The fact that I had managed to improve the sound in my videos, made me happier with what I was doing. The clarity was so much fresher.

My next choice was from another great band called Travis. I like a few of the songs they released, and this particular one is called "Why does it always rain on me". I have a few friends who really like my rendition of this one.

See what you think:

When I first put videos up on Youtube, I found it strange, trying to pretend that the camera was a bunch of people. Getting familiar with it was something that was going to take time, but I was slowly getting used to singing to a glass lens

This was the start of better quality sound on my videos. Instead of playing the music through the speakers. I ran it through the headphones. I was now using the Stereo mix channel on the soundcard. Instead of it all going through the mic. It also mean that I could add some effects to the vocals without doing the same to the music.

Though one problem still remained. The video and audio were out of sync. The timing between the vocals and the video were terrible, which made it seem like I was miming. It was me singing though.

Moving on. The song. This was my second REM song. Another good one by the band. The track is called "Man on the moon".

Check out my attempt at it below.

Someone left a comment, saying that they were convinced it wasn't me singing. My lip movements didn't go in time with the sound. It's easy to see why they would think that, but I look at that as a compliment. If they think that I am miming over a proper recording then I am pleased with that

This was the last video before I made some improvements to the sound recording. So this one is a little on the quiet side again.

The second of my Neil Diamond songs on Youtube. The song is Sweet Caroline.

This is one of his more popular songs.

This is my version of that song:

The sound quality improves after this, but that wasn't the end of my technical issues. I will go over that in the following post.

Here's another Elvis Costello song I did, which was one of his covers. I was told who sung it originally bit I can't remember for the life of me. I can only remember that the Elvis Costello version was the first one I heard.

The tune I'm talking about is "A good year for the roses". I've sung this a lot of times, and is one of a very few country songs, that I sing.

This is my rendition:

The next video coming up after this one is a Neil Diamond number, and then you'll see that I improved the quality of sound on the videos. I may have sorted out the poor sound, but there were more issues to solve. There was another major problem that I will go into later.

For now though, I hope you enjoy my rendition of this song.

On to another band. Who had a string of good hits. The band is called "Travis".
My 10th song on Youtube was one of theirs called "Sing".

It was a top ten hit in the UK for Travis in the summer of 2001. The fourth of 4 top 10 hits in a row.

When I first heard Travis, I was taken by the guitar sounds they used. Quite pitchy and tinny, but the bass seemed to compensate, and made the songs seem quite rounded.

So here it is. My version of "Sing":

This was not the only song by Travis that I did on Youtube. I also plan to do more of them. I'll probably get round to doing them at some point.

I'm sure I've got loads of others to go between

I wanted to sing the songs of many bands and artists on Youtube, and deciding which one was to be next was less than easy with all the choice I had, but I chose a song from one of my favourite bands in the end. Their album "Urban hymns" has been played many times in my house and car. The band was "The verve" and the song was "The drugs dont work".

Apparently Richard Ashcroft penned this song about his mothers struggle with cancer. Which adds even more emotion to an already intense song.

I only really found out the meaning of this song a few years ago, but it's one I've always liked singing. I always assumed it was about love, and not drugs.

So on to my performance of this song. See what you think of my version of this wonderful song below:

There were other songs by the verve that I enjoyed singing. Much the same as several other bands I like really. With that in mind, it's not really a shock to discover that I did more that one of their songs

My eighth video was my rendition of a David Gray song. The song is Babylon, which hit the number 5 spot in the UK in 2000. A good song, like several others of his. I've sung this song, and other songs of his on various karaokes over the years, so it didn't take too long to make the video. All I had to do was just play the backing and sing. I didn't need to practice it. I knew it quite well already.

Check out the results of my effort below.

8 videos and counting, and subscribers were still rising nicely. My video views were improving with each video upload.

Onwards and upwards. More videos to come. Lots of positive feedback. This is quite addictive.

My next video on Youtube was another Coldplay song. A song called 'The scientist'. One of several Coldplay songs I really liked. Off the CD 'A rush of blood to the head'.

It was probably in my top 5 songs on that particular album. Though I regard the best song on that album as being a song called 'Warning sign'. I want to do an acoustic version of that song soon. I couldn't find the backing music for it

That's not exactly true. I found a company that had the backing for it in it's catalogue, and I ordered it, but that was the last I heard from them. I never ended up getting the music for it.

