In 2005, how did Ruki's vocals improve so fast?

[TheZigzagoon 670]

If you look at performances from 'The Gazette' in 2005, both Maximum Royal Disorder and Peace & Smile Carnival Tour 2005, you'll notice that Ruki's vocals got waaaaaaaay better in the short period of time between these performances. Did he just undergo intense vocal training? Did he learn how to use his voice better? He sucked ass at MRD, then got way better after.

 

Example

Look at these two performances of 'Carry?':

 

The first is from MRD

 

The second is from P&S Carnival 2005 tour

 

I'm really curious how he did it to be honest.

[suji 8317]

more practice

Edited July 23, 2017 by sheepprincessgara

[TheZigzagoon 670]

3 minutes ago, sheepprincessgara said:

more experience. most vocalists go thru that.

 

((plus aging might be a factor))

That's true, it's impressive how it took less than a year for him to improve like that tho

 

 

[suji 8317]

I didn't read thru the post all the way and thought you were talking about how he improved until now. Fixed up my post lol.

[Kiryu999 3336]

He doesn't sound that bad during MRD to me but yeah he sounds better in the Peace & Smile Carnival Tour one. Maybe he was just sick or something? Especially that during this time they were touring and recording all the time. I guess he practiced a lot too 

[TheZigzagoon 670]

3 minutes ago, Kiryu999 said:

He doesn't sound that bad during MRD to me but yeah he sounds better in the Peace & Smile Carnival Tour one. Maybe he was just sick or something? Especially that during this time they were touring and recording all the time. I guess he practiced a lot too 

I mean his voice was worse in 2004, if you look at there first DVD 'Tokyo Saiban ~Judgement Day~ @ Shibuya AX' his voice was terrible, that's why I don't think he was sick at MRD, but who knows, maybe he was? 

[reminiscing2004 617]

Interesting discussion. First off, I think you might be exaggerating the change of his vocals, as you see it. Even looking it at the live clips you cited, let alone all of the other recordings from 2002 to this point, I don't think there was ever some drastic 'switch' where he got better. (I don't think he was ever 'bad' as many people believe.) You could maybe argue that about his screams, but I'm mainly addressing the clean singing voice.

 

Also, something really key to consider (especially with live performances) is the circumstances of the sound setup at the venue. As a vocalist, you are desperately depending on monitors, either on the floor in front of you on via in-ear headphones, to allow you to hear yourself. Standing on stage with the band, you often can't hear the sound of your own voice. This makes your performances at shows vary a lot based on how the venue can accommodate this. Most small venues will have sparse to nil monitoring options. Even in higher budget tours where you have monitoring equipment, you are presented with a new problem: bigger venues have even louder sound systems. Even among same size venues, the acoustics differs wildly, so the live sound team is facing a new set of challenges every show. And on top of that, the house guy doing the mix might put you too low on X night at X venue, and do the opposite at Y venue on Y night. My whole point is that for Ruki, or any vocalist in a loud band, each show will not be a level playing ground for their performance. It's very plausible that at one concert he could hear himself fantastic, while at the other he had insufficient monitoring or was in a crazy reflective room that drowned everything out.

 

Additionally, the idea that someone can improve very suddenly at a discipline is generally a fantasy, imo. Even if you are practicing something for 6 hours a day, progress is usually steady, but diminishes over time. For instance, imagine there are two people who practice singing for 6 hours a day. One of them only started singing yesterday and the other one has been professionally singing for 3 years. The newbie will make a considerable amount more overall improvement than the veteran in a month's time. This is what makes it so difficult to be in the highest echelon of skill in a certain field. If it takes 100 hours to become 'okay' at something, it might take 1000 to become good, and 10,000 to become very good.

Edited July 23, 2017 by reminiscing2004

[TheZigzagoon 670]

5 minutes ago, reminiscing2004 said:

Interesting discussion. First off, I think you might be exaggerating the change of his vocals, as you see it. Even looking it at the live clips you cited, let alone all of the other recordings from 2002 to this point, I don't think there was ever some drastic 'switch' where he got better. (I don't think he was ever 'bad' as many people believe.) You could maybe argue that about his screams, but I'm mainly addressing the clean singing voice.

