You know how they’re always like “Oh just share some behind the scenes of you recording the demo”? Well, I can’t really do that because aesthetically, to be honest, it’s horrific. Often in my dressing gown at some unearthly hour, hair facing all different directions, with squint eyes and a saggy face, I sit hunched over my little office desk, clutching my notebook, I sing those few experimental lines into my microphone. In my head I sound like I look stunning and am singing to an audience of thousands.
And those vocal deliveries are almost always my favourites.
I do think that modern vocal treatment incorporates a lot more of the rawness of the singer into the mix. And by all means tune the vocal, but the desire to cut every breath and tune every note because it sounds raw instead of ‘pretty’ is disappointing. Often, a vocalist would choose better delivery over a ‘correct’ note. But a producer might clean that up because they missed the point. They ignore the vocalist’s intentional delivery of a word. Yet some of the best songs with the most memorable moments are created by not hitting the note exactly, or delivering a tone that’s a bit odd. There lies the humanity.
I love Melodyne, but sometimes I want to sound like... Well, me.
I came to producing through trial and error. I had no formal training. Everything I do has been picked up through a mixture of watching Mix With The Masters, bits of advice from professionals, reading as much as I can and of course, producing terrible tracks, releasing them, dying of shame and trying again.
The number of times I have re‑recorded an entire song, only to realise that the original demo vocal was better to begin with, has made me take stock.
One thing I have noticed over and over is that I tend to prefer my demo delivery on vocals. The number of times I have re‑recorded an entire song, only to realise that the original demo vocal was better to begin with, has made me take stock.
These days, my tracks are often a careful mix of demo vocals and comps where I’ve gone in and re‑sung the sections that went wrong. My latest single, ‘Honey You Shrunk This Kid’, retained most of the original demo vocal. I was singing straight off the page of lyrics I had written a few moments before. Because I was ‘only’ demo’ing I wasn’t worried about singing a word this way or that. A mindset that can be difficult to repeat later on another take.
I decided on my upcoming self‑produced album that I wanted to retain as much of my real voice as I could. Not on every track. But to stay as true as I could to the way I chose to deliver the song in the first place.
Having said all this, the amount of time I spend on my vocals is ridiculous. I very often go back and spend hours trying to deliver just one word exactly the way I need to intonate it. I think about how I’m singing a phrase all the time: should it be more breathy there? Do I need to belt that part? The feeling behind that line doesn’t say it enough. Should I smile here to settle that note properly?
There is an earlier version of ‘Honey You Shrunk This Kid’ on my Bandcamp where the bridge is sung quite differently to the released single version. When I released it as a single I went back in and realised I wanted to change the melody slightly. And I’m much happier with the newer version.
But ultimately, I think this song works because you can hear the writer laying down her thoughts straight off the page.