Vocalist.org archive


From:  Dre de Man <dredeman@y...>
Date:  Tue Apr 18, 2000  1:42 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] introduction & taping lessons


DANIaka007@a... wrote:
> Do you think that recording, whatever it might be,
> is a very bad
> representation of that thing you're recording?
> Singing exspecially? Also,
> recording something of singing onto a tape, what you
> hear isn't the TRUE
> representation of your voice?
> Thanks!
Dear Danielle and list, a recording is always just a
recording: in reality things will sound different, and
the amount to which it sounds different is depending
on many things. A professional recording can even be
'better' than reality, in terms of exposing details,
but is it the truth? Technically it is possible to
come very close, commercially it is more difficult.
Most amateur-recordings are less detailed than
reality and are coloured.
Besides that: especially when listening to our own
voice you have a big problem and it is a
psycho-accoustical one. First there is the proximity
effect: lower frequencies near to a microphone or to
year ears will sound louder, so you hear your voice
fuller, 'lower' and warmer than it is. That's why it
is so strange to hear your own voice one a recording
the first time. But psychoaccoustics behave strange:
you will hear some of your own voice through this
sound, and your brains will try to adjust the sound
your hear, into the sound you are used to hear (to how
your voice sounds in your head, which is definitively
not like other people hear it). Your 'ping' will also
sound different from what you hear in your head, but
that is even more complicated. (By the way: that you
don't hear your true sound in your head, is one of the
reasons that it is so hard to learn to sing really
well).
But listening to a recording made of many singers
whose voices you know well, together with you, all
recorded in the same way, can give a better
impression, especially when playing them at random:
then you're not expecting to hear yourself. If those
people sound almost like you know them, you will
listen to a reasonable recording of your voice,
provided your voice is more or less simular to one or
more of the other voices. I'll hope you find such a
recording, succes!

Dre de Man

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