 

Also, something really key to consider (especially with live performances) is the circumstances of the sound setup at the venue. As a vocalist, you are desperately depending on monitors, either on the floor in front of you on via in-ear headphones, to allow you to hear yourself. Standing on stage with the band, you often can't hear the sound of your own voice. This makes your performances at shows vary a lot based on how the venue can accommodate this. Most small venues will have spares to nil monitoring options. Even in higher budget tours where you have monitoring equipment, you are presented with a new problem: bigger venues have even louder sound systems. Even among same size venues, the acoustics differs wildly, so the live sound team is facing a new set of challenges every show. And on top of that, the house guy doing the mix might put you too low on X night at X venue, and do the opposite at Y venue on Y night. My whole point is that for Ruki, or any vocalist in a loud band, each show will not be a level playing ground for his performance. It's very plausible that at one concert he could hear himself fantastic, while at another one he had insufficient monitoring or was in a crazy reflective room that drowned everything out.

 

Additionally, the idea that someone can improve very suddenly at a discipline is generally a fantasy, imo. Even if you are practicing something for 6 hours a day, progress is usually steady, but diminishes over time. For instance, imagine there are two people who practice singing for 6 hours a day. One of them only started singing yesterday and the other one has been professionally singing for 3 years. The newbie will make a considerable amount more overall improvement than the veteran in a month's time. This is what makes it so difficult to be in the highest echelon of skill in a certain field. If it takes 100 hours to become 'okay' at something, it might take 1000 to become good, and 10,000 to become very good.

Thank you very much for such a detailed response, I never took equipment in to consideration, but I do believe his voice generally became nicer to listen to in studio recordings as well as live, there's so much to take in to consideration as a vocalist, maybe equipment was an issue for them in their early days, they said themselves they were really poor, Ruki has even said that even after their first live at Budokan, he wasn't exactly in a great financial situation, so maybe they hadn't got money to invest in the equipment they needed.

[Komorebi 2193]

Despite reminiscing's EXCELLENT point, I do believe Ruki's vocal quality has improved since 2005. 

Not that he had a shittyvoice in his early days, but more like he didn't know how to use it correctly and probably didn't know many usage and caring techniques. His voice felt raw and unpolished back then, inexperienced.

[Tokage 5930]

The real Ruki died in 2004 and the'Ruki' we've known ever since then is a paid impersonator hired by the management.

[Bear 1817]

I don't know, but Ruki was so good up until Disorder. I really liked his more raw and amateurish sounding vocals from 2002-04. Love it!

[nekkichi 6043]

18 hours ago, TheZigzagoon said:

If you look at performances from 'The Gazette' in 2005, both Maximum Royal Disorder and Peace & Smile Carnival Tour 2005, you'll notice that Ruki's vocals got waaaaaaaay better in the short period of time between these performances. Did he just undergo intense vocal training? Did he learn how to use his voice better? He sucked ass at MRD, then got way better after.

 

Example

Look at these two performances of 'Carry?':

 

The first is from MRD

 

The second is from P&S Carnival 2005 tour

 

I'm really curious how he did it to be honest.

I'm pretty sure them performing 5 songs tops during PSC carnival tour VS a full-length tour finale could explain things.

 

didn't he also smoke at that time? might have contributed to him running out of breath early in the MRD set.

[TheZigzagoon 670]

20 hours ago, Komorebi said:

Despite reminiscing's EXCELLENT point, I do believe Ruki's vocal quality has improved since 2005. 

Not that he had a shittyvoice in his early days, but more like he didn't know how to use it correctly and probably didn't know many usage and caring techniques. His voice felt raw and unpolished back then, inexperienced.

That raw and unpolished feel to it is what I meant, he seemed to drop that in a short space of time, it's impressive

16 hours ago, Tokage said:

The real Ruki died in 2004 and the'Ruki' we've known ever since then is a paid impersonator hired by the management.

I-ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED?

14 hours ago, Bear said:

I don't know, but Ruki was so good up until Disorder. I really liked his more raw and amateurish sounding vocals from 2002-04. Love it!

Disorder is my favourite album, I'd love a re-recording of songs from it, as long as it's not shit tier quality like Traces 2

6 hours ago, nekkichi said:

I'm pretty sure them performing 5 songs tops during PSC carnival tour VS a full-length tour finale could explain things.

 

didn't he also smoke at that time? might have contributed to him running out of breath early in the MRD set.

But this change remained consistent as we see in the tour documentary for 'Nameless Liberty Six Guns' in 2006, one year he had pretty shaky vocals and within a year they flourished in to something pretty decent.

