blue wrote:i highly recommend recording vox without monitoring the voice. someone.. George Massey, maybe, was bitching about vocalists who listen to themselves sing and end up chasing their voice in the cans rather than singing the part. at least with our singer, this is spot on.
blue is right. I like no vocal monitor and one headphone ear half off; sure there's a little monitor bleeding onto the vocal track, but it's more important to be in tune. If I sing monitored, I go sharp. Always. Every time. Even when I think I'm trying hard not to. "Chasing their voice in the cans" is absolutely, hilariously right.
I used to think it was because of the inevitable microseconds of delay; my brain is trying to correct yester-microsecond's pitch, which leads me farther off, so there's more correction...like vocal fish-tailing. But I think it's true of doubling a vocal track, too: I need to turn the original way, way down or I go sharp. Better yet, I've spent an hour or so singing along with the original so I get the timing and inflection down, then record the doubled track without any of the original. I've only had the disclipline to do that a couple times, but it works well.
"We don’t write songs about our own largely dull lives. We mostly rely on the time-tested gimmick of making shit up."
-John Linnell
