jonpall

Hi, cool stuff there. Good vocals, cool rock vocals at the end and then you have a guitarist who sounds like he's been influenced by Slash - tasty playing. Both of you are very good. Your voice got out of pitch once or twice and it might need more emotion on the low parts, but I'm just nitpicking here. Good stuff and a good band! I'm scandinavian as well and a big rock and GNR fan. If you want you can hit me with a line on MSN here: j_g_thorarinsson@hotmail.com.

And I liked My Michelle more than Mr. Brownstone, mostly because I wouldn't use that sound you used in the low notes for that song. I'd probably try to make it sound a bit more like Axl's or give it more "attitude" (more twang plus a darker sound colour, to be more accurate). In your take, the "attitude" only comes in in the high part. That is FINE for some other song, but not this one, IMO. Don't get me wrong - you sound good there (besides the accent, which I suggest you try to fix a bit, IMO) and could used that soft-type of sound in many, many songs. But it sounds like you've really GOT it when it comes to distortion. I'll also bet that it isn't as insanely loud as some people might think, right? I mean, you COULD make it louder but then it would probably hurt. In CVT terms you're using mostly curbing in the high part of the voice (C4-C5) and metal-like-neutral (neutral with twang) in the very high part (C#5 and above) - as your underlying vocal modes, that is. I don't know how familiar you are to each those terms, though.

Btw. this has nothing to do with what CVT calls "overdrive". The CVT overdrive is a shouty vocal mode where your vocal folds are as thick as you can get away with. Here, he's mostly "intensifying" his sound and brightening it ... and then calling it "overdriving his tone" - which makes perfect sense - it's just that some beginning CVT people might get confused.

I liked all of those clips. Even though they're not perfect (an occasional pitchy note here and there, the english pronounciation might be better from time to time, the tone is usually great but not 100% of the time), I'd say that you shouldn't worry about the minor details and DON'T start to do anything very different from what you're already doing because then you might lose the ability to get that tone. I think that you've just NAILED the way how to produce that Axl grit, which can be transferrable to a sound very similar to 99% of the great rock tenors in history. So just keep doing what you've been doing and try to really master singing like this (AND in a more normal, clean way) with ease and feeling. Cheers!

Do you have a link to that GNR forum?

I'm glad that the software I pointed out helped you. As far as your singing goes, you're right - you can sing on pitch and with emotion and you seem to have good musical sense, but it lacks a bit of power. What you're looking for is curbing/mixed voice. I'm absolutely 100% sure of it. I recommend you educate yourself on it. I also suggest that you record yourself singing a bit of curbing for us to listen to. I can offer you my ol' take on it, which is kinda funny and I cringe slightly because now I do it slightly better. But you should be able to hear what I mean: http://www.box.net/shared/revh0z9ccb

Cool song, dudes!

Good singing, dude! :)

Snax - yeah you're totally right about Virtual Zeppelin. It's uncanny how much he sounds like Robert. However, I think it's smarter for singer to try to cover songs with a bit more of their own voice. Case in point: Steel Panther (even if they're a joke hair metal band). Their singer has a great rock voice that is his own but it kind of fits with most if not all classic rock tunes. An example:

Try lowering your soft palate and have lots of twang to get a sound slightly more closer to Plant, IMO. Don't overdo it or you'll switch to Brian Johnsson But hey, I like Brian.

Ronw, the different between the exercises in my link and the ones from Vendera are significant enough that I still really recommend you give that version of these exercises a try and in the order they're taught (first ex. 1, then ex. 2, etc.).

Thanks, Thanos. Yeah, I could do certain parts better like the one you mentioned. I think it happened because I don't have the required stamina for singing like this for a very long time yet. I'm gonna try to improve my breath support (minimize all extra and unecessary effort) and just really put in the hours training this stuff. Note that I've been putting the pieces of the rock vocal puzzle together for several years now so it may damn start to work a bit for me now, even though it's not perfect yet.

Analog, I think you might be wanting me to use a more non-distorted sound in the verses with very slight distortion on key words and phrases, like Axl did in the studio (in the verses), even though he usually sung the entire thing with very heavy distortion live. In the back of my head I must have chosen to go a more "live" way, perhaps to train distortion. Good call. Thanks!

I appreciate all your help and friendship guys. I feel humbled. Have a nice day.

Great job, Ron! I think where you have improved recently is that you are more relaxed and confident with a capital C. And it shows and it sounds like you're having fun and really connecting to the song. What you might work on is slightly clearer pronounciation of the words and singing more optimal vowels. Have a good one!

