Jeffstunes's Blog

It felt good to have a much better sound to my videos. Everything sounded so much crisper and clearer.

The next selection of mine was a good song by a band called Travis. There are a number of songs of theirs I like, and this particular one is called "Why does it always rain on me". I have a few friends who really like my rendition of this one.

Though I assume that not everybody will like it. Check it out below:

Me singing Why does it always rain on me by Travis

When I started on Youtube, I was a little apprehensive and it really shows. My progress was similar to that of a tortoise, but I was slowly getting used to singing to a glass lens :)

This was the start of better quality sound on my videos. The music was now being played through the headphones, and not the speakers Everything was now being recorded through the Stereo Mix channel on my Soundcard. Instead of it all going through the mic. This allowed me to put a reverb effect on the vocal without doing the same to the music.

Though one problem still remained. The video and audio were out of sync. Because the timing on the vocals and video were so out of phase with each other, which made it seem like I was miming. It was me singing though.

Moving on. The song. My 2nd REM number. One of their greats. This name of the song is "Man on the moon".

My rendition is below.

Me singing Man on the moon by REM

Someone left a comment, saying that they were convinced it wasn't me singing. I think that had something to do with the sync problems, but complimentary in a way, condsidering they thought it was a proper recording :)

This was the final video where my sound setup was of a poor quality. So it's a bit on the low side as far as the volume levels are concerned. Yet again.

The second of my Neil Diamond songs on Youtube. The song is Sweet Caroline.

This is one of his more popular songs.

This is my version of that song:

Me singing Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond

The sound gets much better after this one, but that wasn't the end of my technical issues. I'll cover that in my next one.

My Eleventh stint in front of the webcam was doing another track by Elvis Costello, which was a cover version by him. I can't remember who wrote, and sang it first. Elvis Costello's version was the first one I heard. I only found out recently, that it wasn't originally by him!

The song is called "A good year for the roses". I've sung this a lot of times, and is one of a few country songs that I sing.

Here it is:

Me singing A good year for the roses by Elvis Costello

My next song after this is a Neil Diamond song, and then you'll see that I improved the quality of sound on the videos. Though my technical problems were not completely solved. I had another problem with my videos, which I will explain later.

I hope you like my version of this classic number.

Amongst all the bands I like, there is another who consistently released good tunes. Their name is "Travis".

"Sing" was the song that I did as my 10th Youtube vid.

It was a top ten hit in the UK for Travis in the summer of 2001. The fourth of 4 top 10 hits in a row.

One of the things that turned me on to Travis was the guitar sounds they used. Quite tinny in places, but they managed to balance it quite well with the bass.

So here it is. My version of "Sing":

Me singing Sing

I have done one other Travis song on Youtube, so far, and plan to do a few more in time. That's likely to be well into the future.

I'm sure I've got loads of others to go between :)

So now it was time for me to do some 'David gray'. Babylon got to number 5 in the UK charts in the year 2000. A good song, like several others of his. I have done this a good few times on karaoke, so it didn't take too long to make the video. All I had to do was just play the backing and sing. No rehearsals required. I knew the song pretty well.

You can see the video below.

Me singing Babylon by David Gray

8 videos and counting, and subscribers were still rising nicely. My video views were improving with each video upload.

So what to do next. Well, just keep on putting up those videos :)

My next video on Youtube was another Coldplay song. A song called 'The scientist'. One of several Coldplay songs I really liked. One of their releases on the album 'A rush of blood to the head'.

I was one of the best songs on the album in my opinion. I have to say that my favourite song on the album is a song called 'Warning sign'. I want to do an acoustic version of that song soon. I couldn't find the backing music for it :)

Well. Not entirely true. I found a backing tracks company online that allegedly had the song in their catalogue, and I ordered it, but I never heard from them again. I never ended up getting the backing for it.

That's enough about that particular episode though. The second of my Coldplay songs on Youtube. The Scientist. See what you think.

Me singing The Scientist

I want to try several more Coldplay songs. Sometimes, having too many songs to choose from can be it's own problem. I like to spend a good deal of time learning any Coldplay songs. Paying attention to the expression, because I think they are quite intricate.