How is Singing Going?

[RokBand]

I'm a horrible singer in real life, but was really pumped to be able to sing in RB. Seeing as my two roommates dominate me on the drums and guitar (I can play expert guitar but struggle with some songs, tend to fail out on really difficult solos) singing is something I thought I could contribute...either that or just play bass...:(

But after playing the game, I have found I suck! My vocal range doens't seem to match most songs. And it seems like I have to sing an octave higher than the actual singers and this seems to be the case for my roommates as well. Don't sound very masculine especially when the real singer is a chick. Is it like that for you guys too?

It's kinda funny, on In Bloom, Say it Ain't So, and Learning to Fly, I can't seem to hit the high part of each chorus. I can get right below it singing in my normal octave, but can't get up any higher. However, after messing around I found that if I go an octave higher I can hit it which makes no sense. I can't go one note higher but can go one octave and one note higher, haha. As you can imagine, I sound like a champ. Hopefully after more practice I'll be able to get better.

This got me thinking, a cool option (not in BWT) would be to be able to turn off pitch. That way when you're drunk or just messing around you can belt out your favorite songs without having to worry about failing ya know.

Anyway, how has it gone for y'all?

[acmirage]

Are you able to hear yourself good .. I find I can barley hear my voice. I played with the seetings ..I am just wondering if has anything to do with dolby digital

[Mully]

I wish there was a way to turn off the vocals when you sing so it's more like karaoke. It sounds terrible when someone is singing and the real vocals are still coming through. It' sounds like they're singing in the shower.

If it is possible will someone let me know how to go about doing it?
jas

[luminary pants]

I am terrible at singing. I fail out every time. My best percentage was like 50 on medium. I think I got a 35 on hard.
Im good at guitar, and decent at drums, so I will stick to that.

[Jansen]

I can sing on hard/expert fairly easily. Some people can and some people can't. I find that it has improved my ability to sing, too. It's also WAY easier to do when you know the songs.

[logicalnoise]

I'm no singer but I can beat most songs on medium. It depends on the song of course but I tend to switch up my approach depending what different ranges the song will go for. I can sing falsetto if I have to but it takes me a few beats to get my voice prepared and switching in between isn't always easy. my average so far in medium career is 92%.

[InsaneGame]

I have a horrible voice and I only have 3 songs left on expert...

[FallenAce]

You guys... Posts like these remind me just how awesome I am.

[Maggot_Brain]

I never knew I was so good at falsetto! Rooooooooxannnne!

[Thrashdragon]

I can beat anything with falsetto. Using my real voice, however, is a challenge. If I actually sing I can belt out a few songs with good accuracy, but I can't do this for long because I smoke. So I usually keep it on Medium where I don't have to really belt it out to hit it right.

Anyone else noticed that the singer is always the first one to get drunk because he has to keep wetting his throat? :D

[NeoApocalypse]

I wish there was a way to turn off the vocals when you sing so it's more like karaoke. It sounds terrible when someone is singing and the real vocals are still coming through. It' sounds like they're singing in the shower.

If it is possible will someone let me know how to go about doing it?
jas

This is described in the manual and is in the vocal options (accessed by selecting it from the pause menu on the controller linked to the microphone). Additionally, you can hold Y and then press left and right to adjust the volume of the vocal track and I believe A to adjust the mic volume. What I want to know is if you plug in the headset into the controller linked to the microphone, can you set it so you can hear the vocal track just through the headset like in Karaoke Revolution? That was helpful for learning new songs in that game. I kinda doubt it's an option though. I'll check when I get back to it.

[LongDarkBlues]

I found that turning the mic sensitivity way down vastly improved my scores - I don't think mic handles full-volume singing well at all - there would be times when the arrow would get buried at the top even after I'd quit singing, but now it seems to be much, much better.

[xenopherus]

I've been wanting to test that out, and I'm glad to hear it works (turning mic sensitivity down). I'd keep it up all the time because I have a really hard time hearing my own voice in the game. It wouldn't register my voice at all when singing Blackened and other songs like that... Hopefully I'll be able to sing today when I get home from work, but there're always people home that never leave.

