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Tim "Ripper" Owens - What's his technique/approach ?

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akarawd

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Hi,

I was watching this vid :

of Tim Owens singing "Diamonds in Rust" and I would like to have your opinion - what do you think his technique/approach is ?

Especially in these points :

1. 00:33-00:36 : Absolutely no sign tension in his voice when going higher.

2. 01:17-01:31 : Introduces a more "rock" voice with a hint of grit

3. 01:33-01:40 : Sings normally and then roars "snow in your hair" - but he stays on the note - this roaring is how he approaches most heavy songs.

4. 02:52-end : He sings high notes yet they sound really relaxed and powerful.

I am not asking if people like or dislike his singing or if he is better or worse than etc

Figuring out his techniques/approach is the question here.

Thanks in advance,

Thanos

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tim ripper owens relies alot on twang, and i dont think his approach is that far off from what your singing from the clips ive heard. hi has an rather unique soundcolor and an own "sound".

He also lightens Alot as he starts to climb higher

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His "normal" singing voice is - I think - an open throat type of voice, keeping an open "ah" in the back of the

throat and using the "manic grin" a lot. And he does thin as he goes up. This voice I can understand *

The rest of his voice though... that roaring sound, like if he adds a whole octave or intense bottom end to his voice.

PS. I was paying attention to his speaking voice in interviews, seems like the "manic grin" is part of his

physiology. Sort of built that way by nature. While speaking he hardly ever moves his jaw and his tongue seems

to be glued to the bottom of his mouth. It seems he speaks from the back of his mouth and lets go of all

other tensions. Could that help in shaping the muscles towards his kind of voice ?

Edit : * or so I like to think. However, he can add grit to this type of voice of his. What type of grit is it and how can it be approached ?

It's worth mentioning that no matter how much weight or grit he uses, he never hinders his full range during a show.

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I have to agree with Jens and thats exactly what I wanted to say. Anytime you hear a singer singing adducted, full, "sounds great", head tones ... that individual... whether they realize it or not, whether they purchased someone's book or not... is deploying many of the concepts we discuss on the TMV forum over and over again. So the short answer is... pretty much exactly what Robert does, Martin does, Jens does, you do... anyone that can sing like that has much in common in how they are producing the sound.

Stick to your guns... no man is singing an A4 in a radically different physiological way... the differences are small tweeks, small margins like "Holms" pointed out earlier... he was talking about the differences between a G3-G4 in pure overdrive vs overdrive > "light mass" metal. Small differences, so slight that its almost an artistic choice really. When your dealing with small margins like this, its all "tastey".

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I see what you mean, yeah. And as I said I understand his clean voice and the real high notes as they are more or less the same technique - and sound - for most.

I understand I may be taking this too far by trying to identify the techniques deployed in each case.. eg, how does one produce the "roaring" sound like in 3,

the kind of grit used in 2 and if his highs have a full or a light voice as the basis.

There is a friend who can get hold of him and it'd be great if he could enlighten us but I know he shuns vocal questions in general 'cause he's already stated "I was born with this voice".

Therefore in all probability he is using all kinds of techniques without even knowing it or being able to talk about them.

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to listen and reply, I appreciate it.

Thanos

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I sometimes think a number of singers claim they had no lessons because they want to protect their "sound." Using an old phrase, a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while. But finding that same acorn day after day for decades? Singers with that endurance learned something somewhere. As has been pointed out, the sound is by tecnhiques we all know of. In fact, at times, identical to what we know from our books and sources. Which means they learned it somewhere and just don't want to say. It adds more mystique to "magically" have this voice.

Kind of like seeing Ozzy as the Prince of Darkness, only to find that he is married with children, has Anglican Church of England crucifixes all over the house and likes to eat from Chipotle Grill. The latter is not as "dramatic" as the former. And so, I personally don't see how I would think less of a singer if it turns out he learned from any of the top 10 vocal coaches than otherwise. Because it doesn't matter what the teacher or coach says or does, the student has to put in the work.

