Vocalist.org archive


From:  Dre de Man <dredeman@y...>
Date:  Mon Apr 17, 2000  10:57 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] introduction & taping lessons


Oops... I sent the previous mail before it was ready:
here the corrected version:
> Tape recorders are about the worst machines you can
> think of to record music. Every tape recorder has
> it's
> own way of colouring tones, so no 2 machines will
> reproduce the tones the same. Then cheap microphones
> are crappy, and expensive microphones not used well,
> don't give a real image as well. Most recordings
> made
> in a lesson situation are made from very near, which
> makes your voice mostly darker and seem bigger.
> Main problems are 1stly colouration: the chain of
all the
> recording and reproducing things, can change all
> kind
> of tones for better and for worse, so beware.
> The second important problem is distortion: it will
add extra high
> frequencies that were not there, so a smooth tone
> will
> become less smooth, but a tone without ping, can
> sound
> as one with ping! Even a tone that is not smooth,
but bad placed, can sound better by adding distortion!
> Your speakers will probably distort the tones the
most: good ones (like Bowers & Wilkins top-line
series) are quite expensive. Then: if you don't place
the speakers right (like one under the table and the
other on the cupboard) they will still sound bad.
I think taping only gives a very limited image of
your voice, if you sing relatively well, you will
sound much better on stage.
How do I know this? I am a kind of recording freak,
and I recorded many voices, some of them professional,
and of course also my own, and I taped my lessons as
well, mostly using the cheap tape recorder my
ex-singing teacher has.
All this does not mean that if you sound well on tape,
you may not sing well: some people have an incredible
power of compensating for all the factors I mentioned
above, and somehow hear the real sound. Other people
also compensate, but only to protect their ego: they
make their own voice sound much more beautiful than it
is, but I thinks this is a minority.
In general I would say: check everything you think you
hear on a tape with people that know your voice and
that are honest to you, because it might not
necessairily exist in reality!


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