Hello -

I am not SURE what to do at this point. I am a singer and I have thorough knowledge on the TECHNIQUES of singing with a microphone to prevent things like feedback and such. I have slowed down singing live, but lately I have been using this website to keep singing (it keeps me sane lol). Anyway, I thought it was maybe my microphone, but I tried to sing without a mic at all and just use the computers built-in mic & have had the same issue. With or without a plugged in microphone if I hold out a note too long, no matter the pitch, it will do something like changing my vocals into a strange high frequency pitch.

Here is an example (it doesn't have a timer so you can't really skip to the second, but it is within the first minute of the recording)
http://www.singsnap.com/karaoke/r/bc688274e

The following is my computer specs:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.111118-2330)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
System Model: U56E
BIOS: BIOS Date: 05/23/11 17:00:41 Ver: 04.06.03
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2310M CPU 2.10GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.1GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6050MB RAM
Page File: 3148MB used, 8948MB available

Any thoughts or suggestions would be extremely helpful! I know it seems like such a small issue to most, but it can get really annoying for me.

Thank you,
Melissa MarieI'm unable to perceive the issue myself via your link (my CONNECTIVITY is awful at the moment) but you aren't having the sound playing through speakers while recording, are you

Other than that, all I can think of is it being a problem with the website.

There was at least one distinguished note you held where I did notice the spike that you're talking about.

Kudos on the singing btw 


hm, sound is a complicated thing.  What type of monitor do you have... LCD or CRT ?   If crt, are the speakers sitting too close to the monitor ? 


Try making a recording on your PC. A suitable program is:
Audacity
It is free, takes awhile to learn, but gives excellent results.
For MP3, Audacity requires a plug-in. However, for real professional results avoid used MP3 during the editing and MIXING teaks. Use a format the has the best  quality. Later it can be copied and converted to MP3 for use on the web. A MP3 stream of 128 kbps  is recommended.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Also, use of level control and limiters is not good practice for good vocal recording. Those effects should be done later, a post-process or mix down task. Some systems have a wimpy level limiter on at all times and the result is very poor quality for singing. Make sure your levels are well below the DISTORTION point. This is digital recording, not analog. Stay away from doing a "red-line" in digital recording. The level and be normalized later. Signal to noise ratio is not an issue in digital recording that you 'fix' by turning up the gain. The DACs seven in basic sound cards do better that -90 db.  (The best analog sound mixers hardly do -70 db.)

You can download your music, play nit in audacity, and record a second track vocal while wearing headphones. I recommend a pair of headphones with a microphone, but NOT noise canceling. Just record where there is little background  noise.

I once was a broadcast engineer. Later, I spent some years in sound systems. So I have had to learn about this new digital stuff. Use it correctly and it is good.  But it can be very bad. If the bandwidth of the Internet improves, we can have very good audio and video entertainment. Meanwhile, we have to do the best we can.