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I see what you mean, yeah. And as I said I understand his clean voice and the real high notes as they are more or less the same technique - and sound - for most.

I understand I may be taking this too far by trying to identify the techniques deployed in each case.. eg, how does one produce the "roaring" sound like in 3,

the kind of grit used in 2 and if his highs have a full or a light voice as the basis.

There is a friend who can get hold of him and it'd be great if he could enlighten us but I know he shuns vocal questions in general 'cause he's already stated "I was born with this voice".

Therefore in all probability he is using all kinds of techniques without even knowing it or being able to talk about them.

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to listen and reply, I appreciate it.

Thanos

for one: breath support, breath support, breath support!

high note at end: a little acting, intending, twanged head tone with cry (and you guessed it...support!)

i may get into a little hot water here, (i'm just a singer folks) but in my opinion, those super highs you hear at the end... i really don't think are that difficult to do compared to, let's say, some of freddy mercury's or lou gramm stuff...and i'm not saying that because i love lou gramm and freddie mercury. again, just my humble opinion...i respect it and all, but i guess they come easier in terms of level of difficulty.

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Thanks for chiming in Bob. Yeah, the highs are easier to produce and sound similar between singers.

So support, definitely and the unique personal style of his... It's that "roar" in 3, where it seems like he adds a lot of weight to his voice that I don't get at all.

How on earth do you do that without killing your voice... I don't know. I guess the amount of push is the answer...

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Thanks for chiming in Bob. Yeah, the highs are easier to produce and sound similar between singers.

So support, definitely and the unique personal style of his... It's that "roar" in 3, where it seems like he adds a lot of weight to his voice that I don't get at all.

How on earth do you do that without killing your voice... I don't know. I guess the amount of push is the answer...

#3.. how about asking jens?...that's one of his specialties

i know the brunt of all that screaming stuff has to with support and the diaphragm.

according to roger kain, screaming is just allowing it, going for it full blown, the holding back and the fear of hurting yourself is what can hurt you...

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Sure, Jens or any forum member that can pull it off (the "roar") and can give a hint of how to approach this type of voice would be welcome.

I'd really like to hear Steven Fraser's opinion too.

I'll look into Roger Kain's technique - 1st time I hear about it, thanks for the tip.

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Sure, Jens or any forum member that can pull it off (the "roar") and can give a hint of how to approach this type of voice would be welcome.

I'd really like to hear Steven Fraser's opinion too.

I'll look into Roger Kain's technique - 1st time I hear about it, thanks for the tip.

rogar kain's cd is very much about breath support, diaphragm muscle building and loud vocals and there's a screaming portion in it too.

he's very short on explanations and his exercises are a literal bitch to do.

a lot of his exercises keep you in a chesty sound for a lot longer than others advocate.

just wanted you to know.

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hmm i think it's a specific coordination, i hear daniel heiman use that "voice" alot to. One thing you can do is try to mimic the sound he makes while you add distortion and lower the larynx just a little.

Also notice how he chooses the overdrive vowels Snooohh In Yoooooh hair and add falsefold distortion to it.

But to be honest I dont master the technique he pulls of there, my approach is more twanging like shit and adding distortion ;O

http://www.speedyshare.com/files/24981912/light.wma

you get power and rawness, but your still floating in the water so to speak. What he does is some coordination that lets him put both his feet on the bottom(atleast it sounds so)

kelly sundown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ePvrgSu1Y

listen to when he sings "Me" sung at 0:45 I think it's just plain beautiful and also consists of this "roaring" you describe. Ive been trying to do this for a long time myself but without any success so please all who has any knowledge post! :D

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Bob, thanks for the clarification, I ordered his books as what you're describing sounds intriguing - not that I expect sth ground breaking, at least it's a different approach and

you never know what might ignite a change, right ? I have my "clean" voice in the works and I feel quite confident about it therefore I suppose I could afford indulging a bit in sth like this.

Jens, your high range rasp is amazing, you seem to have really good control over it. You're right though, the approach Tim and Daniel have is hard to grasp mentally.