Back to the subject of the post. On to my second Coldplay number for Youtube. You can check it out below. 'The scientist'.

I can think of several other Coldplay songs I'd like to have a go at. Too much choice can be a problem in itself. I like to spend a good deal of time learning any Coldplay songs. Paying attention to the expression, because there's a lot going on vocally, in most Coldplay songs, and the expression needs to be right for it to sound right.

Neil diamond, is one of the singers that my voice has been compared to in some of my songs. I don't try to sing like anyone else but myself, though my natural tone is reasonably similar.

So the choice of my sixth song was the Neil Diamond classic, Cracklin Rosie. This was the first of many Neil songs for me on Youtube. I think this was the first of his that I had ever heard.

Statistically I can tell you that this was Neil's first major hit in the UK and got to number 3 in 1970.

So here goes. Again, I apologise for the poor sound quality in this vid.

As I said. I've done a few Neil Diamond songs on Youtube now. You can see all of these and other videos of mine at:

Jeffstunes

Bye for now.

Charles Aznavour hit the number one spot in England in 1974 with She. I remember a lot of people going crazy for this song, but I didn't like it very much at the time. It was a bit too slushy for me.

I changed my mind in 1999 when I heard Elvis Costello's version. I like it immediately. I liked the sound of Elvis Costello's voice, and maybe, just ,maybe, my musical tastes had changed over time. I don't think so. I still wasn't too keen on the Charles Aznavour version.

So I decided to cover the song myself on Youtube, more in keeping with the Elvis Costello version.

and the results are below.

It was quite well received. More by some than others.

Well that's about it for this post. Until next time

The fourth song I put up on Youtube was from one of my favourite bands. Coldplay. A song from their first album, Parachutes, called Don't panic.

This was my first Coldplay purchase. I reckon the best 3 songs on the CD are Don't panic, Trouble and Yellow.

So on to the song itself. It's quite a short song, but as with most coldplay songs. They created such a rounded sound with quite a simple setup, and Chris's vocals are very expressive.

The levels on this are low, as in the others, but you can hear it reasonably well if you turn the volume up. Anyway. Here it is. My version of Dont Panic.

Thats it for this time around

I thought I'd try a more up to date song for the third video, so I opted for singing Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.

I got hold of a couple of their CDs in the last few years. I liked quite a few of the tracks that they produced, but this particular song stood out. I blurted it out a few times on Karaoke, and got some really nice comments. Well, I was happy with that. This one seemed like a good option for my third video.

At this point I was starting to get a little bothered about the sound levels in my videos. They were far too low, though my comments were still good, and people were still subscribing to my videos.

So to the results of my third effort. See what you think.

Well, that's the third one dealt with

So for my second video that I uploaded on Youtube. I got some nice comments on the first one, though the first comment was my first hater. Probably from a child. Though I wasn't deterred. I've seen a real variety of performances on there. From pretty damn good to absolutely dire!

I'm going to be doing a post for each of the videos so far, and then I'll post every time I put a new one up. I've got some catching up to do .

You can see all the videos I've done so far by going to my channel. The link is below:

Jeffstunes

I moved the camera position for the second video. I've kept it that position ever since. I might shock people one day and change it again

The second video I uploaded to Youtube is from a band whose music I admire. R.E.M. The song is called (Losing my religion). See what you think of my attempt at it:

There are so many songs that I have sung in the past, and It's difficult to choose which one I want to do next. I've got too much choice!!.

So onwards I go. Check out my next post, and if you can't wait then visit my channel which is linked above.

All the best.

I joined YouTube a few months ago to see where I could get on there. My user ID on there is:

Jeffstunes

I'm going to follow my progress on YouTube. So here goes.

I started on there a few months ago, and things are going quite well so far.

So What do I do. Well. I looked at other people singing on there and noticed a lot of them just sitting in front of a webcam singing, so I decided that's how I would do things for the most part.

I'm going to be putting up my renditions of a load of different popular songs, and I'm I'm also going to put my own songs up too. To add to this, I'm going to put up videos of other interest too, but they won't be too far away from music.

The first video I put up was a cover of Joe Cocker's classic song "You are so beautiful". You can watch it here:

Go check it out, and leave a comment (If you are a YouTube user) I'd appreciate any opinion

Well, Lots more videos to come