Singing through a microphone !

[dreamon999]

just recently I've started playing in a band again.. before I was just the guitarist, now Im also the vocalist. In the bedroom I thought my singing was pretty decent..

however, singing through a microphone (should note that there are no monitors in the rehearsal space) has totally thrown me off. Only natural of course, hearing your voice coming from a totally different position than you're used to.

However, my question is... does this simply take practice, getting used to, or is there some trick Im not aware of? And do monitors solve this problem completely? Any advice/experience with this would be much appreciated.

Cheers

[Dr_simon]

There are lots of tricks, the first is to be able to hear your self properly. The next is to get to know your range and don’t stretch too far beyond that range so straining your voice. You will know when you have done this as it will hurt ! Also making exaggerated shapes with your lips to help form sounds can help with clarity, don’t mumble, if you have something to say, say it and don’t be shy !!!!! Also learn about switching between your chest and head voices (chest voice is bloomy and head voice is squeaky). Good control of this can also help with clarity.

The next thing is to sort out some EQ, which can make a huge difference! The optimal settings will vary from gig to gig depending on the size and shape of the room so don’t be afraid to experiment. EQ can de-muddy a voice and make it sound clearer. The best way of doing this is cutting mid frequencies and boosting treble (careful with that feedback now !).

Following that you may want to experiment with effects (delay / reverb / chorus etc.... you know the score if you play the guitar !!) of which there are many. If you are recording compression is a must though not so important for playing live. Digitech do a thing called a Vocalist 300 which I’m about to get hold of specifically for vocals, I can let you know if it is any good. I think it is about $200.00

When I was working as a soundman we got by with a Midiverb II a 7 band EQ and a desk which went into a 1k rig (All for 3 vocals).

The next thing you might want to consider is experimenting with backing vocals, these can make the difference between sounding like a high-school bad and a professional band. They may take a while to get right but it is worth it !

Stick with it dude, the more you sing the better you will sound. I remember frightening old ladies and making small children cry (unintentionally this time) when I started singing. I gets better just stick at it !!!

[PonyOne]

Another thing you'll notice, something that made me feel a helluva lot better when I started singing, is that your voice usually sounds a thousand times better with music behind it.

What I did was sing through my amp via a Shure mic and into my four track. What I was doing was singing along to songs I knew well as they played, and then listening to them afterwards. Man, I wanted to kill myself! I felt like going and hiding in a closet, and carving SINNER into my skin a few dozen times.

After awhile, I put the vocal tracks on my computer, and then deleted the vocals from the song in question, and played them over, after adjusting for volume, etc. and it didn't sound half bad. And then when I isolated vocal tracks from my favorite songs minus the instruments, they sounded pretty bad on their own too.

If you think of songs like lullabies, religious hymns, etc, most of those songs are meant to be sung minus any instruments. So when you sing rockabye baby, your voice forms the highs, the lows, the mids, the rythm, the lead. When you're playing in a band, just like a guitar or bass or drums, your voice has its own part that plays off of the rest of the music. So get together with your band, start playing a song, and then add some vocals. record it & play it back, and it probably won't sound as bad as you think. And the Doc is right, backing vocals can help, just as a second guitar can.

It's just like when I first heard a recordin gof myself and thought "hey, that's pretty good, I actually sound like a guitarist!", there was a first time that I heard myself singing over a song and thought "hey, not bad, we actually sound like a rock band."

Don't try to do every kind of vocal, and don't try & sound like anyone. Just do what fits your music and feels right.

[dreamon999]

Thanks for the replies guys- fiddling with the EQ is something I should be able to check out next time I'm at rehearsal.

Perhaps I wasn't totally clear in my original post though- my problem isn't really that I think my voice isn't good enough, it's simply that as soon as I sing through a microphone, I'm unable to sing in tune because I hear myself completely differently compared to singing without a mic (similiar to your first experiencies PonyOne ;) ).

Whereas when I sing the same song without a mic with, say, an acoustic guitar it sounds fine (to my own ears).

Dr_Simon: you mentioned the first trick is to "hear yourself properly". I understand this is what monitors are for? And that the definition of hearing yourself properly implies that the singer hears his own voice as if he wasn't singing through a PA system at all? I'm affraid I don't have any fancy equipment to my disposal.

I suppose what I'm really after is people who have experienced the same problem, to re-assure me it'll pass in time ;) . If you have had a similiar experience with "learning how to sing, *again*" please do share!

Cheers

[kimbob]

Monitors will help, but if you're singing out of tune a little you will have to work on that a bit. Your voice will sound alot different with a pa system than it does just singing and playing the accoustic guitar. What kind of mic are you using? A cheap mic will give you nothing but trouble. What I do when I sing is get right on the mic. Put your lips right on it. Some effects allways help too. If you can't hear yourself in rehersals get closer to whatever speakers you are using or turn one of them towards you so you can hear yourself.

[PonyOne]

You may have to just ignore what you're hearing over the monitors, and just sing anyways, and then listen to the tape after the fact and see if it really sounds as bad as you think.

[Dr_simon]

Good kit is the answer.
Shure SM58 are the standard to go for (about 100 USD). You cant plug these into a guitar amp without it sounding horrendous (Low Z output from a mic, not line / guitar level) which means some type of dedicated mic amplification is required. Fender do a Passport PA system which is probably a good place to start. As for cheep / hi impedance mics, Im with kimbob, they will give you nothing but grief !!!! Unfortunately this is one of those problems that is made a lot better by throwing cash at it.
As for monitors, well when you are practicing, if you are using a sort of PA thing, you can always turn the speakers to face you and adjust the volume / gain so that they don’t feed back (your mics will be pointing away from the speakers which should help also !).
Best of luck Dude
S