Newbie from New Jersey

[DavidNotDave]

Greetings, fellow musicians and music-lovers alike! 😁 I am a 30-year-old singer-songwriter from Northern NJ who is not only a lover of music, but also:

 

Video games (esp. retro)

Movies (esp. comedy and drama)

Books (esp. sci-fi, fantasy and some horror)

Food/cooking (esp. chicken wings, burgers, hot dogs, soups and stews, etc.)

Alcohol (esp. beer, bourbon and malt beverages)

And sour candy

 

In addition to singing, I play acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass and ukulele. I spent most of the last decade trying and failing to get my dream of recording and releasing a collection of my own original music off the ground. In November of 2022, I released my debut studio album "The Season Between Summer and Autumn" under my own name. I'm here to learn more about the right way to promote my music and market it to the right audience. Hopefully also chatting/connecting with some people who appreciate the genres I tackle/what I'm trying to accomplish musically 😜😇 

[Bridget Murphy]

Welcome to the forum. Feel free to share your gigs and performances.

[john]

Hey DnD

 

Nice to meet you David. I look forward to hearing your album. Can you drop a link to it?

 

What plans do you have musically for the rest of 23 and then 24?

 

Cheers

 

John

[DavidNotDave]

Hello John,

 

So sorry it took me so long to respond, but many thanks so much for asking!

 

You can listen to my album in its entirety on Spotify or Bandcamp via these links (also, if you could pass this album along to anyone who you think might enjoy it, I would wholeheartedly appreciate it as I could definitely use some more record sales 🤪🤪):

 

Spotify 

Bandcamp

https://davidtorok.bandcamp.com/album/the-season-between-summer-and-autumn

 

To answer your question about the remainder of the year, I'm pretty much looking to get back into gigging (which I ended up taking a LONG hiatus from when the pandemic happened and never quite got back into it). In 2024, I'm just hoping to have a decent amount of opportunities lined-up for playing out and sharing what I have to offer with anyone who stops by long enough to listen 😁😊👍👍

 

- DT

[john]

6 hours ago, DavidNotDave said:

Hello John,

 

So sorry it took me so long to respond, but many thanks so much for asking!

 

You can listen to my album in its entirety on Spotify or Bandcamp via these links (also, if you could pass this album along to anyone who you think might enjoy it, I would wholeheartedly appreciate it as I could definitely use some more record sales 🤪🤪😞

 

Spotify 

Bandcamp

https://davidtorok.bandcamp.com/album/the-season-between-summer-and-autumn

 

To answer your question about the remainder of the year, I'm pretty much looking to get back into gigging (which I ended up taking a LONG hiatus from when the pandemic happened and never quite got back into it). In 2024, I'm just hoping to have a decent amount of opportunities lined-up for playing out and sharing what I have to offer with anyone who stops by long enough to listen 😁😊👍👍

 

- DT

 

Many thanks for that David. Sounding pretty good. I’d be interested 

 

You should consider posting individual songs to our showcase request board. There are restrictions/rules but they are few and understandable. One song at a time.

 

Perhaps we can explore ways to help promote your release?

[DavidNotDave]

On 11/7/2023 at 6:29 AM, john said:

 

Many thanks for that David. Sounding pretty good. I’d be interested 

 

You should consider posting individual songs to our showcase request board. There are restrictions/rules but they are few and understandable. One song at a time.

 

Perhaps we can explore ways to help promote your release?

 

I'd love to continue to share my craft with all of you here on the forum as well as hear some ideas as to getting my music to the right audience 😇😁👍👍 I'm all ears!

 

Thanks again for checking out my work 😎

 

- DT

[El Diablo Songwriter]

I guess your genre is in rock?

 

I can't seem to pick any one genre.  I do have genres I've not dived into yet like rap, hip-hop, blues, etc.

 

I prefer currently rock, pop, alternative, edm, metal, classical, Latin varieties, and new genres of those.