[TheWabbit]

I can sing a lot of the songs on Hard but In Bloom, Creep, Wanted Dead or Alive, Black Hole Sun, Orange Crush and several other songs I do on Expert.

Creep is my best song on Expert with 5 Stars and 98%.

[jenovan]

I can already hear myself singing out loud, and I'm quite content not to hear myself coming through the TV speakers, too. ;) I seem to be in the minority on this, though!

As for how it's going, I've been pleasantly surprised. I'm not a singer, never have been, not even in grade school, but I torched through Easy and Medium and am pulling 4s and mostly 5s in Hard as I go along. I think knowing the songs is a huge help (and is it just me, or is there a big imbalance in the Solo vocals setlist -- the first half is mostly 90s-2000s, and the older stuff is on the harder end? I didn't know most of the last 15 songs before playing!).

I'm a girl with a fairly deep voice, so I have weird octave problems where I've got to jump an octave up to sing, say, the verses for "In Bloom", and then drop back down to match Cobain for the choruses... :/

Anyone else feel like a moron randomly yelling out stuff to start Overdrive? :p

All in all, though, I'm having a blast with vox... I'll never be more than a Medium guitarist (orange button? are you kidding?), and I haven't dug into the drums quite yet... singing is actually relaxing. :D

[dlisapussy]

I do pretty darn good on hard but I haven't played expert. I have to change my octave a lot to really hit the notes.

[guan69]

I just tried the Vocals solo tour yesterday and I didn't find it too hard. I'm about halfway through Medium and the only songs that screwed me up were the ones that I didn't know. THe only songs I've 5-starred were Vasoline and Dani California. I got a 15 and 14 note streak on them, respectively. How's everyone else doing on those note streaks?


Anyone else feel like a moron randomly yelling out stuff to start Overdrive? :p
Heh. You & me both, lady. Due to that, sometimes I just whistle loudly and works.

[macafied]

I can already hear myself singing out loud, and I'm quite content not to hear myself coming through the TV speakers, too. ;) I seem to be in the minority on this, though!...

Actually being able to hear yourself sing is extremely important. That's why bands have monitors pointing back at them.

[jenovan]

Heh. You & me both, lady. Due to that, sometimes I just whistle loudly and works.

Whistling, hadn't thought of that! Sometimes I'll try to hum loudly along with the guitar riff, so it's at least tuneful, or if there's some background lyrics going on, I'll jump on those. Of course.. there are occasions when yelling seems appropriate. ;D



Actually being able to hear yourself sing is extremely important. That's why bands have monitors pointing back at them.

Well, there's my factoid for the day. Hopefully, though, the sounds of their own voices don't make them cringe... that's my main problem ;) Maybe I'll give it a try, but I'm one of those folks who needs to hear the original vocals to go along with, so I can't turn those down too much, either :/

[Talli]

But after playing the game, I have found I suck! My vocal range doens't seem to match most songs. And it seems like I have to sing an octave higher than the actual singers and this seems to be the case for my roommates as well. Don't sound very masculine especially when the real singer is a chick. Is it like that for you guys too?

It's kinda funny, on In Bloom, Say it Ain't So, and Learning to Fly, I can't seem to hit the high part of each chorus. I can get right below it singing in my normal octave, but can't get up any higher. However, after messing around I found that if I go an octave higher I can hit it which makes no sense. I can't go one note higher but can go one octave and one note higher, haha. As you can imagine, I sound like a champ. Hopefully after more practice I'll be able to get better.

I think we have the same range, cuz I have the same problem. I even have to switch octaves between the verses and chorus in In Bloom and Say It Ain't So! It has to do with the original key it was written in... they sit right on the cusp of my low and high range. The good news is your range can improve a bit with practice...

Songs sung by females tend to work well (which makes sense, as I am female! lol)... Maps, Celebrity Skin, etc are my favorite songs to sing.

