[tboswell]

I've been thinking about this again and remembered something I struggle with is breath control.

I tend to forget to breathe properly when doing vocals and it leads to weak and badly tuned singing. If I find that I am struggling I just try really concentrating on my breathing and getting it full and in time. It often improves things greatly when I start to focus on my breathing.

I guess when you play with just an instrument, you can take your time and adjust the timings to your breath but the click track waits for no man, so it is suddenly different when you do a studio vocal.

That's my advice, concentrate on your breath and everything else should follow.

[delb0y]

Good and interesting topic.

I agree re. breath - in my attempts to improve my singing I've found that following advice regarding breathing properly for singing has had the single greatest effect on my voice. When I'm recording it's no good me trying to do a take if I've just walked up the stairs!

[PaulAds]

 Yes...some great advice in here... Neil's is an absolute belter of an idea...to sing the first verse later on in the song and then cut-and-paste it in...I do that a lot.

And, as the guys say...breath is so important with singing...I'm forever forgetting to bear that in mind and tend to run out of steam on long passages.

I tried recently to recreate a "live EP" of some old songs we used to gig...and I found that Tinam's idea of singing without headphones and using your speakers for monitoring worked really well...the spill wasn't much of a problem and possibly added to the "live" feel.

Great thread 

[The S]

I get it sometimes but have tried and am trying a few of the tips mentioned earlier in this excellent thread.

Singing the first verse over the second is a brilliant idea. Haven't tried it.

Here's what I'll do to loosen up when the red light's on:

1 - I sometimes sing without headphones, depending on the song it sometimes work and sometimes not.
2 - Very often I do what Paul does, remove my left (it's always the left for some reason) headphone but keep the right one on. This usually works.
3 - I practice singing the song (I tell myself) while having the red light on, I'm stupid like that and very often it's one of these takes that makes it.
4 - I try as often as I can to sit and noodle and sing with the headphones and red light on just to get used to it.
5 - If none of these things work, right before I start recording, I listen to a couple of songs I like, like really listen, to songs that sound a bit like the one I'm working on. I listen to how they sing, how they articulate and what feeling they try to convey and I then try to get into that mood and copy that feeling. Shortly thereafter I record. It usually works wonders.

Cheers,

S

Edit: Oh I almost forgot, what I've stopped doing is to record a demo take. You know when the lyrics are only half finished or sometimes there aren't even an existing lyrics. I've stopped doing that completely. That only leads to a demo recording you will fall in love with and in the end is absolutely impossible to match and it only increases the pressure when you're ready to record the actual vocals. No demos, record only what you're ready to keep is my final advice.

[Skub]

For me, it's hearing my vocals in the headphones that messes with my brain.
So I don't monitor my vocals that way. I simply remove one side of the headset from my "better" ear.
That way I hear my voice acoustically in one ear, and the backing track (with no vocals) in the other ear while I'm singing into the mic.
Won't be for everyone but works for me
Paul

Yep,that works for me too. It seems more like singing live instead of isolated doing karaoke.

The red light thing? I had that in Amsterdam once...damn it itched forever.