aravindmadis

I can do relaxed head voice.  Personally I don't mind a bit of "forced" tonality, especially in Western music, somehow, I feel that a little bit of imperfection conveys the human side.   Also, with my relaxed head voice, it may have a larger tonality gap, from the rest of the song.  This is a balance that I can never seem to successfully get.  In a world where the feedback would be instantaneous, I could do what the composer wanted... 
But these things I guess are very individual centric, in terms of what listeners prefer... Thank you for your feedback.. 

Sounds great.  I am always envious of dark sounding voices especially high ones.  From the video, it looks like you have a pretty decent technique.. All I can say is keep up the good work and keep posting more.. 

Felipe.. You are too humble:)  . I am trying to learn this song.  I will try to learn to sing it the way you have sung, with a similar vocal weight.  
I personally feel that Bruce has a truly unique voice.  There are many good youtube singers who can pull of the Bruce range, but it is nearly impossible to find an exact mimic of his tone and weight.. 

Sounds great.  I am always envious of dark sounding voices especially high ones.  From the video, it looks like you have a pretty decent technique.. All I can say is keep up the good work and keep posting more.. 

Holly Cheese Aravind!!! I am speechless my friend! Your voice sounded so professional, that I could swear you were all this time pretending to be a vocal student, and you actually wrote this song! But the video needs to be synced with audio. Other than that, A.W.E.S.O.M.E. timbre!

Thank you guys!
 
@aaravin its possible I believe, althought I try to base my studies on his live delivery (its one of the songs on the rep).
 
Also at the time of this recording he was probably at his best condition on his whole carreer, he was simply much better than I am

.. As always,, epic my friend!! I was not familiar with this song and I listened to the original after hearing your version and you sound like you can sing for the original band!! 
Bruce sounds a little darker and heavier set in the chorus.  Is it a physiology function?  I mean can someone with a lower center of voice exactly mimic the Bruce sound?  
But all in all, amazing work.  Please keep posting more work!!  

.. As always,, epic my friend!! I was not familiar with this song and I listened to the original after hearing your version and you sound like you can sing for the original band!! 
Bruce sounds a little darker and heavier set in the chorus.  Is it a physiology function?  I mean can someone with a lower center of voice exactly mimic the Bruce sound?  
But all in all, amazing work.  Please keep posting more work!!  

The Shadow of the Wicker Man is rising up again!!
 

Hi Folks, 
It has been a while since my last post.  This time I wanted to do something that is quite different from my last song(s).  I have always wanted to do distortion at lower ranges.  I just could not find the right support mechanism and way to do this without hurting myself.  I have understood how to do this safely without injuring myself.  
Sometimes when I am not yet sufficiently warmed up I get a itchy feeling when I try to distort.  If I am careful, it goes away after a while.  I am assuming that I am not doing anything wrong because I can sing like this for more than an hour and I don't feel any effects later in the day or the next day.  
All in all, quite a fun song to sing with an epic sounding F#5 to finish it.  I wish I could get some grit on this note, but for the time being happy with where I am!  
 

Hi Folks, 
It has been a while since my last post.  This time I wanted to do something that is quite different from my last song(s).  I have always wanted to do distortion at lower ranges.  I just could not find the right support mechanism and way to do this without hurting myself.  I have understood how to do this safely without injuring myself.  
Sometimes when I am not yet sufficiently warmed up I get a itchy feeling when I try to distort.  If I am careful, it goes away after a while.  I am assuming that I am not doing anything wrong because I can sing like this for more than an hour and I don't feel any effects later in the day or the next day.  
All in all, quite a fun song to sing with an epic sounding F#5 to finish it.  I wish I could get some grit on this note, but for the time being happy with where I am!  
 

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.. 

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.

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/
 
 

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!! 

Thanks.  that makes a lot of sense.  It sounds to me like I get a darker sound in Curbing in comparison to overdrive or even neutral.  I will keep that in mind.  I usually sing lower parts in neutral coz they sound good to me!  I have never experimented with curbing with my middle voice!  
Plus I tend to really really buckle down and focus on the tough parts of the song and do not focus as hard singing lower parts from a tonality standpoint.  Guess this is a mental adjustment I need to make..  

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?

I liked them a lot, aravind. The only things I would point out is that your voice to me sounds more interesting on the mid-high range, where you can lean more into your voice. I feel like you have more control there and are able to use dynamics better. And also I noticed you changed the "when I see your face" line, that line alone makes the song for me on the original, so it was kind of weird to listen to it like that

I think the pitch wobbles can be fixed by simpler vowels. For example, you sang "toon -a eet" and that was the correct thing to do. And remember, you have a mic and a DAW, so don't push the voice, let it get to where it needs to. And I like what you did. I think this song was made for you and vice versa. Definitely keep this one in your set of "songs I can do and get applause." It is right in your wheel house. You sounded strong and centered all the way through.
Are you recording your own instruments? I have not heard this arrangement. If so, awesome and well done.

I agree, it sounds more consistent, like you clicked on "make-up gain after compression."
And did you imagine a few years ago that you could sing a Bruno Mars song and have it sound like you have been singing that way a long time, like you had a mail box in that range?

MDEW/Ronws.  I have corrected the compression issue in "Just the way you are".  I think this version sounds much better mix wise.. 

Hi Buddy. Your voice seems to come a long way from when you started posting(2 years ago if I am correct).  There is way more structural integrity around your singing and less abrupt tonal changes. Your tone now has a professional quality which is a very good thing.  So congrats and keep singing.  
With my limited knowledge.  I see two areas of improvements based on what I have gone through
1.  For a single take, you are mostly on pitch. But in my experience, pitch accuracy is less to do with physiology of singing but it is a mental adjustment that comes with pitch training.  Just spend half an hour a day just listening to notes and try to memorize the aural distances by singing along with the piano(solfege helps).  It is best done with a keyboard.  check out the links below.  See what happens is that with interval training our inner ears become more and more adept with the notes and if you do it regularly with your singing voice, then you will find it more easy to sing on pitch.  Our ears visualize the notes to come and help us shape our vocal chords to sing correctly on pitch.  
https://www.iwasdoingallright.com/tools/ear_training/online/
 
2.  The second area you have to focus on is your descent.  You seem to be quite comfortable in your heady mix, but when you descend, there are places where there are tonal loss and pitch issues.  For e.g. at 1:15 where you sing "even heroes have". Your onset for "Even" seems to be wrong which is why your heroes have sounds off.  You need to keep the compression/configuration that you use for the rest of the song here also.  And when you descend, you have to sing low parts high with support, if that makes sense.  We tend to focus too much on the high notes, but sometimes the descend causes all kind of issues in notes that are quite comfortable.  With little practice and awareness you can easily overcome this issue.