How might I do an approximation of Lady Gaga effects?

[JohannasGarden]

I think what I am trying to do is usually called “twisted karaoke”–basically rewritten lyrics of popular songs with the original background music. It’s a rewrite of the lyrics to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” for fans of the video game Left 4 Dead (words by Digital Jesus on the Steam Forum for it). I’m new to everything about using a mic, audacity, etc.

So, it certainly doesn’t need to be a “pro” quality project, but it will be funnier if it shares similar effects with the original.

Here’s what I did so far, but I realize that I need to re-record everything:

http://www.mediafire.com/?d0wl70uv7x43wzs

Besides me needing to get over the sinus infection and asthma stuff that’s messing my voice up at the moment, I think I learned enough from a thread in the recording forum to fix the most glaring errors by getting the sound recording volume working right in Windows first–so I don’t get the buzzing.

But beyond that, getting the various tracks to blend and using similar effects are pretty important. It seems to me that there’s some use of echo, reverb, and Vocoder (especially on “I love it”), but I’m pretty confused about what sounds are due to which and what I should apply to the various vocal tracks on something like this. Everything I’ve tried, except perhaps reverb following some pretty standard settings found in the wiki, have given me pretty ridiculous results. EQ and vocoder are the ones I’m most confused about using–all vocoder attempts have given me something ridiculous sounding, probably because I have no clue which carrier sounds I should use (most simple explanations suggest generating white noise).

Well, if anyone has any suggestions for me, I’d appreciate it. I actually would like to record and do really basic editing to make it sound better more often and would put some work into reading helpful links, etc. The more unusual effects part I’m less likely to use a lot in the future, so less complicated “do this” instructions are appreciated if you know what to do to get that sort of sound.

Many thanks in advance! These forums are impressive.

And I’m using Audacity 1.3 (Beta) on Windows 7
I’m borrowing a Zoom Handy Recorder H2 from a neighbor to record

Let me know if there’s more info you need.

[Trebor]

An effect intermittently used on Lady GaGa’s vocal on that track is similar to a telephone effect.
(use the equaillzer to only pass frequencies in the range 300Hz to 7000Hz, (rather than 300 to 3000Hz), and only apply this bandpass effect to your vocal, not the whole track).

The “P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-Poker face” bit sounds like a Phaser effect has been applied. (see Audacity’s “Effect” menu).

BTW the vocal on your version has overload distortion …

Something is turned up too high and/or you are too close to the mic.

[JohannasGarden]

Thanks, and I agree on the overload distortion–that’s one of the main things I’ll be working on. Getting that right should help a lot–the same mic settings worked well up close when I used a different computer, in face, the record volume was probably higher, so I’ll start with adjusting it in Windows. Thanks for the suggestions, and I’m sure I’ll be back soon.

[Trebor]

It would be easier to explain with with pictures,

Below is the equalization “curve” for the cheap radio effect …

Below is what it does to the spectrum: it removes all the frequencies below 300Hz and all those above 7000Hz

The effect sounds like a good telephone / cheap radio. If you want it to sound even cheaper reduce the 7000Hz limit to 5000Hz or even 3000Hz.