 

I hope you can handle some constructive criticism, but I'm not sure how much this forum would allow.  I can hint at the fact that I face a similar dilemma, my vocals kind of suck.  I have looked at getting Synth-V a A.I. based vocal singer plugin that is affordable and sounds natural, but hell... I bought so much equipment and plugins to enhance my vocals, if I bought that...It works have been for nothing.

 

So, my new focus is to work on my vocals.  I've found that I progressively sound better towards the end of the song rather than the beginning because my vocals have "warmed up".  My next song... I'm going to first sing a song or two before recording my vocals to see if there's an improvement.

 

I think your vocals would sound much better in a country song rather than a rock based song due to the raspiness of your vocals.  Just my opinion.  I'm just one person out of millions.  Take it with a grain of salt.

 

Feel free to comment on my YouTube channel songs:

 

https://www.youtube.com/@ElDiabloSongwriter

 

I'm currently a one man band.  I use "Vocal Bender" by Waves Audio to vary my vocal to sound like different people, kind of.

 

I use Melodyne Studio to make pitch corrections, de-ess, tempo changes, etc. to tracks and masters.  Using this only improves my vocals by pitch, it won't help how well I sing, that I have to improve myself.

 

I have a wide variety of other plugins I use on vocals for the reverb, delay, compression, etc.  I don't always use the same plugins for those.

 

I'm currently looking at getting FUSER and RESO from Mastering The Mix because I've found those to blend my music together to create a better sounding professional mix.  Supposedly they have a big sell happening on the 20th of November that I'm waiting on.

 

I also use Ozone 10 Standard for my master, but instead of it's maximizer, I use Sonible Smart Limiter.

 

For each new song I create, I can see things starting to sound more professional.

 

If you ever want, I could get your vocal stem and your musical stem (for referencing the chords and key).  I could use my Melodyne Studio to re-pitch your vocals (sounding natural and not "auto-tuned"). Then give you the updated stem of your vocal.

 

The thing I hate about "auto-tuned" is how unnatural it sounds.  Melodyne by Celemony is the most natural sounding vocal tuner on the market!

 

Don't get me wrong though, it can't help bad singing, it can only make bad singing sound pitch perfect.  I should know... my singing it's terrible, but it's terribly pitch perfect... LoL!

 

If it was good, I would think I would have more subscribers / fans.

 

[Peggy]

Welcome to Songstuff, David!

[DavidNotDave]

On 11/15/2023 at 3:21 AM, El Diablo Songwriter said:

I guess your genre is in rock?

 

I can't seem to pick any one genre.  I do have genres I've not dived into yet like rap, hip-hop, blues, etc.

 

I prefer currently rock, pop, alternative, edm, metal, classical, Latin varieties, and new genres of those.

 

I hope you can handle some constructive criticism, but I'm not sure how much this forum would allow.  I can hint at the fact that I face a similar dilemma, my vocals kind of suck.  I have looked at getting Synth-V a A.I. based vocal singer plugin that is affordable and sounds natural, but hell... I bought so much equipment and plugins to enhance my vocals, if I bought that...It works have been for nothing.

 

So, my new focus is to work on my vocals.  I've found that I progressively sound better towards the end of the song rather than the beginning because my vocals have "warmed up".  My next song... I'm going to first sing a song or two before recording my vocals to see if there's an improvement.

 

I think your vocals would sound much better in a country song rather than a rock based song due to the raspiness of your vocals.  Just my opinion.  I'm just one person out of millions.  Take it with a grain of salt.

 

Feel free to comment on my YouTube channel songs:

 

https://www.youtube.com/@ElDiabloSongwriter

 

I'm currently a one man band.  I use "Vocal Bender" by Waves Audio to vary my vocal to sound like different people, kind of.

 

I use Melodyne Studio to make pitch corrections, de-ess, tempo changes, etc. to tracks and masters.  Using this only improves my vocals by pitch, it won't help how well I sing, that I have to improve myself.

