Silent Whispers - EricMilligan

Thanks. One of the very few instances where I actually came up with a complete set of lyrics for a song. All my life I've focused only on instrumentals. I never, ever paid attention to the lyrics of a song. Actually preferred instrumentals over vocals. Now that I really want to make songs that require vocals, I'm paying the price for my foolishness. :)

Hi, Chad. Thanks for the comment on the track. I am getting rather amused by the various comments which suggest that my vocal was actually OK. Nobody would ever say that if they heard the raw vocal track I recorded without all the effects I had to put on it. I suppose that, as Silverman suggested in his comment, the use of technology to make a sow's ear into a silk purse is fair game. But I am under no illusions about the true situation. I'm in the process of listening to your Dodging Dove tracks on N1M. Wasn't aware of that site previously. Yo've got a nice distinctive timbre to you voice. A little bit of roughness which gives your delivery a really authentic feel. At least, that's the way I'm hearing it.

I actually think I may have some other tracks that will fit even better with your vocals, if you'd be interested in considering them. They were meant for a voice like yours. Sent me a PM via Looperman if you are interested and I will start locating some possibilities. There one in particular that I have kind of an electro-trucker piece about an 18-wheeler doing dangerous runs on "Thunder Road". Yes, I know that was a famous Robert Mitchum song. The title just seems to work for this track, so I've not been able to come up with anything more original! :)

Regards,

Eric

Thank-you, Wayne. You are one of the true "authorities" here on Looperman and I respect and appreciate your input and advice. I did manage to reasonably successfully disguise my wretched vocals with multiple plugins and tracking the melody line with a synth part. Autotune simply doesn't work really well on my vocals. I have a really hard time keeping a note on pitch and you can really see itinerary the pitch display in Autotune. That's a function of age I think, although I was never allowed to sing even backup in the bands I was in back in the day. :)

That being said, I think your advice to be original in approach and style is very sound. I've been thinking the same thing recently, as I come to realization that I'm not really good at creating trance, or any other genre of EDM. I particularly like trance, but getting it "right" continues to elude me. So, am thinking that perhaps I should accept reality and find an original path. Not necessarily 80's recreations, either. But, perhaps influenced by them.

Anyway, enough of my philosophizing. Have a new R&B track underway and it needs a lot more attention. Definitely won't be adding a vocal to it.

Thanks again,

Eric

Hi, Perko. Thanks for the support on the track. Vocals are, I agree, not great but I did try to capture the essence of this kind of genre. My main objective in doing vocals on my tracks, something I really hate doing frankly, is to hopefully inspire better vocalists to collaborate on the track and replace what I did. Looks like it has worked in this case, thankfully. :)

Thanks for the feedback, Damian. I'm glad you liked the track.

Eric

Yes, backup singers is a thought that has occurred to me as well. But, I'm still hoping to find different vocalists who can work on the tracks. Seems that most of the ones I do are meant to have vocals. I've got quite a range of styles semi-finished. Am reaching out again to some vocalists including Aiden Walsh who has offered to re-do the vocals on this track. Found a really good Norah Jones-sounding vocalist from Calgary but I think she mostly focuses on her own compositions, all posted on Soundcloud, not here unfortunately. Maybe I'll get lucky. I'm trying to convince vocalists to join Looperman and come here. You get more listens and more support here than on Soundcloud, that's for sure.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dan. I am on a quest to get more vocalists on to Looperman. There must be thousands, literally thousands of decent singers out there who could join our community if only they knew how much we would appreciate them! I'd settle for just a dozen or so.

Hi, Aiden. Just listened to one of your tracks on Soundcloud. I think you'd be great on the track. I will PM you with my coordinates and set up providing you with the track without vocals.

Thanks, Sheen. In theory, I know how to do side chain compression, but for some reason I'm a bit hesitant to add it to my projects. I think it's just because I don't have enough practice doing it to feel comfortable setting it up. But, I like your suggestion, so I'm going to try it on a copy of the project. Typically, I think, you'd apply compression to say a bass or synth track that competes with the BD track, right? Not to all the tracks except the BD? I will need to listen to the project to see what makes sense. I was taught that I could set up a BD track with just the hits that are meant to "duck" other tracks via side chain compression, but don't route that BD track to any output, so it doesn't actually sound in the mix. Not sure if that will be necessary. Good suggestion. I' going to give it a try.

Bonjour, Bleep. et merci pour vos commentaires. Je vais continuer a chercher pour le chanteurs et aussi pour quelqu'un qui peut écrire des paroles en français, et en allemande. Je pense qu'il peut être plus difficile d'écrire des mots en musique que de la musique aux mots?

You are quite right, Silverman. No shame in using the tools we have available to us. Still, I'd love to find some decent vocalists. I've got tracks that need English singers (or Welsh!), German, French, and Spanish. I have a great love for traditional Scottish music, but haven't written anything like that at all. But, am a big fan of Paolo Nutini and he's a Scot. Does that count?

Thanks very much, Danke. I've just remastered the track and updated it on Looperman. A bit louder now. Am debating what decade I should revisit next. :)

Thanks, Jamid. I appreciate the encouragement! :) If only I could actually sing! I've got loads of processing, autotune, and two different vocoders going to camouflage the vocals!