I wonder if it's overdrive with a lowered larynx and distortion - what would that do in terms of volume in this soft song ? Of course their compressors could be working hard.

The weird thing about these guys is they don't "squash" their notes, they clearly add the effect "around" it. This implies that there is a very strong foundation underneath, ready

to take any change - that's one thing I personally believe is of paramount importance ; a really strong "clean" voice to build on and experiment. Maybe that part of their voice is what we should be looking into.

BTW. Tim himself said that he didn't have that rasp in his Winter's Bane years and that he couldn't do it no matter what - he had to work on it a lot and it hurt a great deal

until his throat got used to it and it's natural now. Along this process he developed this whole new low end to his voice. I hope nobody tries anything dumb like hurting themselves because he said so.

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hmm i think it's a specific coordination, i hear daniel heiman use that "voice" alot to. One thing you can do is try to mimic the sound he makes while you add distortion and lower the larynx just a little.

Also notice how he chooses the overdrive vowels Snooohh In Yoooooh hair and add falsefold distortion to it.

But to be honest I dont master the technique he pulls of there, my approach is more twanging like shit and adding distortion ;O

http://www.speedyshare.com/files/24981912/light.wma

you get power and rawness, but your still floating in the water so to speak. What he does is some coordination that lets him put both his feet on the bottom(atleast it sounds so)

kelly sundown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ePvrgSu1Y

listen to when he sings "Me" sung at 0:45 I think it's just plain beautiful and also consists of this "roaring" you describe. Ive been trying to do this for a long time myself but without any success so please all who has any knowledge post! :D

jens, the second example made me think of chris cornell.

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Bob, thanks for the clarification, I ordered his books as what you're describing sounds intriguing - not that I expect sth ground breaking, at least it's a different approach and

you never know what might ignite a change, right ? I have my "clean" voice in the works and I feel quite confident about it therefore I suppose I could afford indulging a bit in sth like this.

fahim, what is "sth" ?

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akarawd,

As you already know. What he's probably doing is Overdrive with distortion and dark soundcolor on OH. This is very very hard to do because distortion works best with a light sound color and also OH is hard to twang. The way I would approach it is to start in Overdrive on a comfotable note on your best vowel...mine is EH. And then find the distortion...slide upwards to the note you want to sing. Then slowly change it to the OH vowel and do the same. In the beginning it's better to use light sound color...and when you nail that...you can slowly color it darker.

Here's my humble attempt...hope it helps a bit:

http://www.box.net/shared/oxrm5e8hn3

Warning: As you pointed out yourself it's very important to be able to nail a centered(clean) Overdrive before even trying this!

:)

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Jens: You've got a really similar upper range to Kelly Carpenter, I've never realised that. Would be nice to hear you sing Warcry by Outworld.

About Ripper - that's really the kind of vocals I'm aiming for, I just love this style. I talked to him once or twice and the advice he gave me is to get A LOT of sleep:) Don't know if it helps, but if it doesn't, at least you'll have some nice chill out time:)

Anyone has read the chapter on Ripper in "pro secrets of heavy rock singing"?

Oh yeah, one more thing, you guys should definitely give a listen to Ripper singing "Scales of Justice" with Avantasia and "Ghost Town" with his recent project Charred Walls of the Damned. That's some of his best performences up to date.

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Martin H : Thanks for the input and the clip - it's greatly appreciated. Everything you said will be tried - once that clean voice is 100% there.

Videohere : Don't worry about it buddy.

DJDeth : Everything I've quoted comes from that book, it's a great source of info - if not the only one - about his singing.

So getting solid fundamentals , a uninhibited full range singing voice must be the key. I'm not there yet myself, but this is the only thing that makes any sense to me.

Even if the big cats do it without knowing it, even if they're natural born singers, that's what they have - an outstanding "normal voice" to build on.

I think that's where we should be headed.

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disciplined practice isd one thing, i belive ive practiced more than most people do cause i tend to get abit fanatic about things. But nowdays I just regard sounds as "sounds" some is esy for you to mimic and some takes time to get to, but this differs to the individual.

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