Singer/Songwriters: Playing with lots of attack but not drowning out vocals?

[Hotspur]

So one thing I'm working on is playing with more energy. I tend to do a lot of light strumming, often without a pick, mixing in finger style and strumming and it works well for me.

However, unamplified, if I try to strum more vigorously to get more attack, the guitar volume overwhelms my vocals. Obviously, amplified, you just turn up the mic more than you turn up the guitar - I assume that's what's going on, for example, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCAiAf21K20

You can hear Dylan playing with a lot of attack. But unamplified, how do you do this while still keeping the focus on the vocals?

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Hotspur

So one thing I'm working on is playing with more energy. I tend to do a lot of light strumming, often without a pick, mixing in finger style and strumming and it works well for me.

However, unamplified, if I try to strum more vigorously to get more attack, the guitar volume overwhelms my vocals. Obviously, amplified, you just turn up the mic more than you turn up the guitar - I assume that's what's going on, for example, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCAiAf21K20

You can hear Dylan playing with a lot of attack. But unamplified, how do you do this while still keeping the focus on the vocals?

use a smaller guitar with less natural volume

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Hotspur

You can hear Dylan playing with a lot of attack. But unamplified, how do you do this while still keeping the focus on the vocals?

I'd call his playing in that clip pretty delicate, especially for him. He has always had marvelous time and feel, btw.

[J Patrick]

…Dynamic tension….building up the energy but letting it out in a deliberate and metered fashion….creating highs and lows…..channeling the intensity without overdriving your guitar…

….it’s the same as singing…..if you think of your guitar playing like your singing style it might make more sense….

[J Patrick]

…..doh!!,…..

[Glennwillow]

Some people have a powerful singing voice and they can pretty much play a guitar any way they want and still be heard over the guitar. Many people don't have a lot of natural vocal power, and in that case, if you don't want to be drowned out by your guitar, you need to play in a way that leaves room for your voice.

You can play the guitar with a lot of dynamics if you use palm muting to reduce the volume of the guitar when you are singing. Many singer/songwriters finger pick the guitar on many songs, and that approach leaves a whole lot more room for the vocal. In my experience, most performers who sing and play the guitar strum the guitar fairly lightly. Frankly, I prefer the sound a guitar strummed with some control; banging on the guitar, I think, sounds really unpleasant.

I think you have to start with your voice. There's no sense playing the guitar so loud that you can't be heard.

I don't hear Bob Dylan strumming that guitar particularly hard, he's using a fair amount of control in my opinion. But he also has the advantage of separate mics on his voice and his guitar.

- Glenn

[Robin, Wales]

Hi Hotspur,

Same problem here. Or at least I used to have the same problem. I love to dig in but had difficulty singing over the top of my guitar.

First solution was a smaller guitar. I moved from a dread to a 000. But I'm now OK with a dread - but we'll come back to that.

Second - I realised that it was the overtones and sustain that were the problem, not the attack. So, I found strings that killed the overtones and sustain. I now use monel or 80/20's that I leave on for a while, never PBs.

Thirdly playing style. I've become a bit more minimalist. Listen to the accompaniment that Woody Guthry used or Mabel Carter. Lots of heavy attack on the bass strings but a light shimmer on the strum. A more rounded and thicker pick shape helps here.

Fourthly, give your voice some time. I can definitely get my voice to carry better now than I could 3 years ago; my wife has really noticed the change.

Now I have 3 guitars - a D-18 fitted with medium monel strings, a cherry 000 fitted with medium 80/20's, and an archtop fitted with medium pure nickel strings. They all spit fire from the fretboard (the D-18 is actually the most subtle of the 3) yet with the more minimalist playing style that I have adopted I can easily sing with any of them. My playing is punchy, but leaves space for my vocals.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Hotspur

So one thing I'm working on is playing with more energy. I tend to do a lot of light strumming, often without a pick, mixing in finger style and strumming and it works well for me.

However, unamplified, if I try to strum more vigorously to get more attack, the guitar volume overwhelms my vocals. Obviously, amplified, you just turn up the mic more than you turn up the guitar - I assume that's what's going on, for example, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCAiAf21K20

You can hear Dylan playing with a lot of attack. But unamplified, how do you do this while still keeping the focus on the vocals?

Well, there is one mic on his voice and another on the guitar. The engineer on the mixing desk is adjusting the volumes of each to make them balance. I'd fact, I'd say the guitar needs to be turned up a little... I.e., you are not hearing either of them acoustically; you're hearing them both via the P.A. system, from a recording made from the P.A.system.

Obviously if you have no mics at all, you need to balance the two yourself. Sing as vigorously as you are playing guitar!
The guitar and the human voice are actually fairly well balanced in terms of relative volume, and you should be able to adjust both instinctively. Sing quiet? Then play quiet. Play loud? Then sing loud.

If you have just one mic, and you want to play louder than you want to (or can) sing, you just position the mic nearer your mouth than the guitar. But that's still a tricky balance, because the distance between the mic and your mouth is critical - the smallest movement can have a big effect.

As a tip, you can get the effect of more attack without playing a lot louder by picking nearer the bridge. You'll get a brighter, less full sound, which will cut through more.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Hotspur

So one thing I'm working on is playing with more energy. I tend to do a lot of light strumming, often without a pick, mixing in finger style and strumming and it works well for me.

