#Frail Autumn,, #Lyrics, #music, #Retirement Projects, #songwriting

Stop This Heartache. Mucking about with vocal overlays.

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It was far more different back then! Live at the Rock Garden, London, England. ? 1979/80.

PROGRESSION WITH RECORDING VOCALS EXPERIMENTATION.

When you sing over your own vocals………weird! It was another jump up a step on the learning curve. Can you step up on a curve! Well yes I suppose you are heading skywards.

These recordings here below are just sitting in front of the microphone and choosing three different vocal tracks and adding different sound dynamics. Echoes, reverb, room, compression, etc. It is still, as said, just a ‘jump in and try’ scenario. Layering for layering’s sake.

I need someone to rein me in at times. Fun though!

So. Here you go…… another little bit of the GarageBand storyboard.

(All instruments and vocals played/sung by Gray Summers (that’ll be me.)

Drums from the GarageBand App library.

STOP THIS HEARTACHE. (JUST RAW….NOT LEVELLED Or MIXED).

Stop this Heartache

How many years did it take

To find your dream?

Crawling on your hands and knees,

Crazy days (indeed).

The memories, oh those memories

Are not what they seemed.

They were flowers on flowers on flowers

Blooming inside your mind.

Imagination, throws it’s spell over you

Soul’s Vibration finds

You’re not an empty room.

Stop this heartache

Stop this heartache

Coz it doesn’t wanna show

That it came from out of nowhere

And it feels so all alone.

No it doesn’t wanna show

That it came from out of nowhere

And it don’t know where to go.

It’s late,

The hours just seem to walk on by

I could not do anything more than

Say goodbye

Well boys it’s time to leave this show

And I hate to see us part like this

And I hate to think of what we

Might have missed.

Imagination……etc

VERSIONS TRIALED.

Primary.
Secondary.
It’ll do……..

14 thoughts on “Stop This Heartache. Mucking about with vocal overlays.”

    1. Cheers cookie. Much appreciated having your insightful feedback. I set up today to see what could be done with overlaying vocals. I’ve learned to get positionally close on the track to where a harmony is required. With the vertical positional bar (a bar moving along as to where you are in the song) you hit record with no need to go through the whole song. The metronome ticks in the 4 or eight beats before the red record lights up. So you simply have to get a harmony over a few lines of lyrics. Mess up? You just delete that small section and try again. I set up 3 different vocal sounds on 3 separate tracks and layered the vocal sounds needed at different stages. The bit ‘Imagination, throws its spell over you’, I wanted more distant and alien sound to the Main vocal. The harmony’s to both the Main vocal and Imagination tracks was set up as a third ‘bright vocal’ choice.

      Echo, reverb, volume, compression, etc. can all be changed once recorded to get the balance, ambience, tone, etc. afterwards. I just recorded this in its raw state and uploaded to here on the blog. No balance or tweaking.

      I bought two speakers/monitors the other day for mixing. So I can hear through them to tweak an overall sound now. Better than earphones because the monitors give a proper mixing sound. Earphones are very echo ridden and sound bounces around within and outside of them. Like watching a movie in the cinema with surround sound and the dinosaur roars at the back of you. The monitor use for myself has a feeling of apprehension at the moment. Never done that before.

      Weird singing along and trying to harmonise with your own voice coming back at you though.

      Cheers cookie. Looking after my grandson tomorrow. So, on Wednesday I may just put down some drum, guitar and vocal recordings of songs awaiting to come to life from my little journal of songs. Put some reality/semblance to them and see if they are useful.

      Thank you as ever cookie. You’re a star. All the best.

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  2. I like both, Gray … though your lyrics seem to match the second one best…just an inexperienced opinion lol..

    forgive the ignorance if that’s what it is…. but wanted to ask if these are recent recordings of your voice …

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    1. Thanks Destiny. The vocal layers are purely experimental and can be changed at any time needed. I suppose this is a massive learning project still. So these two are simply raw naive recordings. Great fun though. My voice? I recorded these this morning. So, like a loaf…..freshly baked today. 😆

      And no……you show no ignorance with your question at all Destiny. A very pertinent observation. And harmony’s can be lowered in volume easily and sit more quietly behind the Main vocal. It’s all about getting the vocals and instruments balanced and synchronised. Rather like your extremely well written poetry styles. Cheers and all the best. 🙏🏽

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      1. they don’t sound naive to me lol… quite great actually…and you’re enjoying so even better.

        your voice sounded a little different here to me…lol went back now and heard a few others again … great voice too.

        thanks , Gray…and bestest your way too 🤍🙏

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    1. Cheers Shep. I have realised today that it is better to sing without the song clutter by turning off instruments in the earphones. Just listen to a guitar and drums. Sing over those.

      There are too many notes hitting your eardrums at the same time. But even so, when you hear your own voice coming at you? There is a bit of avoiding hitting the same notes and not harmonising. Muscle memory maybe.

      Just bought some monitor speakers for mixing. So hoping I can get to grips mixing the tones, volumes and clarity of instruments against each other now. Bit muddy all this noise and no idea of balance. You can’t mix and balance with earphones.

      Still no joy with real musicians Shep. My brother Steve is listening though and writing some guitar riffs and solos over songs. So, fingers crossed. Cheers.

