JonJon

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.

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. 
 

I got $3 say the chest note aint got good breath to start with

again, I have no idea if the soft palate rises or not. I dont know if my eyes dilate or if my hair looks good lol. I yawned when I woke up but that was a little while back
 
like SexyBeast said, are you getting a good strong vibration etc in your chest notes. Are you getting a decent breath before u try to sing a note?
An untrained singer, if he gets a good breath and he sings a decent note, he will generally choke at some point if he just tries to carry that up higher and higher.
if you arent choking, then I wonder if you are ever actually getting a decent breath in to start with? Almost sounds like you are using a falsetto chest voice
 
your answer might be to get a good strong chest note going, push it up until you choke, THEN learn to let go of the chest voice and gradually bridge up thru the passagio

Sounds to me just what ive said 3 or 4 times now. You need to learn to leave the throat resonance and learn to vibrate the sound off of the hard and/or soft palates (the roof of your mouth, not down in the throat)
for me it was a 2 step thing. I could not "bridge" because I didnt have the feel of resonating on the palate. When I tried to sing higher notes I was just trying to take my chest voice (throat voice) up higher and higher and eventually you just choke doing that.
Finally I just figured out that I had to find some other way to make sound lol. So I learned how to get the sound up above the choking point in my throat and up onto the palates.
Once I got the feeling of singing those higher notes I then started trying to "bridge" smoothly from chest up to head etc (or from "throat" up to "palates" or however you want to look at it)
 
Essentially once you learn to get the sound out of the throat and into the palates etc, its then a matter of thousands of repetitions of sirens and other singing exercises with various vowels etc to make that transitions effortless and smooth. IMO thats ALL those guys you posted are doing. I didnt hear anything inherently difficult there unless i am missing something. They have simply learned to sing lightly thru the passagio etc
if you are singing really heavy, or husky, on the low end, it makes it harder to get thru the passagio up to those higher notes etc.

Well its not chest voice is it? Whats left? lol
To me its just basic headvoice. They have bridged thru the passagio into the headvoice.
They are singing with a light voice, its not really heavy
 
Im confused, if you can sing to c5 then you can sing what they are doing easily

Sorry, the forum ate my post lol.
 
Basically those guys you posted are just singing in basic head voice. you need to learn to get the sound out of your throat and up more into the hard and/or soft palate.
IMO they are not belting or even supporting THAT much. That just basically a light head voice sound.

you are being very technical when you start to name all of these "techniques" and all of those physiological terms. Keep in mind that thousands of people can sing great who have never even heard those terms. Little kids can listen and mimic singers and noises in nature without knowing the position of their tongue or what their soft palate or larynx is doing.
I use those terms and things when I am experimenting to find new sounds, or, when I find a new sound I will then go back and think about the physiology and techniques so that I can then categorize and repeat the new sound.
That being said, I can sing a lot of different tones and decent range etc and I pretty much NEVER get into the position of this or that inside my mouth. So far it hasn't been necessary to do so.
 
You can group sounds into broader categories. You generally don't need a microscope. In broad terms, the singing is either "heavy" or "light". A "heavy" sound would generally be way more supported and have a lot more compression like a heavy rock sound or heavy metal. When you think of

Let's see if we can get some fathers misty eyed hahahaha... really beautiful tune with great lyrics and most importantly for me, very easy in my range.  Enjoy
http://picosong.com/DzJh/

a little outta tune around 2:10....other than that pretty cool

True to the original, not taking many liberties.  Double tracked vocals and distinct nasality.  
Dedicated to an elusive lady in my own life.   
http://picosong.com/Dwtx/
 

I like this mix better. It sounds cleaner.

good learning curve. I have figured out a major mistake ive been making on all my mixes...including those ive posted here,
Since i always start with drums, I tend to have them WAAAAAYYY to hot. Then I add guitars and im probably already up around -5db or so. So I dont have much headroom to play with and as I add tracks it just gets to be a mess and ive had to resort to all kinds of freaky workarounds to get the levels even vaguely right
So I took my mix that I posted above, which sucks, and I pulled everything down to nothing and I started with drums at a nice low level and I added bass and then guitar. Wow, its like magic lol. No running out of headroom, no having to do weird doubling sends on extra tracks etc etc.
 
