KillerKu

I love this song, and this is a really great cover. You're good enough, dude. Use your voice for the sake of the arts.

I think you should sing about giving up. I am gonna do another cover of this song sometime soon, love singing  Kate Bushes parts in falsetto:
 

I love it.
Reminds me of The Cure, Morrissey, and others... 
LOTS of Sob mode in your singing.... great range, intonation, etc.. 
You should be proud... sounds very pro and the composition is gorgeous.

Well done. And I could see this also getting synchro licensing on this. If the show were still going, this could be on "How I Met your Mother." I could also see it in a John Cusack movie. He's got the right melancholy look. It's funny, really, he and I are about the same age but he still looks so young.
Anyway, excellent song, excellent singing. Dude, you are pro. You are the next rock star people didn't know they were missing. I mean like how everyone is now going koo koo for 21 Pilots? That is you, next.

I just got back from the studio and just finished another song. The ep is coming together and should be released early next year. I am realy liking the way my voice has developed. When I first started I couldent sing above middle c and didn't know how sing anywhere remotly close to the pitch. 
 

"Well if the pitch is just pressing the wrong key on the piano then there is need for some lessons
But on the other hand, if my vocal cords dont stretch to that key then there is little point trying"
 
I wouldn't look at it like that. I think you're capable of singing on-pitch.
 
You just could really use somebody to tell you every time you're off-pitch and on-pitch, just like my teacher did, while they're right in front of you. Then you'll start to recognize things and you'll be able to feel it.
 
I can't tell you exactly how much, but I think your pitch would be at the point I'm talking about in less than 2 years, with serious practice. Might seem long to a beginner, but people train for decades. I think @ronws up there has been singing at least 20 years. Think about it. When in your life are you ever going to stop singing?
 
I don't think you should do a vocal range test right now because you're not able to sing what you're hearing correctly just yet. It would be somewhat inaccurate.
 
If you mean you should not give up on that song, then I agree that you should keep working. If you mean you shouldn't throw away that cover of the song, I agree that I wouldn't throw it away either. Keep it so you can monitor progress. I believe I still have recordings from when I first started, around 5-6 years ago.

I liked that, Felipe. I recorded that one the day after he passed. Might do a bit of a remaster at some point for more fidelity. 
I liked Ronws singing Space Oddity too. Actually I've liked everything everyone has done so far. This thread has some of the highest batting average of our challenges.

I liked that, Felipe. I recorded that one the day after he passed. Might do a bit of a remaster at some point for more fidelity. 
I liked Ronws singing Space Oddity too. Actually I've liked everything everyone has done so far. This thread has some of the highest batting average of our challenges.

I liked that, Felipe. I recorded that one the day after he passed. Might do a bit of a remaster at some point for more fidelity. 
I liked Ronws singing Space Oddity too. Actually I've liked everything everyone has done so far. This thread has some of the highest batting average of our challenges.

I liked the melody, some of the hi hat/snare interplay on the drum, and the piano hook next to the chorus. I like your vocals have a kind of quirky crying/yelping quality to them. Kind of reminds me of a cross between David Byrne and Matt Bellamy.
The highest portion broke immersion just a tiny bit on first listen. I liked it more on second listen so it might be an ear catching thing which could be good or bad.
The diction is a bit unclear, but I can understand most of it. I think it's overall good.

I just got back from the studio. I am currently recording an ep and this is a bit of a song I'm working on. Right now it has a scratch vocal, drums, piano, bass, and some pads. 
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1QnIhYX2w5p
 

Reaper here.
I noticed some folks record acoustic guitars to sing along. I have a tip that works wonderfully with any 2 channels interface.
- Record the guitar using two channels, one with a mic in level with your ears, and close to you, pointing to the fretboard, another with the line out (if the guitar has some sort of pickup, if not, another mic pointing to the bridge).
- On the first mic (fretboard), apply some compression, not more than 3:1, with a very short attack, perhaps even 0 attack. This will be the "center" channel, and will carry body and warmth.
- On the line out/bridge mic, apply a high pass filter, cutting everything bellow 100Hz, or even higher if you can get away with it, experiment. Also apply compression, but now, leave a decent attack time, something between 5 and 15ms should work nicely. This will be your "side" channel.
Now for the trick, duplicate the second channel (line out/bridge), pan the original hard left, and the copy hard right. Then on either of them, this is up to you, unlock the "snap to grid" feature of your DAW and DRAG manually the whole track so that it gets out of sync by a few miliseconds. The offset should be visible with a good amount of zoom but it should be quite gentle, don't overdo.
And that's it, a simple technique that can be done with almost any DAW default tools. It will sound rather good, provided that you play it properly (something I can't do )

I liked that, Felipe. I recorded that one the day after he passed. Might do a bit of a remaster at some point for more fidelity. 
I liked Ronws singing Space Oddity too. Actually I've liked everything everyone has done so far. This thread has some of the highest batting average of our challenges.

"Space Oddity" by David Bowie

https://app.box.com/s/833kbbutu5ygsbr66sbp

 

RIP David Bowie:
 
Great idea gsoul, keep em comming folks!

