Gneetapp

Hi Cody, welcome to the forum. I think you sound good overall. In the beginning, you sounded too heady and nasal for my taste (personal opinion), but when you start singing with more "pressure" it gets so much better. If I may humbly suggest you to check the gain levels on your microphone because the sound was distorting a bit when you started to get loud. I also missed some tasty effects on your voice, such as EQ, compression and reverb. Good job. Cheers

It could've been that you're support variance had tuned itself for a better mix by that point in the song.  one thing that really helps is glissandos approach onsets in the most relaxed way possible and try to hit the pitch but if you start flat just slide up to the note by adding air pressure.  Sometimes I pretend I'm inhaling when I need to add extra support and it's almost like it clinches in just the right way and the flow becomes better.  Similar to the lift up pull back technique except for I feel as if I'm pulling back in my throat and then the lift happens automatically.  Also notes and vowels that you hold in ways you think you shouldn't (you know where you're holding something and you're not sure wether to sustain it cause it's taking so much push to sustain and also sounds kinds of shrill)  because it's too difficult are not really that difficult once you pinpoint the right support and vowel/formant tuning.  I realized this listening to Bob's advice on needing necessary tension in training and felipes advice about always needing to give a little bit more as you ascend in pitch, whether that be volume, airflow, or formant tuning.

Hi Collin, thanks again for another review man. I am not sure I noticed the change in the beginning, but I will listen the song again paying more attention. To be fair, I only noticed the majority of flaws a few days later, especially thanks to these reviews. I think it takes me several listening sections to pick up all the mistakes, because I just miss them when mixing (with the exception of the major ones OFC).
Regarding the nasality, I was actually going for that sound by trying to twang a lot on the lower notes. I think I was kind of trying to emulate the original singer a little bit, as I feel my timbre sounds like his in some songs.  Regarding the change of quality in the voice, I have to agree with you, and I will listen again to check that. I think, if I remember correctly, in the first rise of the melody I started belting. The funny thing is, when the melody rose again at the "You could have a change of heart...", I changed again the quality to a more "mixed voice" approach.
Regarding my support, I think it is coming its way, because I am very conscious of my lower back and ribs muscles when I'm singing, even though I don't usually push as hard as I should.
Thanks again for the tips man. Cheers

'you could have a change of' I like the voice it starts in but heart breaks the character of the voice in that moment so maybe try to reel it back from heart to hurt or make the ah more like the ah when starting arr like a pirate on that pitch.  Your ns and ds are very nasally, I think it has more to do with placement than anything.  Maybe try approaching those consonants softer and see what changes in sound occur.  At 2:05 your voice becomes more pronounced sounds like your clenching your abdominals and really delivering the air at a more intense pace.  That voice needs to blend better with your voice when you're relaxed.  That's sort of what I'm talking about with layered voice, blending the relaxed coordinations with the intense ones in terms of entire body involvement especially lower back muscles and abdominal ones.  Pay some attention to your lower back muscles when you sing how they tense up and clinch when holding back an intense flow or taking a deep breath. 

Yes just the intro.  That would be cool if you sang that part and posted a clip here lol, I'm not going to demand you do that but I think it would be interesting.
What I mean by your voice is inflated is it's using too much air which causes the occasional voice crack, which is fine when doing it for affect like the way Billy Joe sings bite my lips and close my eyes in Longview.  I also sing it that way cause I'm a bit of a copycat singer but (*auto edit*) it I have fun that way.  And by layered I mean it seems like there's some unnecessary undertones or overtones throughout the various pitches.  The placemeunt seems to jump around a bit, so if you pay some attention to where the sound resonates when you enter a certain timbre or fach and then try to maintain that placement throughout the different vowels.  You should try singing in a character voice and matching that voice throughout every pitch in the song as best you can.  This is my own intuitive advice, it's not professional it's creative and somewhat abstract hopefully it can benefit you in whatever way you see suitable.

Here's another I just recorded.  Had fun with it!  
 

for some reason when I heard your voice I instantly thought of the opening of this song
sounds to me like your voice is very inflated, I think you could benefit from a tighter flow of air stemming from your abdominal muscles.  I like your voice though I think it's more layered than it needs to be so more vowel mod, shaping and support variance will help you out in uncovering your best sound.  I want to hear you sing more songs in a variety of genres soon!

