I was watching that Converge video when I heard my voice
even tho I wasn’t there
which got me, in a round about way,
thinking of how few dubstep producers use their own voices
don’t even consider it
even when they know a track could do with it
and they’ve thought of a nifty line of words
the producers I know personally
seem to think that they need a diva or a toasty boy to do it
or compromise by using some cool sample rather than express their own idea
yeah sure, some people have shit voices
so they become alternate
but most people have reasonable voices
that, with a bit of practice, can carry a tune
or at least deliver a line with gravitas
after all, you ds producers think they can drum digitally better than the best drummers
so why the lack of confidence in what you can say with your own voice?
I think the parallel to drumming digitally is using vocal samples.
Do you produce?
I’ve used my voice a fair amount, but usually when I do I have to stop working on whatever track it is for a while because it just sounds weird to hear my voice. Also never sounds the way I wanted it to in my head, when it’s too bothersome I just cut them out and leave it vocally blank.
Edit
Also, I never write lyrics. Just chat shit really, so you might say that I’d be better off with samples, but I cannot be fucked to look around for vocal samples.
Pretty sure LAS uses his own voice as well. Could be wrong though, but he’s definitely the type of producer that records a lot of stuff on mic and uses it in his productions.
I have tried using my own voice in a number of tracks but it is a far more complicated task than it seems. The cut and cold sample that is already mastered to a far greater degree than I can ever get my own voice seems so simple and keeps the track flowing rather than stepping away from it to record your own vocals. Maybe my work station could use a bit less clutter and I could cut vocals in a much faster way to not stall the project.
lol if producers started just coming up with cool sounding “samples” by talking into the mic I think things would get very very cringe fast
like imagine someone coming up with some words that sound moody like a sample from some kryptic minds tune, but it was just something they thought up there and then, and not some sample that’s lifted from a context with a storyline or something
That’s a good point. When you hear a sample in a song it’s from something more. Like if you found someone saying something and wanted to use it with you saying it instead it just wouldn’t have the same heart as the person that said it.
On our college radio they were praising this electronic songs ‘unique drums’ cuz it wasn’t just 4 on the floor… It was 3/4… Kick snare kick kick snare kick…
Anyways I think the hardest part of making computer drums better than live drums is the soul that a real drummer can put into it. Shifting the beat slightly, those little spur of the moment improvs. You just can’t get that in a cold calculated grid
