to build some kind of noice screen to put behind the mic though; lest I make cars and barking dogs permanent contributors to my recordings.
posted by AxelT at 10:15 PM on May 26, 2014


Good job~! I'll second the singing too close to the mic thing. I've struggled with my vocals for a while now and it's helped sing a bit farther back. Other obvious tricks I've been playing with is double vocal tracks or a bit of delay. I think there are a lot of things you can do with track doubling, like parallel compression or changing the pitch slightly of one track...
posted by cicadaverse at 6:27 AM on May 28, 2014


Thank you for all your suggestions!
I still think there is a problem with my song technique though. I've done a bit of research and diagnosed myself as not "singing free". That is, my larynx is raised and the muscles around my throat are all tense.

If anybody has any tips on good self study materials for voice training don't hesitate to comment.
posted by AxelT at 8:21 AM on May 28, 2014


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