Xamedhi

Thanks for the input, Java!!  

Yeah, in a lot of places it sounds constricted, mostly because I'm not used to sing that low, and I haven't trained to relax in there and open while keeping the compression Work in progress, though :B  Thanks for the idea in "sobriety" I tried that early in the morning when I recorded again. I actually forget sometimes that I can modify vowels in lower ranges haha
I'm not currently in my place, once I get home I'll take the best shots and post them, I think they sound much better  
Thanks about Forever and One... btw how did you all find the mix of that track? It seems to me that in the last chorus, the voice is kind of lost because the music's louder...
 
That was a pretty good vocal day, so I feel like I shouldn't take all the credit haha  I'm training a lot to be able to sing songs like F&O in a consistent way. It's one of those songs that I can sing just one time and that's it, then just warm down and rest.  
( It's not like I end up swollen or something hahah  It's just that it's a good enough workout on top of  other songs I may sing, my scales and stuff )

Hey guys, I'm posting this as a sort of "hey all, long time no see, I'm doing well" hahah EDIT :Also, I don't ask for critique or review, I'm just showing what I've been doing for others who want to listen or study. 
I think someone posting about what they think the distortion is, or how it compares to theirs does not help my singing directly. I repeat myself "I posted this as a "hey all, this is what I've been doing" because the "tell your gains" thread is dead. If after this clarification my thread still belongs here, then I'm ok with that, but I just wanted to make it clear. I just wanted to debate singing and technique in general, or whatever someone wanted to ask ( about my vocal fold gap, reflux, etc ), cheers everyone!  .

I've been working hard on my voice as always, carrying weight up and my headvoice twangy range.  My max weight is on B4 and headvoice range topping on E5 on good days, with a solid D#5. I have a vocal fold gap ( acording to my stroboscopy on 2015 ) and I don't know the current state of it. It's a lot better, sound, strength and stamina has gotten waaay better. I still feel my voice a lot different though, I don't know if its because of the vocalis muscle that's grown stronger or what, but I wouldn't give up the stability of my voice now or my sound, for the flexibility or -strained- range I had before ( 2014-2015 )

Well, I come to tell you guys... I at last found some kind of distortion that feels healthy in my voice, and is sustainable.
I've tried the "throat singing" type of distortion ( false folds and cartilage, Hetfield style ) but it hurts and always leaves me with air leak and poor stamina for days or a week or two, even.
I've tried creaking distortion but as I already mentioned, my voice is kind of f***ed up in some way, and I don't know if it's normal but I have a hard time coordinating fry, lol. and when I manage, it leaves my voice very worn out if done for 20 minutes.

This kind of distortion I found is probably like the rattle described in CVT terms ( kind of what Jorn Lande does most of the time ), where something ( I think arytenoid cartilage ? ) vibrates, but in a different way, I feel like the upper and side walls of my pharynx contracting, which makes something vibrate and produce this "overlay".
I
t's still a thin grit and I have to put quite a bit of effort in it to make the walls contract enough to make the sound but I guess with time and patience the strength will come and I'll be able to put more "anger" into it coordinated with vocal weight.  I must mention that doing this distortion makes my voice last longer, stamina is better, and closure is getting better too. I feel my muscles are working out and getting stronger, and I have an easier time mixing into my upper range. All this change in a span of 5 days, so it's important to note.

I hope you guys like how it sounds, this is the fifth day since I found it, videos are from yesterday  

 

 

Hey guys, I'm posting this as a sort of "hey all, long time no see, I'm doing well" hahah EDIT :Also, I don't ask for critique or review, I'm just showing what I've been doing for others who want to listen or study. 
I think someone posting about what they think the distortion is, or how it compares to theirs does not help my singing directly. I repeat myself "I posted this as a "hey all, this is what I've been doing" because the "tell your gains" thread is dead. If after this clarification my thread still belongs here, then I'm ok with that, but I just wanted to make it clear. I just wanted to debate singing and technique in general, or whatever someone wanted to ask ( about my vocal fold gap, reflux, etc ), cheers everyone!  .

