Your voice is lovely and clear, but somewhat distant from the Capture Mic. Common to situations "Wanting" more mic.s than one has.



Your interval and pitch control is a joy. The closing descant would only be better by the Capture.



FINE Showing.

Very Best Regards,

Cooper

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your compliments make me feel happy. but I don't know what you're talking about with the "capture mic"?

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*estella

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In the best of situations there is a Mic for every purpose.



Dedicated Vox (vocal), Inst (piano, guitar, etc), FX (room sound or ambiance - space around the energy). No distractions. Clear capture of all important sounds and their energy. An ideal, really; ususally a compromise is in order.



Point being, your voice is a strong and lovely instrument. The first commitment of equipment - microphones - should be to capture what your voice is up to, at any given moment.



Cooper

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"What you Don't use, You Lose." Get Rockin'

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Lovely song, soft melodies, pretty voice, solid lyrics.
I have a few recording/mixing thoughts. You could adjust this in GB by reducing some of the high frequencies and boosting low frequencies. There is a master track equalizer where you can easily do that. You can eliminate the hiss in the track and add a full richer bottom end by using the master eq.
I'm not sure what microphone you are using. Pinhole mic?
Getting modestly priced condensor mic could dramatically improve the sound/recording quality of voice and instruments.
bravo..thought-provoking tune

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thank you very much for liking my song!!! and for giving me advice on the recording.

I've been trying to fix that hissing since day one of my garage band experience. for this song, I actually did what you described to both my individual and master tracks. Through trial and error, I lowered the treble gain. What you hear is actually a reduction of hissing! I use an audiospectrum-400 mic and the mic and all my instruments are hooked up to an M-Audio firewire 410. All I can think to do now is, like you said, get a condenser mic, or go into a room with better acoustics. anything else you can think of? take care,



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*estella

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Generally, "Hiss" is a "Signal to Noise" Ratio [S/N] issue. While all electronics generate a hum or, in this case, hiss during operation the S/N Ratio typically renders the background operating noise moot. The 410 likely has a S/N of around 90dB, or a Five to One relationship. So.



The area you are heading for is where the Signal is strong enough to outweight any interference (be sure to use a good Mic cable, by the way; a shielded cable immune to casusal interference from normal household items). Place the Mic for optimum response; closer for Dynamic Mic.s, further for Condensers. Adjust the record Gain (volume) on the 410 and in GB so that a strong sound wave is captured by the channel in GB. The lower you can run the 410, the better.



Select the AU Filter in your channel options and adjust frequency selects and gain to optimize your vocal traits.



Voila. You just saved a year of Trial and Error with GB.



Best Regards,

Cooper

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"What you Don't use, You Lose." Get Rockin'

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thank you.

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*estella

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This is once again a very enchanting song with lots of potential. You had tons of great tips from fellow MJ-ers, and I see that you take them by heart. Please, continue doing so, because you have a great artistic basic competence. That shows...

- Walter

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your words are filled with contrast beautifull opposites that form the irony in this love you sing about. I like the guitar trhe piano could use more chords. your voice is very delicate and enjoyable. great job

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...maybe I'll add a track with a nice base of piano chords and see what that does to the song. Thank you, I was waiting for some comment on the piano because I had a few weeks of piano lessons when I was in middle school and that's the extent of my knowledge, so making up a piano part for this is ambitious of me.

I'm glad you enjoyed the lyrics, guitar and voice.

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*estella

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The fact that you still sound really good at this poor a sound quality is a testament to your abilities. Please ask Santa for a good mic! You've got a lot of potential.

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well, that's a sweet compliment if I ever heard one. Thank you.

I really love your song, "slow death coming," by the way. I downloaded it, and I'm gonna listen to it on my way to Christmas vacation, along with my other favorites from MJ.

"Santa" (my boyfriend) already got me an m-audio and my other recording hardware for Christmas. We'll get a better mic as soon as we can. I can't wait. I'll do what I can until then.

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*estella

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Estellie,
I agree with all of the above - you have a beautiful voice and write very thoughtful, beautiful songs as well. I suspect that all of your problems are connected to your signal:noise ratio. I don't know much about setups other than my own (Rode NT3 and Behringer UB802 mixer/preamp), but it really sounds like the signal you are recording is not strong enough (hence all the hiss) - on voice, guitar and piano - it takes a lot of trial and error before things start sounding right sometimes. This could be a number of things, but I think things should improve if you simply focus on your equipment connections and recording technique for a while. At the moment, I think the hiss is too strong for you to be able to simply filter it out.
I really don't think you need to add any instruments - it's a matter of getting those signals at optimum volume into GB. As I said on an earlier post, you've got what it takes to produce really good songs, but something is letting you down.
Here's an unusual, but relevant link for you - there are many more if you Google "vocal recording technique" or similar http://www.tweakheadz.com/how_to_record_vocals.htm Here's another interesting one http://www.jeepjazz.com/JeepJazzMusic/handbk.html
Keep them coming Estellie, one day (probably quite soon) you'll sort this out and be able to concentrate more on the performance than the recording.
All the best for 2007!
Neil

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Thank you. That link is pretty nice - very informative. I think I'm starting to get it. I appreciate your compliments on my music.

When I get back from Christmas vacation, I'll get the mic. I'm researching those now, AND I finally got some results from fooling around with the EQ (thanks to a friend).

I'll upload, "Cigarette Man" next, which I think you guys would like.

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*estella

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Hi Estellie - as others have comented on mic issues, i won't repeat them. You have a great, emotional voice whcih suits the acoustics of this song well. The track has a kinda baroque feel to it, that makes it sound almost like chamber music, which gives it a nice, sombre feel. You could go either way with this - keep it dark and acoustic, or add drums etc. to pop/ rock it up.

Nice to find this today - look forward to more postings.

Steve

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I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right. I do have a tendancy toward the ornate. Maybe it's my classical music influence? Anyway, thanks for listening despite the noise. this should be drastically reduced for my next upload in the new year. take care,

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*estella

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you are one of those people who can bring out what's deep down there with what's out there! very. touching and atmospheric. love the way it was recorded liked the voice v. much!

thanks for sharing this piece

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That is a big compliment to me. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening.

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*estella

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Here's a perfect example of good poetry and a well designed mood. I think that someone is going to grab you up and run away, screaming, because of the knife poking them...

Good stuff estellie.

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thank you bunches. I glad you like this. and grateful for your listens - these songs are quite rough.

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*estella

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To me, estellie, I enjoy the pure form of the song. We all know they can be polished up to sparkle, and I like that as well. I just really marvel at the preliminary sketches which sometimes are never recaptured in the polishing process.



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five extra arms does not help you sing any better.

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I love this song a lot for a couple of reasons...
The pianoplay has a slight medieavel sound, I adore that.
The metaphoric lyrics appeal to me and your fragile and so gourgious voice please my ear a lot.

A definite download....o0ops....won't work :(

Kind regards

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