However, unamplified, if I try to strum more vigorously to get more attack, the guitar volume overwhelms my vocals. Obviously, amplified, you just turn up the mic more than you turn up the guitar - I assume that's what's going on, for example, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCAiAf21K20

You can hear Dylan playing with a lot of attack. But unamplified, how do you do this while still keeping the focus on the vocals?

Actually IMO the strumming is not very dynamic in the Dylan clip, and the guitar actually needs to be turned up by a fair amount

As far as un amplified it is simple (if not always easy) and that is you have to learn to match your singing volume to your playing volume and vise versa. And one needs to learn how to listen to the ratio of your vocal and guitar because while playing ,,,,, because neither is a fixed dynamic and both are actually under your control.
One exercise that may help is to intentionally change the dynamics of your playing and while also trying to change the dynamics of your singing to match , i.e. start off fairly soft and quiet and the intentionally increase both.

If one tends to have quiet voice I believe there are singing and breathing exercises to help physically get more volume. And singing volume is a simple ratio of air in and air out..BUT often a quiet voice is a result of lack of confidence as much or more as any natural physical limitation.

[Glennwillow]

A good way to practice singing and playing and getting the balance between guitar and voice optimized is to record yourself with a single mic. It could even be the mic from a video recorder or a cell phone. Locate the mic away from you by at least 8-10 ft. and see how the balance is. If it's too guitar heavy, then you either have to sing louder or you have to reduce the guitar's volume by how you play.

I can tell you that as you sing more, you will often become a stronger singer, though that transition takes a few years. The more we sing, the more we learn how to generate more vocal volume and power.

In a small room, a huge vocal voice is not required and may even sound unpleasant. So in the end, learning to control the guitar's volume is really important.

- Glenn

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Hotspur

So one thing I'm working on is playing with more energy. I tend to do a lot of light strumming, often without a pick, mixing in finger style and strumming and it works well for me.

However, unamplified, if I try to strum more vigorously to get more attack, the guitar volume overwhelms my vocals. Obviously, amplified, you just turn up the mic more than you turn up the guitar - I assume that's what's going on, for example, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCAiAf21K20

You can hear Dylan playing with a lot of attack. But unamplified, how do you do this while still keeping the focus on the vocals?

Hi Hotspur…
I'm an all-flesh finger style player, and I strum with the backs of my nails (fingers 2-3 down stroke, thumb nail upstroke). And I'm also a singer who accompanies myself.

I suffered frustration when we got seriously into the amplified guitar mode (early 2000s) because when I'd switch from fingerpicking to strumming the PA techs would cut the signal down (because the strumming was so much louder), and then forget to turn it back up when I returned to finger picking.

For a while I used rack mounted compressor/limiter (pro gear) using soft knee attack and a 3:1 compression ratio fairly quick release. You could not hear it engage or disengage, and the volume of strumming and fingerpicking was the same. It was a sound-tech-frustrater since they didn't need to turn me down when I started strumming any more. But it was more gear to lug to a gig.

Ultimately I just taught myself to level out the volume of my strumming so it's barely louder than my finger picking. I did it while still getting the same 'tone' from my strumming as before.

If you don't want to retrain yourself, a small rack mount or high quality compressor/limiter pedal would do the trick lickety-split for amplified work. But it's those non-amplified gigs which need the leveling so you don't have to blow out your vocal cords keeping up.

It was pretty easy to re-train myself to bring the volume of my strumming under control.

[Hotspur]

Originally Posted by KevWind

One exercise that may help is to intentionally change the dynamics of your playing and while also trying to change the dynamics of your singing to match , i.e. start off fairly soft and quiet and the intentionally increase both.

Well, this is exactly the question I'm getting at - how to play softer without losing too much attack, and without losing speed. If I want medium-fast tempo 8th or 16th note strums, but don't want it to be too loud, how do I do that?

[Hotspur]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

First solution was a smaller guitar. I moved from a dread to a 000. But I'm now OK with a dread - but we'll come back to that.

Thanks for these detailed thoughts. You're one of the few people who actually seem to have understood my question.

Thirdly playing style. I've become a bit more minimalist. Listen to the accompaniment that Woody Guthry used or Mabel Carter. Lots of heavy attack on the bass strings but a light shimmer on the strum. A more rounded and thicker pick shape helps here.

That's interesting and makes a lot of sense. Hitting the bass strings harder would work well with my voice, as well. Something to practice.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Hotspur

Well, this is exactly the question I'm getting at - how to play softer without losing too much attack, and without losing speed. If I want medium-fast tempo 8th or 16th note strums, but don't want it to be too loud, how do I do that?

So if I am understanding you correctly ?

First for some definition,, we need to find out what "attack" means to you ? technically it is the amount of time it takes the signal to go from 0 to 100% amplitude in other words a time function .

So are you meaning the snap/speed in your strumming technique ? (which is a function of wrist movement )

In general the volume you are producing is a function of how much down pressure you are putting on the strings with fingers or pick which is not a function of time or speed .

So snap and pressure are independent of each (or should be)

It is possible to be snappy yet only be brushing the strings lightly . BUT it requires a relaxed wrist

So if you are having difficulty keeping a relaxed wrist while trying to be snappy or speedy then forget about the speed or trying to do 8th or 16th notes,, and focus on plying relaxed with consistent pressure first and leave the speed for later

[Coler]

I think one helpful technique is palm muting, sometimes selectively on the bass.

There will be a thread in my history with an original song called the Battle of Clontarf where I do it quite a bit, which may help to illustrate what I'm talking about.

I just blast into and through that one but I still have to sing over it and the lyrics matter to me.