First of all CREDITS TO ALICE FOR THIS because I just copied and paste from AK~ [s]too lazy to make my own and this one is really good and very much needed~ :33[/s]
Since I'm aware a lot of new people, and some old people, don't really know the "best" way to record and turn in their files, I thought this post would come in handy =D!
01. If you don't already have one, buy a microphone. MP3 players are advised against due to the lower quality, as well as the fact you have to record it all in one go, and therefore increasing the chances of messing up lyrics, timing, or pitch. You can easily get a decent microphone for as low as $12~$15 USD, and think about it - you will sound better, which is a plus for you!
02. Get a program which you can use to record! Audacity is the most commonly used and does a good enough job of recording. Once you've got it installed, import the MP3 of the song you're needing to record, and just record away!
03. Always, always record to the song playing through earphones that preferably do not leak any sound into the final recording. Having the original song audibly playing in the background makes mixing extremely difficult. If you use headphones, try to listen to the song softer so that the sounds coming from the headphones isn't as loud. Softer music also means you can hear yourself better, which will help you control pitch a lot more easily.
04. Learn the song before recording. I cannot stress this one enough, since a lot of times it seems like people are not trying to learn the song well enough before they record. It is not THAT hard to listen to the song through once, and listen to parts of the song you can't get right over and over again a couple of times, and singing along to it to see how much you can sing without messing up. The end result will be a lot better. Would you rather spend a little bit time learning the song, or hear yourself sound bad and make a potentially good project not so good because you couldn't be bothered to do so?
05. As much as possible, please DO NOT one-shot (sing everything in one go). This is the same as the advice to not use MP3 players - if you have the opportunity to record a song like they do in a studio, and have someone mix it and make it sound good, then why not sound your best, and record everything in segments? It'll help you learn lyrics better too, due to repetition of hearing and singing the same parts :3. It'll take longer, but it's worth it - you'll sound a lot better, and you'll risk embarrassing yourself from stupid pitch or lyric mess ups which you personally know you could avoid.
06. Record all overlapping parts in seperate files. When recording, if you cannot sing a phrase in a breath (aka it's physically impossible e.g. SNSD's Genie chorus), then please record whatever you can't sing in a seperate file. Don't try to sing it in one go, because you will not sound good since you'll evidently time things wrong and not have enough breath, and you'll also make the mixer's life really difficult. When mixing down parts, if you see that your parts overlap, then don't mix it down to the same file and use a different one, because that defeats the purpose of recording it seperately since the mixer won't be able to adjust the volumes as easily.
07. When exporting, avoid exporting MP3s at 128kbps or lower, because it significantly degrades the quality of your lines, even if you have a decent microphone. Obviously, the best to go for would be 320kbps for MP3 (I don't recommend wav or other lossless types, because it's too big a file size for most mixers to want to download), but if that's too big to upload, 256kbps would be the next best option. But yes, just avoid 128 and under, to save everyone energy. If you use Audacity, you can easily change the bitrate in Preferences (:
08. This is a matter of me finding that lines are sometimes degraded this way, but if you don't know what you're doing, don't run noise removal on your lines, because you can easily overdo it and create something that sounds really awful, which is not really the fault of your singing.
Here, have a BAD example of points 07 and 08, that is, badly noise removalled, and low quality parts (and also low quality exporting srsly), and a good example (well, I'm not sure if I exported it at a higher quality, but I definitely did noise removal better). These are using the same crappy microphone I used to own just over a year ago, so it's not like I'm doing any unfair comparisons with my new microphone, since by the time I bought it, my recording technique had improved a lot. ALSO....ahahaha these are really bad recordings, rofl. -hides-
Here is a video Henry made about why it's bad to mute between your lines:
THIS IS WHY IT IS BAD TO MUTE BETWEEN LINES
If anyone else has any points, feel free to post them, and I'll add them into the post :3
Since I'm aware a lot of new people, and some old people, don't really know the "best" way to record and turn in their files, I thought this post would come in handy =D!
01. If you don't already have one, buy a microphone. MP3 players are advised against due to the lower quality, as well as the fact you have to record it all in one go, and therefore increasing the chances of messing up lyrics, timing, or pitch. You can easily get a decent microphone for as low as $12~$15 USD, and think about it - you will sound better, which is a plus for you!
02. Get a program which you can use to record! Audacity is the most commonly used and does a good enough job of recording. Once you've got it installed, import the MP3 of the song you're needing to record, and just record away!
03. Always, always record to the song playing through earphones that preferably do not leak any sound into the final recording. Having the original song audibly playing in the background makes mixing extremely difficult. If you use headphones, try to listen to the song softer so that the sounds coming from the headphones isn't as loud. Softer music also means you can hear yourself better, which will help you control pitch a lot more easily.
04. Learn the song before recording. I cannot stress this one enough, since a lot of times it seems like people are not trying to learn the song well enough before they record. It is not THAT hard to listen to the song through once, and listen to parts of the song you can't get right over and over again a couple of times, and singing along to it to see how much you can sing without messing up. The end result will be a lot better. Would you rather spend a little bit time learning the song, or hear yourself sound bad and make a potentially good project not so good because you couldn't be bothered to do so?
05. As much as possible, please DO NOT one-shot (sing everything in one go). This is the same as the advice to not use MP3 players - if you have the opportunity to record a song like they do in a studio, and have someone mix it and make it sound good, then why not sound your best, and record everything in segments? It'll help you learn lyrics better too, due to repetition of hearing and singing the same parts :3. It'll take longer, but it's worth it - you'll sound a lot better, and you'll risk embarrassing yourself from stupid pitch or lyric mess ups which you personally know you could avoid.
06. Record all overlapping parts in seperate files. When recording, if you cannot sing a phrase in a breath (aka it's physically impossible e.g. SNSD's Genie chorus), then please record whatever you can't sing in a seperate file. Don't try to sing it in one go, because you will not sound good since you'll evidently time things wrong and not have enough breath, and you'll also make the mixer's life really difficult. When mixing down parts, if you see that your parts overlap, then don't mix it down to the same file and use a different one, because that defeats the purpose of recording it seperately since the mixer won't be able to adjust the volumes as easily.
07. When exporting, avoid exporting MP3s at 128kbps or lower, because it significantly degrades the quality of your lines, even if you have a decent microphone. Obviously, the best to go for would be 320kbps for MP3 (I don't recommend wav or other lossless types, because it's too big a file size for most mixers to want to download), but if that's too big to upload, 256kbps would be the next best option. But yes, just avoid 128 and under, to save everyone energy. If you use Audacity, you can easily change the bitrate in Preferences (:
08. This is a matter of me finding that lines are sometimes degraded this way, but if you don't know what you're doing, don't run noise removal on your lines, because you can easily overdo it and create something that sounds really awful, which is not really the fault of your singing.
Here, have a BAD example of points 07 and 08, that is, badly noise removalled, and low quality parts (and also low quality exporting srsly), and a good example (well, I'm not sure if I exported it at a higher quality, but I definitely did noise removal better). These are using the same crappy microphone I used to own just over a year ago, so it's not like I'm doing any unfair comparisons with my new microphone, since by the time I bought it, my recording technique had improved a lot. ALSO....ahahaha these are really bad recordings, rofl. -hides-
Here is a video Henry made about why it's bad to mute between your lines:
THIS IS WHY IT IS BAD TO MUTE BETWEEN LINES
If anyone else has any points, feel free to post them, and I'll add them into the post :3