 

I have a wide variety of other plugins I use on vocals for the reverb, delay, compression, etc.  I don't always use the same plugins for those.

 

I'm currently looking at getting FUSER and RESO from Mastering The Mix because I've found those to blend my music together to create a better sounding professional mix.  Supposedly they have a big sell happening on the 20th of November that I'm waiting on.

 

I also use Ozone 10 Standard for my master, but instead of it's maximizer, I use Sonible Smart Limiter.

 

For each new song I create, I can see things starting to sound more professional.

 

If you ever want, I could get your vocal stem and your musical stem (for referencing the chords and key).  I could use my Melodyne Studio to re-pitch your vocals (sounding natural and not "auto-tuned"). Then give you the updated stem of your vocal.

 

The thing I hate about "auto-tuned" is how unnatural it sounds.  Melodyne by Celemony is the most natural sounding vocal tuner on the market!

 

Don't get me wrong though, it can't help bad singing, it can only make bad singing sound pitch perfect.  I should know... my singing it's terrible, but it's terribly pitch perfect... LoL!

 

If it was good, I would think I would have more subscribers / fans.

 

 

To answer your question, my genre is acoustic rock/folk rock with occasional influences from pop, blues and jazz. I try to make my music so that no two songs sound exactly the same, so I guess you could say I'm an experimental artist. 

 

Constructive criticism is fine, but all I wish to say to your sentiments on my vocals is that if I wanted to sing country songs, I would already be doing so. I'm quite familiar with pitch-correction that isn't autotune and have even used it on some songs. Just because I've had several people tell me that my vocals aren't great, are nothing special or don't fit my genre doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to sing the style of music I have been singing. I'm constantly trying to improve my craft, which includes my singing, so through continued practice and study, only good things can come - that's the way I see it. 

 

- DT

[john]

On 11/15/2023 at 8:21 AM, El Diablo Songwriter said:

I hope you can handle some constructive criticism, but I'm not sure how much this forum would allow.

 

As long as you observe, analyse and advise and the thrust of what you offer is constructive, we encourage it. Constructive means helpful, not “Only saying nice things” as some people have misinterpreted it as before. We would draw the line at simple criticism or antagonism. If that happens we encourage members to report it to site staff. If in doubt, I am sure a member of staff can advise.

 

More than any forum allowing, individuals tend to fail to tell others of critique they are looking for or not looking for, and those offering critique sometimes ignore such requests and instead think critique gives them open season for opinion venting. It doesn’t.

 

We ask members to keep discussion civil, and if you cannot respect each other, then respect this site, the broader community and our site staff. If someone cannot do this, they should not be posting here.

[El Diablo Songwriter]

7 hours ago, john said:

 

As long as you observe, analyse and advise and the thrust of what you offer is constructive, we encourage it. Constructive means helpful, not “Only saying nice things” as some people have misinterpreted it as before. We would draw the line at simple criticism or antagonism. If that happens we encourage members to report it to site staff. If in doubt, I am sure a member of staff can advise.

 

More than any forum allowing, individuals tend to fail to tell others of critique they are looking for or not looking for, and those offering critique sometimes ignore such requests and instead think critique gives them open season for opinion venting. It doesn’t.

 

We ask members to keep discussion civil, and if you cannot respect each other, then respect this site, the broader community and our site staff. If someone cannot do this, they should not be posting here.

I didn't realize I was in the introduction area of the form and not the area where people actually ask for it to be reviewed.  Sorry.

[john]

58 minutes ago, El Diablo Songwriter said:

I didn't realize I was in the introduction area of the form and not the area where people actually ask for it to be reviewed.  Sorry.

 

No worries, I wasn’t intending giving you a row, just answering your question… I wasn’t sure if you used forum to mean this specific board or collectively this site as some people use it to mean both.

 

Oh and by “you” I meant anyone…. Not just you lol