Hey dude. It sounds to me that you're using a vocal mode which CVT calls "neutral" and that is a sound that has the same characteristic as a lullaby. You can't sing too loud or powerful with that mode, so it's mostly good for softer songs. If you try to get loud with that mode, you might get a badly sounding distortion, crack, or plain hurt your throat.

For the song wonderful, I think that the vocal modes "curbing" and "overdrive" might sound good. You could start out with overdrive. Simply try to imitate a person shouting to someone in the market. But make sure your tone is NOT breathy and your throat is as relaxed as it can be, so that your volume comes from your throat resonance and your choice of vowel and not from pushing. Who knows, maybe this info will push you into the right direction for what you want to achieve. Have a nice day!

Right, Ron. If I'm doing a cover, I always want to try to bring out the emotion of the original performance, even though the sound will be different. If such a thing is done well, it has a good chance to bring out the same response in the audience as when they hear the original.

You're a very good singer, man! I really liked it! I don't really know what I could offer you in terms of improvement - perhaps a more experience singing dude/dudette than me would be able to do that. Actually, in order to make this sound even more pro than it is, you could add a slight compression effect to control the dynamics a bit better and there were one or two spots where you were slightly off rythm, so perhaps you should dwelve even more into the minor details in your vocal takes than you're already doing. But really, I'm just nitpicking to say something that might help you. You don't really need much help . What would you personally like to change in your voice?

Thanks, I appreciate it, Chavie . I think what you are perceiving as my voice sounding close to Axl is the fact that I think I'm using pretty much the same vocal modes and vocal effects (using CVT terms) as Axl. Even so, I can hear a big difference in my voice and his and for that I'm actually glad because I don't want to be a carbon copy of anyone. But Axl sings this way better than me, of course. I'm just trying to gain on him . Cheers, man!

Oh, yeah and I know that Axl sustains the notes perfectly in the studio recording but not quite as much live, even in early live recordings before appetite came out. It doesn't take anything away from him, though. He could still produce that sound like drinking water and also, he was jumping around stage at the same time which drains your stamina a lot.

Hi Ron. I was hoping you would like it and it makes me happy that you did Thanks! I know you're a big GNR fan like myself and that this song means a lot to you. It's also special to me and I'm gonna continue trying to improve my performance on it. It's quite a workout to do, even though I'm working on trying to reduce all extra and unnecessary support effort. I tend to support too hard sometimes and it tires me out on songs like this.

I found the backing track on youtube and used "Freemake video downloader" to convert that link into an mp3 file. It had everything except the lead vocal. It was absolutely free like anything on youtube. It even had some backing vocals and it's apparent that there are some great musicians playing on that file, even though it's not GNR. Then I took that mp3 file, imported it into Cubase at home and used my Sennheiser 835 dynamic mic to record this.

The best thing about recording challenging stuff like that is that you push yourself a bit and then learn a lot and grow a lot as a singer. I also think it's very important to work on one's low to mid range vocals, like I did in the outro and also in Patience.

Hi guys,

I just attempted to sing Guns N' Roses' "Sweet child o' mine". Here it is:

http://www.box.net/shared/yjerp2dyol

My (top) hat off to Axl for performing that vocal track so amazingly well. I know I'm not up to par and I also have a slightly different sound (which I think is good for me, actually, as opposed to try to imitate too much).

What you're hearing is the very first take, btw. I put slight compression and some reverb on the vocal track but no other effects, not even eq.

Have a nice day, all!

Cheers,

jonpall.

You do sound pretty close to him. Great job! Suggestions for improvement: It sounds like English is not your native tongue so you may want to work on improving your pronounciation. Cheers.

I think I have slightly more weight at some points in that part because my support isn't perfect there. Not yet. And I'd say it's distortion and not creaking. But I'm no expert at CVT modes and effects.

Thanks guys. I'm practising a lot of GNR songs these days. It would be cool one day to be able to sing lots of those songs in one night and do them justice. I'm not quite at that level yet, trust me, although I seem to be getting better. Cheers!

Hi guys,

I just did a cover of GNR's "Patience". Hope you guys like it. Would be fun to hear what you think. I know there is room for improvement but I did my best and hopefully I'll grow to be able to sing it better and better, as with any song. Axl is one my favorite singers, especially on the Appetite for destruction album.

http://www.box.net/shared/lpv7lzgdqo

Cheers!

jonpall.

Hi Ron. I really suggest you simply work on the vocal ideas that Steven mentioned and also the exercises in the link I gave you. I'm sure you'll see good improvements pretty soon. The most important thing though, is that you're already connected with the idea/story behind the song so you've already come far with being able to master this song. Cheers!