I'm digging both of these. Gsoul sounds great with the Prince tune. I think with an improved mic you'd sit right in that track.
MDEW, I love that. Your voice sounds like you, but more more confident, firm, and supported. It sounds like the best direction you could go. 
I had time to be as loud as I want today without disturbing anyway, so I took rough stab at Life on Mars. It has so many chords and is difficult for me to play and sing at the same time.
I wanted to make sure something was posted before the challenge was over, but I'm hoping to get a better version once I get the chords and guitar playing more memorized.

I'm digging both of these. Gsoul sounds great with the Prince tune. I think with an improved mic you'd sit right in that track.
MDEW, I love that. Your voice sounds like you, but more more confident, firm, and supported. It sounds like the best direction you could go. 
I had time to be as loud as I want today without disturbing anyway, so I took rough stab at Life on Mars. It has so many chords and is difficult for me to play and sing at the same time.
I wanted to make sure something was posted before the challenge was over, but I'm hoping to get a better version once I get the chords and guitar playing more memorized.

Awesome. I missed your voice. It's so distinct and that song is a great fit.
I've got a weird situation at home now, so I don't know if I'll have enough personal time to record loud noises right now. Otherwise I'd be all over this.

I'm digging both of these. Gsoul sounds great with the Prince tune. I think with an improved mic you'd sit right in that track.
MDEW, I love that. Your voice sounds like you, but more more confident, firm, and supported. It sounds like the best direction you could go. 
I had time to be as loud as I want today without disturbing anyway, so I took rough stab at Life on Mars. It has so many chords and is difficult for me to play and sing at the same time.
I wanted to make sure something was posted before the challenge was over, but I'm hoping to get a better version once I get the chords and guitar playing more memorized.

Awesome. I missed your voice. It's so distinct and that song is a great fit.
I've got a weird situation at home now, so I don't know if I'll have enough personal time to record loud noises right now. Otherwise I'd be all over this.

Thanks for your words of encouragement KillerKu. I'm graduating high school this week and will be writing and recording over the summer with a record producer. I'll probably be posting some my original songs that I'm working on to get everyone's feedback. 

Hi Everyone,
This is my cover of the Eagles' song - Desperado. Please critique my singing and performance.
 

The whole problem is that even if someone where to say Jon, Drop your jaw a little more, cut back the air and sing UH instead of Oh. It still may not work because your perception of UH may be different, The jaw may still not drop enough, The throat shape may still be off and you still may not be getting enough closure or twang even though you think you are and the so called expert would still be wrong and a quack even though he gave the answer. It does not work until YOU find it through Guidance and experimentation but YOU still need to experience it before it works. So many things about singing are confusing and seem backward until you experience it and THEN you end up saying "OH, Thats what that jerk was talking about".

That's a clear improvement to my ears. The phrasing is much tighter. The original's phrasing was primarily behind the beat which conveyed a downtrodden, on the losing side of things. This one has some 'push and pull' in the phrasing, which gives it energy and a bit more hope. 
I also feel like the call and response in the chorus was tightened a bit. The strings were minimal and good, imo.
As for the drums, I touched on it before, but it would be a risk to add to an already strong song. There's composition of the drums. Drum composition is a skill that usually has to be developed over time, as Ronws implies, unless you go for a stock beat. And with electronics there is often either a rigid element or manual editing/antiquating to give more of a human feel. 
I've done a lot of drum programming for my video game's music as it there will be percussion elements not available to me that might be more suitable for the theme and not distract as much as having some rock drummer wander into a random composition.  
This is an entirely electronic composition here: https://app.box.com/s/vloq945t0auc1x5sd5bvbfbbx105ni5u
Drums are definitely worth developing. My brother can compose electronic drums fairly well as a non drummer as he's been a composer for some time. He's probably not as instinctive as me cause he can't really drum. I get him on there, and there is the lopsided disco beat, and the desperately confused rock beat. But his ears for timing are good.
Basically the rule  of thumb here, is you don't necessarily want to spoil something good by rushing everything and the kitchen sink into it. If you're not ready to compose drums but you're ready to sing and play guitar, while it's good experiment and learn and practice, you wrote a good song. It's like making a good meal. Maybe a meal might taste better with a measured amount of mustard, maybe not. But if you don't know how to open the bottle, aren't overly familiar with how mustard tastes, and the mustard sprays everywhere randomly over the meal cause every meal needs mustard, right? Learn how to open the bottle, get a taste for it, and pour it on a cheap burger. If you're more experienced later, you put it on the gourmet dish. I don't think this is a disposable song you wrote here and putting things in because that's 'the thing to be doing' could tarnish it.

https://app.box.com/s/fugwx3wytme34ft03na23b85msmacs01
I completely redid the lead vocal, redid a lot of rhythm guitar work, added strings to the arrangement, and changed some vocal arrangement and harmonies in the second half - it sounds less bare now to me production-wise, but I don't know about percussion still.
Updated the original post as well with this link