[Xzyliac]

I am a rock/metal singer in real life. I have the "bad for singing, good for screaming" rock voice (think Reptilia or Main Offender). I am digging it. Especially Blitzkrieg Bop!

I have lost my voice for the second time since launch. Loving it baby. Seven p-owns!

[UrbanLegend]

I'm a natural growler and this game pwns me with a vengance. songs like blood doll and enter sandman are sung by guys with a ruff voice and I get about a dozen messy's before the fail me. Am I the only one with this prob or what?

[blue_dragonzero]

How do you handle the whistle in Flirtin?

[TheHorde]

im having a pretty good time singing....passing every song so far...only complaint its a lil hard to activate overdrive....

[HeXcoda]

Singing has become my "thing".

I can't get past medium on guitars, I can't play the drums at all, but singing? I can do that on Hard/Expert and get some Wows! from my bandmates as a result. I've also taken to singing online (since there's always room in the band for a singer) and using the L-trigger when everybody's got enough bandwidth to hear the singing properly.

I find that everybody has one or more "voices" to sing with... high, low, etc. In your head, in your chest, from the belly, etc. Which one you use can change on a song by song basis or even a line by line basis, depending on the range you're capable of vs. the range the song wants. There is no "one size fits all" voice.

If the notes are high pitched, try dropping down to a lower voice so you have enough up/down pitch range without having to strain. Vice versa for low notes; some people hit low notes easier in a higher octave. Switch mid-sentence if you have to, the game doesn't care.

One disadvantage? After an epic 3 hour run last night, knocking 'em out of the park left and right... I wake up this morning, boot, and start pulling 87% on easy songs like Dead or Alive. Aaeeargh, voice is trashed, can't consistently hit higher notes in ANY octave without scratching and warbling. Told the band I gotta give it a day's rest and I'm brewing up tea right now. :)

[Loozinit]

Anyone else noticed that the singer is always the first one to get drunk because he has to keep wetting his throat? :D
yep.....and I def have to resort to the high voice on most songs, if not....def parts of some.
sounds horrible, and i'm sure it's funny....but it gets the job done.

[InsaneGame]

WOOOOO! Beat vocal son expert a few days ago and got 100% on an expert song.

[DasBoot]

Yeah, I found it really easy to sing. Also I'm doing something right naturally because after a hard night of rocking everyone else who gets on the mic just complains about killing their throat and I could go for hours.

I just don't think I'll ever be able to pass Gimme Shelter on expert. For some reason I haven't figured out exactly what note Mick is trying to hit in the chorus.

[Lucent Beam]

I started playing on Medium, thought it was a joke.
Went to Hard, thought it was a joke.
And then cleared Expert pretty much no problem... (the only problems were when it was the first time I was ever hearing the song, haha, because it's a lot harder to fudge your way through when you have no idea what the melody is).
I loved Karaoke Revolution to death, so I love vocals on RB too.

[maduag]

I wish there was a way to turn off the vocals when you sing so it's more like karaoke. It sounds terrible when someone is singing and the real vocals are still coming through. It' sounds like they're singing in the shower.

If it is possible will someone let me know how to go about doing it?
jas

You can!! i have the xbox version that allows ingame changing of the mic sensitivity, vocal track, and my vocals. press the B, Y, or X button and hold while you use the D stick to adjust the levels. Not sure aboutthe ps3 version. Either way, in the options menu, theres vocal options to do the same thing.. Jeez. you guys really need to "RTFM" (read the F****** manual)

[cherokey]

I can't finish the first set of Easy. It is insane. I haven't decided if the game sucks or if there is a problem with my set up. I am able to blow through perfects in KR, so I can't figure out what the problem is with the game.

Suggestions are welcome.

I am using the XBOX headset microphone.

[HeXcoda]

I am using the XBOX headset microphone.

There's your problem.

If you're a KR veteran then this game shouldn't be an issue -- it's the same mechanic, right down to safety-holding notes before and after the bar. But the XBL headset has terrible fidelity and will cause you to miss notes quite a bit.