I've been working hard on my voice as always, carrying weight up and my headvoice twangy range.  My max weight is on B4 and headvoice range topping on E5 on good days, with a solid D#5. I have a vocal fold gap ( acording to my stroboscopy on 2015 ) and I don't know the current state of it. It's a lot better, sound, strength and stamina has gotten waaay better. I still feel my voice a lot different though, I don't know if its because of the vocalis muscle that's grown stronger or what, but I wouldn't give up the stability of my voice now or my sound, for the flexibility or -strained- range I had before ( 2014-2015 )

Well, I come to tell you guys... I at last found some kind of distortion that feels healthy in my voice, and is sustainable.
I've tried the "throat singing" type of distortion ( false folds and cartilage, Hetfield style ) but it hurts and always leaves me with air leak and poor stamina for days or a week or two, even.
I've tried creaking distortion but as I already mentioned, my voice is kind of f***ed up in some way, and I don't know if it's normal but I have a hard time coordinating fry, lol. and when I manage, it leaves my voice very worn out if done for 20 minutes.

This kind of distortion I found is probably like the rattle described in CVT terms ( kind of what Jorn Lande does most of the time ), where something ( I think arytenoid cartilage ? ) vibrates, but in a different way, I feel like the upper and side walls of my pharynx contracting, which makes something vibrate and produce this "overlay".
I
t's still a thin grit and I have to put quite a bit of effort in it to make the walls contract enough to make the sound but I guess with time and patience the strength will come and I'll be able to put more "anger" into it coordinated with vocal weight.  I must mention that doing this distortion makes my voice last longer, stamina is better, and closure is getting better too. I feel my muscles are working out and getting stronger, and I have an easier time mixing into my upper range. All this change in a span of 5 days, so it's important to note.

I hope you guys like how it sounds, this is the fifth day since I found it, videos are from yesterday  

 

 

I was pleasantly surprised. Normally, you have a clean, almost operatic voice, which would of course, fit this song. But you had some grit. And I confess, I wanted to see how you handled the bridge. And you did it dead on perfect.
Bravo, Senor Carvhalo, bravo. As good as the original, which is probably the highest compliment I have given anyone, considering that even though I am not religious, I would nominate Dio for sainthood. Which would probably tick him off, since he was not all that fond of the church.

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.

... 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.

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
 
 

Reminds me of Steve Martin's bit on how to make a million, tax free.
First, get a million dollars. Second, when the tax man comes around to collect the tax, remember these two words - "I forgot."
Great song choice, MDEW. The best parts were the "fake" part. Though I am going to have to channel Jens a little bit. It was not "fake" unless you entire voice is fake. Why? Because it is a sound that you were able to emit with your voice. What's different, whether you imagine an old man voice or not, is how you resonated and how you did the vowels. Which means you do have control. Which means that creating that sound was not a matter of invasive surgery, it was a matter of disregarding things told to you in the past.
Singing is mental, as mental as is martial arts. One of the few things I have had "official" lessons in is martial arts, assorted combat, armed and unarmed. In 1977, and it sticks with me to this day, my Kenpo Karate instructor (who was also my scoutmaster and a lead person in the church I was attending) pointed out that the kicks, blocks, and punches were ten percent of the art. Mentality was the other 90 percent. He was right, as I would later find from my friend who was a SEAL in Viet Nam. And would see in the Dao of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee's viewpoint in the subject.
And I think it holds true for singing. Doing the work of training is a thing we can do. Changing our minds to accept the instructions, AND the results, that is the hard part.
Keep faking.
 

MDEW,
I like your voice! Your sound colors on this track fit the genre really well!  Cool of you to share your talent with us! Good song selection for your voice also. I could see you singing (as far as "covers" go) a few artists really well with this style of singing. i.e. John Prine, Dylan (as Mr. Lunte suggested), Arlo Guthrie, Jackson Browne, maybe Neil Young for some M2 challenges.
I would say, maybe if your appaggio was a bit more strong we could hear you sustain some more notes and let that cool, sweet vocal texture you have (rasp included) resonate a little longer! At the end of the song (about min. 3:00) you begin to retard and your singing sounds considerably more supported there! Well Done!

Thank you so much for the words guys, Bruce is one major influence for me, and singing this stuff is pretty much why I began studying technique to begin with .

