Originally Posted By: Rustyspoon#
Solid composition! Lyrics work very well. Personally, I would prefer more bass, especially for the genre you chose. Besides that, fun listen! Those vocalizers are definitely getting better!

Thanks, Misha!

I generally trust my son (a bass player) to find the right balance on the bass in the mix. If I even hint that it should have more bass, you know he's going to turn it to 11! wink

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Being a fan of ELO I can definitely hear influence.

I'm glad some of it got through, despite the lack of a cello section. (And nice reference!)

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Correct me if I am wrong.... As I understand there are three main uses for vocal synths in music.

Obviously, there are as many uses as people want there to be, but I think you've hit on the primary ones.

Last year, I'm not sure I put out any songs. That wasn't my intent, so this year I decided I'd try to change that. That meant removing as many barriers as possible, even if that meant lowering my standards. As the phrase goes, "Perfect is the enemy of good."

One of those barriers is recording vocals. I think I've mentioned before that my house isn't really conducive to recording, with my computer out in the open in the literal center of the house, with a house full of people busy doing their own stuff.

So being able to put together the vocals while someone is playing video games just feet away is really a bonus.

I think of these songs as as drafts. Having a "real" voice on the vocals is always better, but at the moment, I'm trying to write more songs. So - for now - if I have to decide between getting a better vocal or moving on to a new song, I'm going to choose working on new songs.

Obviously, that's subject to change. smile

I have more than a passing interest in vocal synthesis. I've been working on a synthetic singer of my own for a number of years - but I don't think it's in any way preferred to a real singer. I'm just using Synthesizer V as a tool to get demo songs out the door.

If I had to sing the vocals, that would likely add another 2-3 days of time working on the song. I've generally got to wait until after midnight before it's quiet around here, and then the vocals need to be worked on because... well, I'm slow.

I also don't have access to a female vocalist, so Synthesizer V gives me a color that I normally don't have access to. I've mixed real and synthetic vocals before, and I think it's more jarring than having all synthetic vocals.

I could ask someone to sing the vocal, and I suspect there would be people on the forum that would be gracious enough to help out. As I mentioned, I may very well revisit some songs for that reason.

But I don't think I have a "passion" for Synthesizer V, in the sense that I prefer using it over a real vocal, or am showcasing it. I think of it as a tool like a MIDI instrument (sorry for that analogy, Mario) - it gives listeners enough of a flavor to hear to what I had in mind, but is hopefully not much a distracting replacement for the real thing.

So I appreciate people's kindness in listening to these songs despite them being sung with synthetic voices.

Thanks for asking! laugh

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?