I wish the KR headsets worked with the game; the handheld mike MIGHT, give it a try. If not you'll want to pick up the Rock Band USB mike when it goes on sale. After that you should be sittin' pretty.

[anubis311]

Anyone else feel like a moron randomly yelling out stuff to start Overdrive? :p

My wife figured out you could just blow on the mic and set it off. I have been working thru a campaign using the headset and a guitar singing and playing and i keep setting it off without trying just exhaling remaining air after singing a phrase.

So yeah, breathing on the mic sets off star power discreetly and easily!

[thorn_9]

I am kickin ass, there are a couple songs that I am unfamiliar with and struggle though, but the vast majority is all 5 star.

[jenovan]

My wife figured out you could just blow on the mic and set it off. I have been working thru a campaign using the headset and a guitar singing and playing and i keep setting it off without trying just exhaling remaining air after singing a phrase.

So yeah, breathing on the mic sets off star power discreetly and easily!

I've heard that, or that some people clap or hit the mic or whatever to accomplish the same thing, but I don't seem to be able to manage it without a vocalization of some type, and a fairly loud one too -- it feels like I have to be louder than when I'm singing, though that could be me fooling myself ;) But anyway -- my mic seems sort of "deaf" to Overdrive. O_o Perhaps I'll fiddle with the sensitivity a bit...


As for how it's going, I'm almost done with Hard Mode, but a few forays into Expert tell me that I'm going to have trouble. :p Hehe. Sort of curious: are there consistent things that trip people up or give them trouble? For example: one thing that gets me a lot are random vocalizations during a guitar solo (like in "Black Hole Sun", "I Think I'm Paranoid", and some others). They might just be long "ooooh" notes, but I'm never expecting them! XD Especially for songs that I knew before playing the game... it's as if my mind didn't (and still doesn't) consider those "real" vocal parts. ;P Another thing that gets me is vocals buried under other vocals... big example for me is in "Orange Crush", the "High on the roof..." line. I can hardly hear it, so it's a bit hard to sing. All I can do is follow the little note meter and hope I get it. ;P

Both things are a matter of practice, of course, but I hate "practice", so I'll just continue to replay in Tour mode.. ;)

[M3wThr33]

There's your problem.

If you're a KR veteran then this game shouldn't be an issue -- it's the same mechanic, right down to safety-holding notes before and after the bar. But the XBL headset has terrible fidelity and will cause you to miss notes quite a bit.

I wish the KR headsets worked with the game; the handheld mike MIGHT, give it a try. If not you'll want to pick up the Rock Band USB mike when it goes on sale. After that you should be sittin' pretty.

USB headsets work.
USB microphones works. The Rock Band ones are the exact same as the ones that came with Get On Da Mic, Karaoke Revolution, Boogie and whatever else licensed the Logitech microphone.

Heck, even SINGSTAR microphones work in Rock Band.

[JuliusMode]

Another thing that gets me is vocals buried under other vocals... big example for me is in "Orange Crush", the "High on the roof..." line. I can hardly hear it, so it's a bit hard to sing. All I can do is follow the little note meter and hope I get it. ;P

I hate that section of Orange Crush. It's a well known song, but I'm pretty sure no one has any idea what the hell Michael Stipe is singing there. I know you can follow the line, but it still seems a little sadistic of Harmonix to have us singing things that are not audible in the original recording.

Other than that, the vocal melodies for Go With The Flow and Reptilia were for whatever reason hard for me to wrap my head around. Reptilia is the only song in the game where I actually find it tricky to find the starting pitch.

I can't understand why vocal practice mode doesn't let you practice sections of the song, like you can with every other instrument. That would be ridiculously helpful.

[Zeldias]

I do alright with the singing, but I've had practice with Singstar. I've found that it's best to sing slightly higher than my voice actually is, and MUCH higher when it's a very high note. Like on Run to the Hills, I just go really high-pitched and almost sound squeaky, but if it works, it works.

It really helps me to know how the actual singers sing it. Once i become familiar with the rhythm, it's much easier for me to just adjust my pitch as I go, instead of trying to find the rhythm and the pitch simultaneously.