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    2. Oh! Forgot to say Shep. I just ordered 10 CDs of Paul McCartneys. Mostly solo with a few friends. Relapsed badly since Wings. And they are all vinyl. Had just the one post 2000 CD. So a marathon listen on the cards.

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  4. The track is coming along nicely, Gray. I think your voice layers work, but I guess I could distinguish a tiny bit of your “its hard to maintain the distance between the two,” as once I think both layers hit the same note (but I could be wrong).
    I wasn’t sure about the levels until I listened and now I think I understand what all you have left to do. I only hear a rough then a mixed pro demo and so I have no idea how its done or what each think does, say balancing over leveling, etc. So take my comments with a very large grain of salt! Ha!
    I think you have a great voice. I know that’s subjective too, but to my ear it is pleasing. I think the melody is delightful too.

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    1. Thanks for the insights Sheila. Using the GarageBand system and myself as the one and only contributor to what is played (well….apart from the drumming track. But even that can be altered a massive amount) you have to layer each and every voice or instrument chosen one by one. No band member to take the onus off and play the instruments more skilfully. Limiting to say the least.

      Sharing the load is an important music philosophy in my approach to overall sound. And songs produced. Paul McCartney plays drums, on his solo albums. Even though he does so brilliantly, he isn’t Ringo. John Lennon wrote songs with Paul, but would Paul have written ‘Across the Universe’? Paul is a genius and creates beautiful solo albums, playing many instruments. Me? I am a bass player.

      It’s great that you are asking these questions and also giving thoughts to the sounds. It can trigger a lightbulb moment and allows further investigation and learning for myself. No grain of salt Sheila. Much appreciated. The thing with my approach at the moment is that I am uploading the songs to WP as an exercise in explaining my journey.

      You record, as mentioned, each layer at a given volume. You are always playing alongside your own style. So gravitate to basic skills. Recently, the penny dropped that I should turn off certain instruments in the headphones to avoid the clutter. Listen more cleanly to avoid really bad notes. Singing in tune, playing in tune is getting as close as I can get. But I am actually hoping that these songs aren’t going to be a finished presentation to upload for keeps. I want a band of us. A team.

      Also, as you enquired, levelling is simply notching down the volume afterwards of, for example, a guitar that has been recorded loudly. Get it back to sit comfortably with its buddies. Not be the centre of attention. Mixing is getting all the party goers in harmony with each other. Getting individual sound texture, the type of room they are in for sound ambience, the drive of dynamics by raising the volume of an instrument at certain points in the song by isolating a particular part and raising the volume. It’s like the ‘fade out’ at the end. You target the Master track and create the fade out by dropping the line bit by bit. Slow or fast fade. Individual tracks can be altered up or down in the same way. Bring up a guitar being played quickly, then drop it down again quickly.

      And these songs. Real musicians is my aim. I suppose these are simple basic templates for building better ideas from others’ contributions. And shared vocals too. I’m with John Lennon. I don’t rate my voice. I need the harmony of others’ voices alongside. A collective to give an overall uniqueness to the music. Not the uniqueness of flying solo. That’s too limiting with this wanting to have multiple instruments. My singular voice and playing an acoustic guitar wouldn’t be great shakes.

      Cheers for your reply Sheila. Brilliant to get my thoughts going. All the best.

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      1. Yes, this makes sense, Gray! Happy I could help even a minute amount. I agree about you being more like John regards to writing and voice, though bass player like Paul. Sure thing that real musicians are better. I believe that too! As sometimes it’s the ad hoc things that become the hook like In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly. A mispronunciation made it a hit! Ha!

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      2. It’s how people perceive a singer when the voice enters the ears. Some singers aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. As a singer? It also helps when you get lyrics and a melody that can be sung strongly. I suppose all I’m interested in is the simple day to day enjoyment of playing and singing now.

        The home recording scenario became a focus of intent to both simply capture my songs for myself, family and friends and learning something new technologically to keep my brain ticking. Yes. If the songs end up sounding reasonably okay, I will Bandcamp or YouTube them so they have a cemented platform. Somewhere people can visit on both happenstance or intent. Certainly not through promotion of an intentional plan to expand. Leave them there feeling at home and somewhere settled. That’s just accessing the fun of what life is all about. There is no yearning for success any more. My internal spirit is very nicely balanced and chilled now.

        I was mucking around with a song this morning I’d begun writing last year. Recording it on the Mac. But the audio interface broke down again. So listening to newly acquired Paul McCartney CDs at the moment.

        The lyrics of the song I was attempting to work on? It kind of says the limits you can be truly happy with.

        I can be myself and seize the day.
        Live my life in the possible ways.
        By singing La, La, la, laaaa
        Be brave with a Fa, fa, fa, faaaa
        Or leap into the unknown with
        Na, na, na, naaaa………..

        Just sing away the blues.
        Just sing away and recognise your truth.

        Cheers Sheila.

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    1. Your live performance on that course had that vibe didn’t it. There is a familiarity to smiling, laughing and singing. The inner blues give up under the pressure from the happiness vibe, shrug their shoulders, simply turn and return to their little cave. 😊

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