benny82

Ron and Owen you really made me do this. Feels so relieving to sing something in tessitura again while singing my ass off working on that SoS cover.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/69231116/hurt.mp3

Those Bb4's are a pain in the ass! I just heard how strained they are. Normally, I can sing Bb4 in full chest. Gonna have to look for a different modification to hit those I guess.

Bb4? Haha, now I know why they are so difficult, I always thought of them as G#4's

Aside from that, you have a very cool sound Keith, also like the harmonies you put in there. Makes me want to hear the full version from you.

Awesome Felipe, where do I get the backing track ? :P

Yep, I'm not going into head resonance enough still, I think Geoff is even in M2 on the high notes (but I could be wrong), will try the next one when I have the time...

Interesting choice to sing closed vowel. I had not heard it done that way before. And I am just a little jealous of your lows. Especially the chorus at the end. That was awesome, kind of a goose bump thing.

Yes, I am singing very low mass and I tried several vowels. The I vowel seems to work best for me. If I use EH for example I am driven into a higher mass configuration (or more metal in terms of CVT). What I am using on that note is probably that Curbing thing, but I could be wrong.

So, I am slowly getting a hang on that low-mass approach and here is another try on Silent Lucidity

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69231116/silent_test_xx20.mp3

This is really really low mass, feels as if I am singing with only the tiniest bist of my folds, but I can get that A4 now, even though it still sounds a bit too piercing in quality.

Awesome. The C#5's are insanely good. The D#5 (I think) somewhere around the end sounds a little too compressed but still really good.

The word "faithfully" sounds a little too theatry with the darkening. Would sound better to my ears with a little softer and smaller tone.

Of course that's really picky because there just isn't much to criticise. Pure awesome as a whole!

To illustrate the difference:

This is "low-mass": https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69231116/mistymountain_lowmass.mp3

This is "mixed-with-fry": https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69231116/mistymountain_frymix.mp3

I overdid it intentionally on the fry to show the difference. You can hear that at B2 I lose the fry within the mix, but in anything lower it's there. You can get much louder with fry but also get the fry-sound into your mix.

I also noticed that the low note in that song is actually even a C2, which is on "the trees like torches" (or maybe my tuning is not according to the original)

Arons mix is somewhere in between my two samples, including some fry, but not as much as my overdone fry-mix. You can also clearly hear me go breathy below E2 on the first sample and sometimes rumbly on notes below that on the second one. This indicates that below E2 is out-of-tessitura for me.

That is not vocal fry what Adon is doing, it is a proper lower extension and happens naturally when you use a medium-mass coordination on very low notes. It's more like "mixing" vocal fry with M1, but it is still not pure vocal fry and if you train it you can get really loud with it.

The original song in the movie is sung in a low-mass coordination, which makes the initial D2 sound a little windy, but therefore removes the fry joining the mix.

Really hard to tell from that sample if you are a bass or a low baritone Adon, you should try to sing it in a low-mass configuration. That's where you can really notice the note where your voice starts to get too windy or muffled.

That said, even the original singer in the movie is not a profound bass, maybe a medium bass, because he still has some wind on that D2. A profound bass would be able to hit that note without wind.

As for myself, I usually also get windy at D2 because I am not a profound bass. But I can do a D#2 and definitely an E2 with next to no wind (and no vocal fry mixing into it).

Yeah. I just heard the song a few times and then just sang over the backing with the lyrics in front of me. Don't know the exact phrasing yet.

As for the high note. Yes it really seems to be falsetto. That is probably what is making the sound different. Seems that I have to work on a little more compression.

I mostly listened to this live version:

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

... which I think sounds even better than the studio recording. Really awesome singer!

On a side note: While listen to Geoff I noticed that he seems to be bridging even earlier than Robert. He just leaves out the belting that Robert suggests on the notes C4 to D#4 and goes straight into M2 at C4.

So this song gets mentioned so much and how Geoff Tate is a quite low voice type so I had to give it a first try. Some text problems (don't have it in my mind yet). This is really the lowest-mass approach I can do, but I still have some change of tonal quality after the upper passagio, which you can hear quite well at the high note (A4) of the song. Any idea what I'm doing wrong there?

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69231116/silentluciditytest.mp3

yep. many musical main roles are written for "baritenors". However, I'm a little bit lower than that. In classical music I would probably sing bass-baritone or maybe hero baritone. I like Dance of the Vampires very much because most songs only go up to F#4, which means the main role can be sung by singers lower than baritenors as well.

So this is basically my "normal" style to sing currently. Found out recently that it seems to go quite well with musical theatre. So this is an excerpt from "Endless Appetite" (Dance of the Vampires)

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69231116/endlessappetite.mp3

Just saw that other thread with the dwarven song sung during the movie. This one fits much more to my tessitura.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69231116/misty%20mountain.mp3

Just got an idea from that. Finally a sound track song that fits to my tessitura :)

Well, the low string is a bit sharp because I play with a capo on 1st. I honestly didn't check the backing vocals for being in tune ;-)

Quick try on the Hobbit's final credits song

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69231116/lost%20mountain.mp3

My first test of the my new technique improvements after working with the TVS material for some weeks now. My lows sound a bit muffled which is probably due to my SM58 which seems to respond quite badly to the lower voices.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69231116/wicked%20game.mp3