... do you think?
In regards to rhythm... here is the best firkin advise I can give you... listen up.
Stop counting music in quarter note tempo / meter... and start counting all music into 8ths.  "1&2&3&4&..."   Add the "&"... Without 8th notes, you have no syncopation and without syncopation, you have NO GROOVE!  Students that count only in quarter notes, have shitty rhythm and cues. Students that learn to sub-divide into 8ths and accent the syncopated, upbeat 8th, begin to get their rhythm tight and groove on... try it... you'll see... great rhythm starts by... locking in upbeat 8ths.

Yo man pick yourself up a cheap keyboard on Ebay for 50 - 100 bucks and just run your voice up and down those notes.  You don't have to learn professional piano, but as an exercise tool for intonation the benefits are too vast to ignore.  And yeah I know you can get some keyboard app on your phone but having a tangible musical instrument to touch and feel is way cooler.  
Good luck man and nice work so far.   

Hi Collin. Your voice sounds pretty good. I have found that confidence and some sort of emotional connection to the song helps. What I mean by that is, read the words and find out what sort of message it is supposed to present and present it with the emotion intended. Usually when expressing a strong emotion you feel the energy of the emotion even if the volume is quiet there is a force behind it.
"For all the times that you rain on my parade And all the clubs you get in using my name You think you broke my heart, oh, girl for goodness' sake You think I'm crying on my own. Well, I ain't   And I didn't wanna write a song 'Cause I didn't want anyone thinking I still care. I don't, But you still hit my phone up And, baby, I be movin' on And I think you should be somethin' I don't wanna hold back, Maybe you should know that"   There is a lot of pent up emotion in this........ It seems this girl is using you and you know it. It gets kind of frustrating in that kind of situation........ Even if you don't get loud, there is usually an energy that you are trying to hold back so you don't get to loud. In a situation like this you would be Pissed off and holding yourself back from yelling..........Use that energy....... it will come through in the song and maybe even ground you for pitch stability also.

Yeah, its more difficult for me too, as is the EH in the high range... I feel like EE and EH depend a lot more on falsetto musculature as you ascend in pitch, and in my voice, which doesn't have a very strong isolated falsetto, is harder to keep adduction and power, even more when my voice is tired. My voice likes UH and OH a lot more, haha

This is a better example of the EEs I think Robert is talking about. "To rEEmake" and in the chorus "EEs there rEElly ".
In  my  voice i need to open my mouth more vertically ( and this is important), and think the positioning more like an EH and little by little modify towards EE
 
 

By strong i undrrstand he means a strong and confortable EH and then raise the back of the tongue so it starts sounding more like an EE... Its something like this, on the word "hills", but this is not as modified to the EE, for that song I like it more EH hahah
 
 

Well, a perfect example of what I am talking about in simplifying is in playing and singing the "Rain Song" by Led Zeppelin. Having heard the song, I learned to play it from manuscript, which is a full arrangement, not just the guitar part. And the full arrangement is guitar, bass, melatron, drums, strings. I was tying my hands in notes trying to get chord voicings that accounted for everything.
However, another song, "Dust in the Wind," really is played with two guitars (a duet of Rich Williams and Kerry Livgren) but I had figured out how to play it on one and tend to keep it that way.
By all means, keep the rhythm and meter of the song in mind. In fact, I have re-arranged chord shapes around what the vocals need to do.
Another thing, change how you play a chord to fit the song. For "Highway to Hell," I play the A chord with just the middle finger across the strings at the second fret. this sets up my had to play the first inversion D chord that follows and alternate F# and G for what is essentially a harmonic bass line, though it is not the bass guitar playing this. In fact, the bass guitar only comes in at the choruses.
Normally, I might play A the way that I learned it from Mel Bay's Book of Chords, which was first finger on A, middle finger on F# just below, and ring finger on C# just above.
"Land Down Under," I start with Bm chord and use the pinky for the floating melody and move to A with the first finger across the second fret and the pinkie finger on the 5th fret and kind of arpeggiate the chord, just a smidge.
"Travelling in a fried out combie. On a hippie trail, head full of zombie."
(combie is australian slang for an RV or caravan type of vehicle and zombie was a slang for funny cigarettes.)

