I prefer a streaming site like soundclick or reverbnation..... sorry.... I am also very particular with what I DL these days.

Stream it and I'll have a listen.

Rothchild


Hope you don't mind davidrr, I've stripped out one of your vox tracks and re-uploaded here (so folk can see it's just a .wav and not a dubious payload hidden in a rar (which it's not)) https://www.yousendit.com/download/bFlHQ3QyRSt0QTN2Wmc9PQ the file expires on 20-01-11 but if you want me to take it down I can.

On a very cursory listen (admittedly on my laptop, so of limited value) I'm not really hearing harsh but I am hearing fairly nasal / bunged up. I'm hearing an improvement as I sweep an eq notch around 1khz. I'm sure others here will be able to offer a more considered take.

Also, you can save a bunch of space on you computer by recording your vocals in to a mono track, there's no real need for rap vox to be in a stereo file, you're just eating up twice as much hard drive space for no real gain.

Child

i recorded the vocal on mono, i dont know if it converted the file to stereo which i doubt

I listened to the clip a few times, and I started to wonder if we're using the word "harsh" very differently.

I did not hear anything harsh, just a normal male voice, actually a soft voice, opposite to harsh.

Assuming that by "harsh" you mean lack of ambience and ...what would be the english word for it....musical characteristics (??)....uh..I don't know.

By ambience I mean there's no reverb or delay to smoothen the tone, to make it fit in the mix. There are many things you can try. One is:  Copy the track, nudge the other one a few ms forward, send them to a bus where you put a compressor and a little delay and maybe reverb. You could also try adding quite strong compressing on the copied track and lower it's volume and have no compressor on the bus. Google for Parallell compression, artificial double tracking, for example, and read Roey Izhakis book "Mixing audio". If you want a little more snappiness to the voice, a little EQ could help, but I don't know what to cut/boost without trying.

By the other I mean some vocal training could give more intensity and muscle to your performance. I don't mean more volume or that you'd need to exaggerate your expression,
but that your voice comes out soft and ( excuse my language, I try to make myself understood, not hurt your feelings!!) sausagelike with no vibration or sonorosity (sonorous..could that be the word I'm after?). In that clip your voice is sort of squeezed through your throat like toothpaste from the tube, when it should pour out like water in the rapids. Your abdomen isn't supporting your voice, it all comes just from your throat.
 
With a little training I believe you can get some edge to your voice, and that added edge (better control of breathing and vocal chords) also automatically reflects to your expression.

At least, now you know it's not the mic or recording and that there's nothing wrong with your natural voice.  

Yes, I agree about the reverb. My point is clearly stated though. I believe the OP and we were talking about different kind of harshness. In my ears the voice is soft = opposite to harsh.
What I think the OP means is something in the direction of "too dry, too plain, too flat (acoustically)".

And yes, you're right, a little bit of 'ambience' goes a long way and isn't necessarly the same as 'reverb'.

I tend to think of ambience as more those reflections that you don't hear, and reverb is more something you can hear. Reverb is more the body and the tail, and ambience is more of the early reflections... You think?

And yes, ambience can go SO far. For the most part, I think most musical pieces (depending on the style) need more ambience and less reverb.