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
 
 

Can you sustain the notes cleanly for some seconds?  I ask because as i understand you are doing this as training. If you have some bad habits singing clean, it will be more difficult to drop them while singing with distortion. So check that out  other that that, good job, ill justo work on going through the phrases slowly and sustaining every vowel for 3-4 seconds.

work on floating on top of the pitch. I love the killers they are one of my favorites. 

Woow!! Java, you are getting a lot better!  Awesome cover! 

You seem to control your mix a lot better and it's a lot stronger too. And the whistle part sounds awesome. Congratulations for your progress  

Awesome song, man... and incredible voice. I love your technique and your timbre, man  

Twang happens when the area above the vocal folds is decreased or the epiglottis is tilted/engaged.... The epiglottis is made of cartilage and covers the wind pipe when swallowing helping to keep food out of the wind pipe. In the picture below, see those muscles arranged in an X those close the epiglottis, some of those fibers continue and are part of the vocal cords. That is how engaging TWANG helps close the vocal cords. Whether you want to view it as Twanging the epiglottis or engaging the aryepiglottic sphincter, or narrowing above the vocal folds It does not matter, that is where TWANG happens. It also helps to close the vocal cords.
 

The thing is, I don't even know what do you understand by edginess. An edgy voice to me could be Daniel Heimann, Jens, Rob Halford, Geoff Tate... they all have some really cool, powerful, metallic high range when they choose to. The metal bite and attitude \m/ hahah

Balanced sub-glottal respiration pressure + balanced glottal compression + formant , per the frequency = An amplified voice, characterized by optimized physics of sound production in the body.  
 
Some really great examples of this, can be heard at 3:19 to 4:48... some pretty good amplification of the formants here, assisted nicely by having just the right amount of sub-glottal pressure. 
 

Another point is that ( also relevant to the warm up thread ), I have a hypothesis that if you haven't warmed up all the muscular groups that work on low, mid and high range in the voice, in different intensities and vowels, then most likely one group will limit your voice capacity. Meaning that probably your TA won't be able to handle the pressure on the higher range, or the CT wont have the strength to stretch the folds and handle the tension the TA is doing, so to me personally warming up is very relevant when singing in the higher range, and in my voice, I dare say... mandatory. lol

JonJon, I just had the chance to listen to your sirens. You can even see that the second siren in your first clip is almost perfect. My browser shows the little sound graph. in the second siren there is no low energy spot you just switch to a solid sound.
 I never had trouble producing a pitch between F#4 and E5. My trouble was sounding like Miss Piggy, Ethel Merman or Edith Bunker. When I tried to maintain a masculine sound that is when the Flipping/choking at F#4 happened.
   You have a nice solid tone throughout. Singing lighter is about shedding vocal cord weight and reducing sound volume.
   One thing that people do not think about in terms of light singing and Heavy singing is that if you have a heavy cord closure or more mass to the folds as you ascend and approach the passaggio you reduce vocal mass before shifting. If you are already singing light you do not reduce mass you just increase pressure as you shift. If you are singing light and try to lighten more at the shift you will lose connection and flip to falsetto.

This is hugely important, because our voices and bodies are all very different. I learnt from an early age ( 15-16 yo ) to hold back the air from my "inhalation muscles". I used to breath low and keep the breath inside with an open glottis, just by the vacuum of the lungs and idk what specific muscles, really, lol, so my body got used to decrease sub-glottal pressure.
I didn't have much air pressure when talking or singing, and due to bad understanding of vocal instruction I started relaxing and releasing too much on my vocal muscles. So those two factors made my voice lose a lot of strength over the years. I sang very airy and soft.
That was until the second half of 2013 when I started reading stuff here and figured out I needed pressure to sing. Soon I found my high range, and also learnt how to engage the chest voice more.

I figured out that, as my body naturally builds little pressure on my torso and respiratory tract, I need to actively think of expelling air and actually using a good deal of energy to build pressure and sing louder. Some people my not need that. Some might need to hold back on the exhalation for the pressure to be balanced.
 

Also, pay attention to what Xam is doing. He is not pushing the folds. He is controlling the exhalation so that the folds can do the work more easily and any volume he is getting (no mic in close proximity) is from resonance.