No problems bro, do listen to what I've mentioned on the snare, his phrasing is really, really tied to that. (clap your hands in 4ths to it and you will understand what I meant right away).
I will surely check the Def Lepard song this weekend!

Hi Aravind, I thought it sounded good throughout the song. But I have to agree with Denis regarding the Bridge, where I feel you changed the mood you set in the rest of the song, by going, perhaps, to strong, almost hard Rock/Heavy Metal style. Overall, I liked it. Also, I think you did an awesome job dialing down the "cartoonish voice", almost eliminating it completely. Keep them coming friend!

I've finally started to make my head voice sound good. I managed to find the coordination today (might have been using the horizontal embouchure) that allowed me to sing a solid A4 and A#4 on a couple of occasions. Unfortunately, I couldn't consistently produce these notes with the same quality heard in the recording.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1kfM6TNEH9M

Well, believe it or not, I'm doing that as well (on about the 9th attempt to learn the guitar). About 3 weeks in. Turns out I never really knew what I really wanted to do, or how to go about it, when I decided I wanted to "learn" it, until I had already tried to learn it 7 times.
 
The more I thought about it, the cooler I thought it was to be able to make music with what's inside your mouth and what's in your hands. Singing alone is incredible, but being able to do it while accompanying yourself? It's much more complete. You're a one-man show. And now, beyond that, being able to create whatever comes to mind with an instrument other than your voice? Very powerful stuff.
 

Singing in the original key is good for when you will be singing with random bands, Karaoke, or training. When you are the singer of your own group or playing the accompaniment yourself on Guitar or piano, go with the key that makes your voice shine or fits your personality.
      When thinking about covering a song I will find the "original" version or the one I am most familiar with and also look for other covers, by other famous singers and with unknowns......... Then go with the one that best fits me and my" Style"(if you can call it that)

Sounds like a folk version when you sing it. You just have to let go of the sound of Morten in your head. It's okay if you don't sound like him. I know, because I sometimes trip myself up with the original singer's voice in my head. Let it go and do the song as yourself.

Hi gnee!
I think there are many things working well, and some very simple mistakes that are taking away quality.
- You are oversinging it. Listen to the original and you will notice there are a lot more pauses, right on the begining, "Here"... "I AM"... , specially on I Am, don't sustain so much. This breakes the rhythm flow of the song.
- Your phrasing is in odds with the beat. Listen to the pattern of the snare on the song, right from the start. You will notice there is an accent first on the downbeat, and then the snare accents on the upbeat. Pretty much the whole song goes by this idea. On "I AM" you are close to it, but the accent didnt work so well, when you are on "SHE is sound". You are already drifting. Its a 4/4 but its irregular, common kind of irregular, but still irregular.
These two little things make a huge difference, really!
Then the points of the higher areas. When you do "high" the Ah is sounding good, perhaps relax more if you can. The higher phrases are on the midway between going into head voice, and belting, and that's the problem. Either you open it and blast it out, or, round more the vowels into UH and use a half volume. You went open with a half volume, that's just too hard and really unnecessary.
Open as you did and shout it, and you will go on the same direction of what he did. Or round more and still go strong. Whatever you do don't let the energy fall back from what you are doing on the lower area, go stronger.
Not oversinging the lows will also help on giving you more headroom for these notes.

I'd never seen a post from you before o:
This is a momentous occasion!
I'm a little late to the party though. MDEW already covered what I had to say.

Actually, following Felipe's mixing advice helps, as far as getting the sound. Most people don't realize how much doubling and delay Robert "Mutt" Lange used on Joe for the Pyromania album. 
MDEW offers good advice. I did something similar with a Journey song. Sang it a whole step higher for a while to force myself to break with dichotomy of "head voice" and "chest voice." The sooner I got into one voice, the easier it was to drop back down to the original key and sing it acceptably ,though I would not post because, oddly enough, I do not sound like Steve Perry. And there would be too much comparison. Even I would be guilty of that. I am human, after all.

Hell yeah I liked the effect, was tasteful and was totally in the right place being a Def Leppard cover.  And no problem man, it's the least I could do in return for your kind words and criticisms of my own covers.  Peace and love.  

Nice job Gneetap, I don't have much constructive criticism as your technique seems to be better than mine (especially for the high notes) but I think that MDEW's advice of raising it a step higher to give it more punch is solid.   I liked the chorus effect you put on for the chorus.