Gneetapp

This is a great song for your voice.  You have the right tone and range for this song.  You may want to experiment with the following 
1. More support and compression in the way you render the mid upper range.   
2. Get some distortion on the high notes like 3.03.  You will need to do support and compression for the same and it will have the rocker sound! You do these same sounds in 4:48 for e.g. It will be great if you can get this kind of sound in the high parts of the voice..  
All in all great effort and kudos to take on such a tough song.. 

Hey everyone!
 
So a little about me.... I've a background in classical singing and musical theatre and whilst I have aspirations to be a professional in both of those capacities I also have a love of music such as Shinedown, Alter Bridge, Trapt etc.. you get the idea.
Above you will find a taste of where my voice is at singing just about the most contemporary song I have in my musical theatre rep. I'm not sure if I have ever sung in M2 in my entire life and am excited to get going with TFPOS. I'll be playing the role of Radames in Elton John's 'Aida' soon and will really need to be able to rock it up in the E4-A4 kind of range with total ease. I'm willing to put in the hard yards.
Lets do this.

Su tienes Cajones grande, bato loco.
Really good effort. You have the range and a great tone for this song. I think the only thing that is causing you some strain is over-articulation. You sound quite a bit more american on this one that you did the Bonnie Raitt song. Mainly because your vowels were cleaner. In fact, the only weak part I could hear was the lowest end. You don' have to sing that low just because Axl does. Sing where it works for you. And did you know that a lot of the singing on the songs, especially harmony parts, was Duff McKagan? He actually started out playing guitar and singing and got into playing bass later.
And, like Duff, you've got a great punk feel in your voice, which I think is cool.

Gneetapp.. I like your voice in the higher octave.  It sounds more natural for your voice.  I must say that I like Rob's version in the lower octave coz he has got that effortless low notes that create the more signature Rob sound!   
Quite a big task to want to sing same song in two different octaves, but great effort!

Yeah, there's some off pitches but I think that is from pushing a little too much. I think, the key to the low end is the same as the high end. Manage the breath and let the folds do what they will.

Compression is something I just cannot seem to get a good understanding off.  I do something very similar to what you describe here.  If I feel that certain parts of the song are low volume, I just normalize that portion and increase the volume.  I am surely doing something really wrong with my mixing, cause my wife keeps saying that the highest parts and the most powerful parts of the song seem a bit muffled in the recordings and that I sound way better in person.  Maybe I should stop reading free stuff on internet and sign up for a formal sound engineering course LOL!! 

Compressor functions
ratio: how much the sound in decibels is reduced in volume
threshold; The level of loudness at which point the compressor will then "compress" or reduce the level coming out
knee (soft or hard) - how sudden is the change to compressed signal
attack - how fast, in time, usually milliseconds, a compressor begins to act
release - how fast, usually in milliseconds, a compressor releases or quits compressing
option (make up gain after compression) - the compressor increases gain after compressing the signal or track to a usable volume.

Normalizing is the worst thing to do, don't do it, step away from it,have your wife slap your hands until they are red for even trying to do it. Leave it alone. The reason is normalizing is like a limiter, it raises everything in a track to the pre-set limit you choose. That gets rid of dynamics and usually places the track very close to digital clipping. Trust me, you don't want that. If you do want that, I can no longer be your friend. (Union rules) 
What a compressor does is reduce the loudness difference between the highest volume notes and the lowest volume notes. Not the pitch, the volume or perceived loudness. Once a level of loudness has past a set point you have decided (the threshold) it will then reduce the output volume. How much? That depends on the ratio that you set. Most times, for vocals, 2:1 works, or something close to that. I usually prefer to err on the side of less, rather than more, but I could be wrong. Since this reduces the dynamic range of least loud note to most loud note, it has the effect of making the least loud more prominent, almost equal with the loudest. 
As for the sound of your voice at different parts of the range, your wife may be right. Or not. She is hearing you acoustically in whatever room you are in and that is always going to be different than how we hear you through an edited recording. It could be that other things you are doing in editing are changing some of the sound qualities of your voice. It could be that you are singing these songs and sounding american and that is a sound she finds to be "muffled," whether it is, or not. That if you sing something traditional, then you sound "better."
So much of what a person hears is affected more by psychology than by actual comparison of pitches, tonal quality, etcetera. And who knows, maybe your voice sounds brighter in person, maybe it sounds brighter in traditional music and that you are doing something to sound different and more american.
For example, I find some local singing styles from other parts of the world to be hypernasal, to the point of bringing on nausea. I can imagine others would be equally sickened by the sound of my voice. And if others are not sickened by the sound of my voice, then I have not worked hard enough and need to double down (to borrow a phrase from the gamblers in Vegas.)
\m/
 
 

I've read in some recording tutorial that you can also normalize your vocals or song, but instead of doing it in one move, you actually identify the different parts of the song and normalize each part in separate. This way you don't lose the dynamics of the recording...

I've read in some recording tutorial that you can also normalize your vocals or song, but instead of doing it in one move, you actually identify the different parts of the song and normalize each part in separate. This way you don't lose the dynamics of the recording...

I don't know if I'm an obsessive, perfectionist or what, really... I have a compression setting for everything I sing, and then change it when I want to do some backing choruses, or whispery effects and stuff... But the main thing is almost always static.
What I do, is shape the spikes, or the vocals that stand out more compared to the music. I amplify by 0.2dB and -0.2dB for example, select parts, giving shape to them, like drawing on the DAW, until I'm pleased with the sound and how it mixes with the musical track. Am I being too hands on with the thing? lol Is this a common practice?

