Preparing Your Files

Name your folder with the song title and your X handle, in Latin letters.

MP3 loses quality, so please export as WAV. If you have already recorded at different settings, send it as is — that is fine.

Please check that nothing is clipping. Distorted audio cannot be repaired.

Phone recordings are welcome.

• If you recorded on a phone, please say so when you order. I treat the audio differently depending on the gear used.
• If you recorded parts on separate tracks — to breathe, for example — send them as they are rather than bouncing them together. Once two takes overlap on the same timeline, that section can no longer be corrected.
• Do not record or export with reverb on the vocal. Once it is baked in, I cannot remove it. If you use reverb for monitoring, check that it is not being recorded.
• Do not apply noise removal, and do not cut or silence the parts where you are not singing. I handle noise myself, taking breaths and room tails into account. If those are edited out in advance, the result often sounds unnatural and there is less I can do. Send the recording as it came out.
• Try to keep background noise down — air conditioning, traffic and so on. I can deal with a certain amount of it.
• If the recording quality is too poor to work with, I may have to decline the request.

• Where possible, align the start of your recording with the backing track.
• If you shifted the pitch, note how far in the text file or the file name (e.g. +2, -1).
• If you shifted the pitch, please send the unshifted off-vocal track. If an official pitch-shifted version exists, include that too.