 

I think Ruki still smokes now, at least last time I saw him smoke was in the 2012-2013 MELT tour documentary DVD

[TheZigzagoon 670]

This might be a bit of a better example with 'Linda ~candydive pinky heaven~'

 

MRD

 

Peace & Smile Carnival 2005

 

Edited July 24, 2017 by TheZigzagoon

[blackdoll 907]

20 hours ago, Bear said:

I don't know, but Ruki was so good up until Disorder. I really liked his more raw and amateurish sounding vocals from 2002-04. Love it!

and he use to be able to do descent harsh for VK.  

 

[Bear 1817]

6 hours ago, TheZigzagoon said:

Disorder is my favourite album, I'd love a re-recording of songs from it, as long as it's not shit tier quality like Traces 2

 

If you think it's their best album, why would you want them to re-record it? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Simple as that if you ask me. Goes for all good music, films and TV-series, graphic novels, games and whatnot. If it's good, just leave it alone to be good and go do something else.

 

Disorder is my favourite as well, a right ahead of the glorious EPs released before it. Ain't interested in any of those being re-recorded as they won't be able to re-create the passion and magic from those recording sessions. And they're all beyond fantastic as they are.

[TheZigzagoon 670]

18 hours ago, Bear said:

 

If you think it's their best album, why would you want them to re-record it? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Simple as that if you ask me. Goes for all good music, films and TV-series, graphic novels, games and whatnot. If it's good, just leave it alone to be good and go do something else.

 

Disorder is my favourite as well, a right ahead of the glorious EPs released before it. Ain't interested in any of those being re-recorded as they won't be able to re-create the passion and magic from those recording sessions. And they're all beyond fantastic as they are.

That's true, I'm just curious as to how it'd sound now they have 13 years of experience since Disorder, I'm also dying to hear Shichi Gatsu Youka live XD

 

Their EP's before hand were amazing! Cockayne Soup is my favourite, simply because Haru ni chirikeri mi wa kareru de gozaimasu and Shiawase na hibi are some of my favourites from their indies era

[togz 2004]

I feel that often times with any artist first starting out... they do it based on a passion they've gained... and while of course it takes time to really build and grow skills, I think there is a certain point where each artist makes a huge break through with their talent. Maybe when they really learn themselves and find a direction. 

 

I think his voice has always been unique and distinguishable.

[TheZigzagoon 670]

2 hours ago, togz said:

I feel that often times with any artist first starting out... they do it based on a passion they've gained... and while of course it takes time to really build and grow skills, I think there is a certain point where each artist makes a huge break through with their talent. Maybe when they really learn themselves and find a direction. 

 

I think his voice has always been unique and distinguishable.

This is true, Ruki started out as a drummer in previous bands that he was in, so he wasn't always a vocalist to begin with, I think The Gazette was his first proper experience with being vocalist as by time he became vocalist in his previous band, they were disbanding anyways. I don't think his voice is the best in VK but there's no denying that it is good 

[nekkichi 6043]

On 7/25/2017 at 3:13 AM, TheZigzagoon said:

But this change remained consistent as we see in the tour documentary for 'Nameless Liberty Six Guns' in 2006, one year he had pretty shaky vocals and within a year they flourished in to something pretty decent.

I've been under impression that his indie-era vocal style was too high for his natural range;

he slowly went lower starting with around Reila era, and sings pretty consistently throughout their major albums - which, assuming he also got some sort of vocal coaching alongside - coincides with delivering better live vocals too.

[Nagisa 131]

19 hours ago, nekkichi said:

I've been under impression that his indie-era vocal style was too high for his natural range;

 

Now that I think about it, this definitely seems to be the case.

[RuSaudade 0]

On 7/24/2017 at 10:49 PM, blackdoll said:

and he use to be able to do descent harsh for VK.  

 

For VK? I suppose you mean VK has a distinct harsh vocal they'd adhere to? I don't mean this in a bad way I'm just genuinely curious 😶. At any rate, I'll always adore his harsh vocals in earlier albums, but as far as later album goes I think his harsh vocals come from a place of finding a proper technique that could be less damaging? I also always tend to think that harsh vocals from earlier albums were just an accent, something to add color, where as later on it was more of a prominent sound he was going for and so it sounds different with practice and has improved in my opinion.