I gotta a problem with my singer PLEASE HELP!!!

B

budda963

New member
I have this gurl who can sing her ass off live and looks good too! the only problem is, it seems like as soon as she steps in the booth she develops pitch issues. Here voice still sounds full and beautiful she jus misses notes that she dosent miss when we're not recording.... WHAT THE HELL DO I DO. I have protools and im thinking about getting a pitch plug in but I have no idea wich one to get... any suggestions? also is there any thing else i can do... thanx in advance
 
You mean like a Britney Spears effect? If she can hit the note elsewhere, don't mess with the pitch. Just keep trying until she gets a good take. Have her warm up. Otherwise your track is bad to begin with. Don't flood the scene with fake stuff.
 
In this day and age, people abuse the vocal pitch correction tools (in my opinion). They no longer sit in the studio and take multipled hours on one verse just to get it correct.

Me being a vocalist, take it personal if I would need to use pitch correction software. I try to get it correct, and if I don't, kee trying.

The next best thing is to comp. your tracks. Have the singer sing multipled takes, and then pick the best parts of each into one.
 
I'm surprised no one mentioned that as the recording engineer, you're responsible for keeping her environment comfortable for her. Say the right things to get the message across without accidentally saying the wrong thing to worsen her anxiety. Encourage her.
 
theirs lots of things that u could do but we are not their to vibe out to know what REAL situation ur in? is she over worked? scared? not compfy? over confident?

some times certian parts of the beat can throw ppl off so take as many elements of the beat out and get her to sing. do retakes, have a piano their and paly the notes shes suposed to sing.

ive had this problem too. some times they try to hard so u gotta make them stop and not think just fell, tell them to dance to the beat a lil just vibe out get them to laugh.

i had one guy who could NOT get his last line right he kept rapping and raping and nothing so i told him...

"close ur eyes...k now take a deep breath.....now imagine a donkey kicking a garbage can...."

he laughted is ass off so we hit record and BAM 100% dead on.

that what makes a great producer is finding why **** is ****ing up and knowing how to resolve the issues and it takes time to learn.
 
Could also have something to do with the mix in her cans. Maybe try bringing up something in the mix that will help her pitch, or bring in a note from a piano at the start so she can pitch to that

Good luck!
 
Your problem isn't at technical one. She thinks you look cute with headphones on and it's making her nervous... That said the soloution is obvious, not to mention imperitive for the maintanance of your self respect: Get her pissed, root her brains out in the recording booth and do the take!
 
JustJono said:
I'm surprised no one mentioned that as the recording engineer, you're responsible for keeping her environment comfortable for her. Say the right things to get the message across without accidentally saying the wrong thing to worsen her anxiety. Encourage her.
Click to expand...

Actually more the record producer's job, but the recording engineer can assist.
 
The best pitch correction is not using ANY - get a vocalist that can actually f@@king sing instead... rather than wannabes doing it because they like the way they look in photos in front of a mic with headphones on....

BFY
rolleyes.gif



Anyways - to answer the original poster's question... sometimes wearing headphones throws off the apparent pitch for a singer - especially if there is a lot of low-frequency content, so often a singer will move one of the headphone sides off the ear, so that they can hear the natural pitch of their voice.

Another option is not using headphones at all, and put a monitor in front of them, but connected out of phase, so that the bleed from the monitor can be minimized.
 
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Blue Bear Sound said:
The best pitch correction is not using ANY - get a vocalist that can actually f@@king sing instead... rather than wannabes doing it because they like the way they look in photos in front of a mic with headphones on....

BFY
rolleyes.gif
Click to expand...
Cosign, if she can't get it right in the booth, she's not ready. send her to artist development and vocal classes.
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
Anyways - to answer the original poster's question... sometimes wearing headphones throws off the apparent pitch for a singer - especially if there is a lot of low-frequency content, so often a singer will move one of the headphone sides off the ear, so that they can hear the natural pitch of their voice.
Click to expand...

Right on!!! I believe her problems is that sure she can sing her ass off when she has the headphones off, but when she puts them on and she is monitoring her voice she isnt used to it yet and hears her voice for what it is. She is so used to hearing and singing from inside herself, the way it sounds to her from inside her head, and now she is hearing herself from the outside know what Im saying. I had the same problems at first. Just have to get used to it. Takes some time. Also run her voice through some reverb to give her a boost of confidence if thats what it is.
 
Every vocalist is different. I have the same problem as a singer. I've learned that if I lower my volume in the headphones to practically nothing (while keeping the other tracks up) and actually listen to myself (by taking one headphone off my ear) I stay on pitch better. You might have a little track bleed, but it works for me.
 
A way to avoid bleeding is using a short range dynamic mic. May not get as good of quality as a really good condenser mic, but will give way better results than multiple tracks with sound bleeding into them. Especially if you plan to later arrange the beat around her vocals.
 
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