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Very nice. You've got a great sense for phrasing and style. Good pitch. Nice tone and emotion coming through.

You've got a nice voice. Interesting genre. If you want a critique I would say that you aren't keeping the energy going through the very end of the phrases. Sometimes this leads to singing a little flat as the energy dies off. Keeping the support going and then energy flowing will help your vowels too which sometimes get a little dark. In general I would brighten up the vowels a bit.

What are your goals and what do you want to accomplish?

andyravelo - Thanks! Well, your rendition of Grenade sounded really good to me. I worked for the last year on that lighter Steve Perry'ish weight. But it is not as effortless as I would like - still working hard at it. Journey Ballads continue to be challenging for me. "Let It Go" is easier for me than Journey Ballads for some reason. The things that helped me were Bristows program, Daniel Formica's approach (check out his video on support) and Seth Riggs.

Ah that explains it. Audacity is extremely limited. Sounds like you need to learn compression to avoid the peaks and then use a hard limiter on the master buss. I'm not sure you can do any of that with Audacity. If you're interested in recording you should think about getting some sort of DAW - even an entry level DAW would give you so much more than audacity. Or you could by $100 audio device like a Steinberg and they throw in Cubase Lite for free.

Xemedhi - Colds and singing are just plain weird. Do you take any decongestants? They can definitely thin your folds. I generally stay away from cold medicine. My voice seems to be ok for the first couple days and then it starts getting low and then I can't sing anything.

Your "lack of compression" sounds really good. Is that not normal with your voice?

Thanks for checking out my songs! I'm glad you like what you hear.

Ok - you did a good job with the double take - it has a slight haas effect. My audio engineering teacher would say not to pan the vocal tracks hard left and hard right, but there are no rules of course, and if that's what you want then do it. Instead of doubling, you could actually set up a true haas effect but keep the delay closer like 25ms. I know a guy that does all his vocals like this and it's part of his style and it sounds really good. I'm not a big fan of doubling main vocals - I like one track dead center. I'm just rambling here.

Excellent job. the blue shirt is perfect!

Sounds really good! You're singing with a lot of weight but it sounds cool.

Nice job. Very free and smooth high range.

Sounded great! I like the acoustic guitar with the voice. The voice seemed a little to low in the mix.

Interesting recording. Nice musical performance. The wide HAAS delay effect on the lead vocals is a little distracting, but that's purely subjective. I like the way you varied the instrumentation throughout the song. I would cut out the non vocal ending completely. The backing tracks need to be brought up significantly in volume.

Not really cheating. You know me by now, master of useless trivia.

David Lee Roth would only record bottomed-out lows, like on "Ice Cream Man" after a special preparation. He normally would not drink much during the week. And only smoked cigarettes when he drank. So, Friday night, he would go out to a club and have drinks and a cigar or two. Then go into the studio in the wee hours and create those impossible low tones.

I distinctly remember reading an interview with Melissa Etheridge. She would sometimes do her "rasp" overdubs and more bluesy stuff when she was suffering from allergies or a cold, because she liked the tone and the producer agreed. Try and train that!

Well I guess I'll have to induce another cold (OR NOT!):D

Yes - I don't know about the other SS guys, but Brett certainly does it. If I try do keep adducted down there I produce more and more tension. There is no vibrato and it's like I'm forcing it. Brett doesn't do that.

Sometimes I seem to be able to strengthen that part of my voice, but not through singing. I sometimes give factory tours - a couple weeks ago I had about 20 people on the tour, and I had a mic and they had headphones, but it is very loud in our factory. I was talking non-stop for an hour and a half. I wasn't shouting, but I was talking loudly. The next day it seemed my TA muscle rebuilt itself - like it gained muscle. My low notes were much stronger and I could go lower fully adducted. But my passagio was trashed for almost a week. This isn't the way to do it, but it gives me hope that somehow there is a way to train for it.

Does anyone know if the D5s I am singing towards the end in "still catch a grenade, throw my hand on a blade" is me twanging in head voice? I feel like that is not my head voice for some reason and I don't think I know how to twang. The notes however have a boomy chest sound to it though..

Sounds like head voice to me. Twang is one of those things that is always there to some degree. I'm not sure you need any more of it on those notes.

I can't speak for Brett Mannings program - I've never tried it.

Flabby is a good word for it. Its like I have a rubber band that I keep on loosening up and it barely vibrates. That's a good point about working on the part of your range that counts.

I just got over a cold where my voice was really low. I was thinking about re-recording the low stuff but never got around to it. Would that be considered cheating?:|

Brett Manning figured out how to sing really low with full adduction. I wish I could do that but don't know if it's even possible. Any of the exercises I've tried really haven't extended my range downwards. Any teachers have some advice for extending range downward?

Sounded good to me. You've got great phrasing and seems like you have a stylistic direction. I would be great to hear some backing tracks underneath.

I think it sounded really very good. You sang this with a very relaxed approach. This is purely a stylistic opinion, but I would have liked more energy in the performance. Again, that's very subjective and I thought the performance was good as was the recording and mixing.

Doesn't sound bad at all as I listened to some of this on my iPhone earlier. For some reason my MacBookPro doesn't always like Soundcloud as all I get is silence. It sounds like you've been singing for many years if only in private. Sure you've got potential. You're already ahead of many beginners. I'm one of those who believes anyone who wants to sing CAN sing. No one is born with a bad instrument. It's about how bad you want to improve and how much work you are willing to put into it.

Cool. I think you're going to have fun with that setup. A lot of power in Cubase.

Java - Thanks for the feedback.

Owen - I'm glad you like the instrumentation. I raised the vocals a little in the first verse in response to your comments - you were right, they were a little buried against the guitars and drums. And thanks for the tips on the low notes. It seems I can keep it bright to a certain point, and then any lower it gets thin.

Ron - thanks for the positive feedback. I can definitely relate to you regarding the low notes. E2 is about my very lowest - but I can only sing it bright when I have a cold, otherwise it's flabby. I've never been able to sing lower baritone stuff.

Excellent job on a very challenging song. Those high notes are really good. Nice distortion and control. Bravo!

devaitis - this is excellent. You've really come a long way in a few years. Well sung - very expressive. And really good phrasing. Your rhythm is right on.

Javastorm - I think you sound really excellent. Your performance is very expressive. That comes through on the recording. Just a couple technical things and you can make really good recordings. Get a pop filter - some of those "P's" are really explosive. Watch the input levels - you are overloading in the input stage and causing a lot of distortion on the louder parts - they are sung really well but the distortion is killing it. Also, throw a compressor on the vocal track and tame the levels. It is too dynamic where certain phrases are jumping out too much.

I was inspired to produce this song when Kaleb's version popped up here a couple months ago. The original "broadway" arrangement is great, but not as heavy as I prefer, so I added some rock elements to the orchestration - heavier drums, power and lead guitars, etc.

You can hear my terrible low range right away. Anything below D3 is a struggle for me, and the beginning parts are really low - to the very bottom of my range. I wish I could sing that F2 with full fold closure.. I'm barely hanging on down there. If anyone has any advice on how to get a fuller tone down there please let me know!

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