i've sung since discovering choir and acapella at age 16. gave it up right after college. never thought i'd return to it again.
discovery this year is despite being almost 40 and obviously busy/an engineer/founder who will never make it professionally, you CAN still find outlets to indulge in the creative side and perform for others! https://x.com/swyx/status/2043217991589102027
its scary but it stretches you in new ways and yeah, it keeps you young and optimistic that you can do things you've never done!
It's especially gratifying (in my experience) to sing in a choir. I've been in the same chamber vocal group[1] for almost 20 years, and it has enriched my life in so many ways. I count the other members of the group as some of my closest friends.
Many areas have ensembles with a range of experience levels and commitment requirements. Now is a great time to look up local ensembles and see when they hold auditions (most of them are probably within the next few months).
For me the question often is, how can I keep from singing badly on recordings? I've had enough vocal lessons to know that I'm not a naturally great singer. I have poor tone, even worse control, and my vibrato sounds ... bad.
Time adjustments: I use Logic's "flex time" for this. Having your vocals land crisply on the beats you're aiming for really improves the sound of things musically. It also helps in the next step.
Comping: Comping is where you create a good composite track out of a bunch of mediocre ones. Swipe-to-comp in Logic is pretty great, the way it does auto fades between comp sections to avoid zero-line crossing clicks and pops really helps.
Tuning: I use flex in Logic. I try not to overdo it, you can easily introduce bad-sounding tuning artifacts if you're not careful. I have to force myself to not attempt to tune every note, just the really wrong ones. It helps to map out the notes of the melody that's in your head on another instrument.
Double up: Once you have a bunch of unique tuned comps that are mostly time aligned to each other, you can thicken the sound a lot by layering them. Choruses need big vocals right? You can use your extra tuned and tightened tracks to double (or triple, quadruple) up your vocals and pan them left/right to make them sound bigger and better. Because they're unique tracks and not copies this will sound wide, and because you left in some minor timing slop, it will sound tight, but not robotic. You can also use doubles in non-chorus parts to emphasize certain words or phrases.
Harmony: Harmony tracks can really sweeten and thicken a vocal. It'll definitely help to learn some music theory to understand the right notes for your harmony parts, but you can also just do it by ear. I take a one of my comps, and push the notes around with tuning software so it becomes a harmony against the lead vocal. Sometimes these extreme tuned artificial harmonies can sound robotic, but if you blend them in subtly and/or play with the formants they can work well. If not, you can use them as a guide track to re-record organic parts, but that's more work. Use harmony parts the same way you might use doubles.
Even if you can't sing well, you can still make pretty good vocal music these days using technology.
i've sung since discovering choir and acapella at age 16. gave it up right after college. never thought i'd return to it again.
discovery this year is despite being almost 40 and obviously busy/an engineer/founder who will never make it professionally, you CAN still find outlets to indulge in the creative side and perform for others! https://x.com/swyx/status/2043217991589102027
its scary but it stretches you in new ways and yeah, it keeps you young and optimistic that you can do things you've never done!
It's especially gratifying (in my experience) to sing in a choir. I've been in the same chamber vocal group[1] for almost 20 years, and it has enriched my life in so many ways. I count the other members of the group as some of my closest friends.
Many areas have ensembles with a range of experience levels and commitment requirements. Now is a great time to look up local ensembles and see when they hold auditions (most of them are probably within the next few months).
[1] https://thechoralscholars.com
For me the question often is, how can I keep from singing badly on recordings? I've had enough vocal lessons to know that I'm not a naturally great singer. I have poor tone, even worse control, and my vibrato sounds ... bad.
Time adjustments: I use Logic's "flex time" for this. Having your vocals land crisply on the beats you're aiming for really improves the sound of things musically. It also helps in the next step.
Comping: Comping is where you create a good composite track out of a bunch of mediocre ones. Swipe-to-comp in Logic is pretty great, the way it does auto fades between comp sections to avoid zero-line crossing clicks and pops really helps.
Tuning: I use flex in Logic. I try not to overdo it, you can easily introduce bad-sounding tuning artifacts if you're not careful. I have to force myself to not attempt to tune every note, just the really wrong ones. It helps to map out the notes of the melody that's in your head on another instrument.
Double up: Once you have a bunch of unique tuned comps that are mostly time aligned to each other, you can thicken the sound a lot by layering them. Choruses need big vocals right? You can use your extra tuned and tightened tracks to double (or triple, quadruple) up your vocals and pan them left/right to make them sound bigger and better. Because they're unique tracks and not copies this will sound wide, and because you left in some minor timing slop, it will sound tight, but not robotic. You can also use doubles in non-chorus parts to emphasize certain words or phrases.
Harmony: Harmony tracks can really sweeten and thicken a vocal. It'll definitely help to learn some music theory to understand the right notes for your harmony parts, but you can also just do it by ear. I take a one of my comps, and push the notes around with tuning software so it becomes a harmony against the lead vocal. Sometimes these extreme tuned artificial harmonies can sound robotic, but if you blend them in subtly and/or play with the formants they can work well. If not, you can use them as a guide track to re-record organic parts, but that's more work. Use harmony parts the same way you might use doubles.
Even if you can't sing well, you can still make pretty good vocal music these days using technology.
Enya?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MM8mOKfxmWw
Great post, and I instantly recognised the lyric; love Enya <3