Gneetapp,
For sure,... let's hear the lower octave version. That would be an interesting study.

Hey Rob, last night I had some spare time, and just for kicks tried this song 1 octave below, like you did. Oh man I took such a beating! It was so hard to sing the lowest notes, and the ones I managed to sing didn't sound natural to my ears. I might actually record it just to amuse you guys with my pathetic attempt to sound manly with a thundering voice...

This is a good direction. I can give you a few different ideas for compression. Something I like to do is use a lighter compression (lower ratio, maybe 2/1) with a slower attack time as a primary compressor. The reason why the attack time is slow is so consonants don't get eaten and some dynamic range is preserved.
Then I will set a second compressor at a higher volume more serving as a milder 'limiter.' This will have a faster attack time to catch huge spikes in the really loud parts. I've found when using a single compressor it will often 'squash' the dynamic range and/or have a tendency to eat consonants.
Some producers ride volume for every word, but I like to keep the original 'vocal dynamics' intact for the most part.  
The other thing you might benefit from is a richer reverb. It still sounds pretty dry. And possibly some kind of double tracking. Delay can work in a pinch. What you'd do is have one main track of vocals without delay, and have one track of vocals with delay but quietly playing (imperceptible to most people) and panned.
Microphones are generally mono recording devices. Imagine if you are in the same room with someone, you'll hear the voice in both ears from a different wavelength, different angles, and there will be lots of reverberation/reflection throughout the room. When the voice goes straight into the mic, it's like if it were possible to have both of your ears right at someone's mouth. A lot of the production tricks are to simulate those other qualities where each ear would be hearing a different reflection pattern than a single mono mouth in each ear.
In particular softer/headier voices generally use more production to give them a bit more 'space.' It's been done for a very long time. I listen to a lot of Thom Yorke, and if I had a raw vocal of his it would sound tiny. But even his smallest voices can sound 'wide and encompassing' due to techniques like that.
For the technique thing, keep singing. You've made huge progress since arriving here. It will keep happening.

This could become a thing. Onto the review.
I can start with some of what interests me about it. I like the rough, harsh quality of the vocal, it has a defiantly independent quality to it and for me that quality sits very well with the subject matter. Everyone has flaws, rough qualities, or harsh qualities, and often times we are rejected for those reasons. Perfection is easier to love. Most people aren't rejected because they are too perfected. 
However, while I think that quality is important, I do think the backing track has this polished quality that is a bit at odds with it so it creates a bit of dissonance. I think keeping some of the tonal roughness, while ironing out a bit of the pitch and timing might mesh better. Maybe even a slightly more polished production on the vocal with a bit more reverb and perhaps delay. In my head I hear a middle ground, a slightly rougher, dirtier (imperfect) backing track, and a slightly more polished (still imperfect) voice might find a middle ground where the two could meet and agree on the expression.
That said, I can feel the heartfelt qualities in the performance and there are times when it works completely for me musically, but other times feels a bit in congruent. If you keep training you'll likely get the expression congruent cause I can already hear it in there, it's just not quiet held together all the time for me yet.

That is a great idea Rob! And BTW, I don't think you are trying to steal my spotlight, specially because I didn't post a video ;-p 
But now You put a pressure on me to work harder to improve my version to clean the rough spots, and make it worthy to compare with. I'll try to do my best on my time. Cheers

Many thanks for your kind words MDEW. I agree with you regarding this diphthongs...

That is a great idea Rob! And BTW, I don't think you are trying to steal my spotlight, specially because I didn't post a video ;-p 
But now You put a pressure on me to work harder to improve my version to clean the rough spots, and make it worthy to compare with. I'll try to do my best on my time. Cheers

Awesome, that gives me a full month to figure out how the hell I'm going to sing that high.  

I know everyone likes MJ but I suggest G should do Prince, especially "Kiss." You have the right balance of high and low.
"You don't have to be rich to rule my world. You don't have to be cool to be my girl ...."
 

I think some "life experience" in this regard, really helps someone sing this song better... most people have felt like this before. You love someone, but they are not reciprocating. I tried to dial into that feeling on my interpretation. 
Not to steal your spotlight Gneetapp... just so people can get a chance to do some "A/B" testing... and hear the two versions at different octaves, etc... not for my ego, but for educational purposes... 
 

Thanks man, I'll try to work at that when I sing from now on.

Thank you so much for your kind words, review and tips Ronws. I always learn something from your tips. You are right about the 2nd half being stronger than the 1st. I just don't know what happened, but I had work really hard to make the levels more similar. At first I thought it was just the mic distance or the way I placed my voice, but it could have been the narrowing of the vowels. I also listened several pitchy spots I can fix, but am more concerned with the overall timbre, as I wasn't sure how I was going to approach the song. I'm glad you liked man. I'll keep working on it on my schedule. Thanks again

I finally had the time to practice and recorded this lovely song. The effects were compressor, EQ, Delay and Reverb. I would like to thank Rob Lunte for inspiring me to work in this song. I know it is still rough in several patches but I hope with time and work it will become a worthy cover. 

I do not have anything to add except to say I listened and I like it. I also agree with Ronws and Robert dipthongs are a killer.
Other than that awesome job.