Its great...im like halfway to being an idiot savante

never ever said anything COULDNT be done. I fully plan to make mindblowing music. I just like to reiterate and complain out loud how every single itty bitty step has to be some extreme uphill battle.
The Beatles were 4 guys plus a great producer plus studio musicians and  none of them ever worked a day in their lives. Im 1 guy doing this on top of a full time job. You know the spiel
 
Matthew 21:28-32
28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
-----
 
Im like the first son. I moan and complain but in the end im getting the work done
 

I'll ease off now. I will say this, though, if you spend the effort to state why something cannot be done, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

JonJon, I feel your pain about mixing. I am not the best at it either. I have used a few services where I uploaded files to a shared server and the studio pros mixed my tracks for me with very good results. It isn't super expensive either around 175ish per track. Not per hour etc and you are sent back reference mixes for approval or for making suggestions. It is fairly cheap but if you write a lot of music it can add up lol. Either way I love the track brother and will check out more of your writing.

Yeah, look, I know, you are proud of how old and stubborn you are. And I am older, with more practice being stubborn. Finish the production, secure copyright, get it released.
Then, get ahold of JJ Abrams and / or who ever his music person is and get it synchro-licensed to the next Star Trek movie. This would be awesome in that sound track, with Chris Pine doing all kinds of daring-do.
But I know you want rear back and prove how stubborn you are and dismiss my advice. Well, come at me bro ...

Hi JonJon. I enjoyed this track and would love to hear it again after a more thorough mix. I don't have much to critique here just some observation. I really liked the bridge where you doubled the vocal. It kind of put me in the mind of Paul Stanley a bit or specifically like a Kiss type of bridge. I like the tone of your voice and would love to hear it up front of the mix a bit more. I understand the early stages of mixing can be a chore but you are onto something with this song. I write a lot of originals as well and know how hard it can be to create the whole sound of the track. It can be much easier at times to just cover material. I feel the song is strong overall and just needs to have the mix punched up a bit. Great Job.
 

Been working hard on getting my mixes better. This one took about a week. Good learning experience. Not perfect but im somewhat proud of it
 
Approximately 80 tracks involved
 
Its going to be a fairly low quality upload because its an MP3 to start with and then uploaded to an MP3 site
On The Inside, scratch full mix #1
 
EDIT: Rebalanced mix, much better On the Inside, rebalanced mix#1
 
Enjoy, JJ

Been working hard on getting my mixes better. This one took about a week. Good learning experience. Not perfect but im somewhat proud of it
 
Approximately 80 tracks involved
 
Its going to be a fairly low quality upload because its an MP3 to start with and then uploaded to an MP3 site
On The Inside, scratch full mix #1
 
EDIT: Rebalanced mix, much better On the Inside, rebalanced mix#1
 
Enjoy, JJ

A song that everyone knows.  It's a bit out of my range at parts but still fun and manageable enough considering the relative low passages throughout most of the song.  I suppose it's stuff like this I should be posting as it demonstrates my singing in a range where I'm learning to improve on.. any advice or criticisms are appreciated.   
http://picosong.com/t56V/
*the volume is pretty loud so keep your speakers down, or it may blast you lol
 

haha wait @JonJon I think I understand you now, and yes you are right its different.
I was under the impression you were saying I was pronouncing the word "I" incorrectly, as if the word itself had a different pronunciation. What you are describing are interpretation resources, and sometimes accents, I understand that and you are dead on, it makes a huge difference on the interpretation.
This song and interpretation are with me for a while, so I don't quite remember how I planned this, but there are some differences indeed, some on purpose, some not (this one you mentioned I am almost sure its not haha). The chorus is geared much more towards the original line, I remember that.
Thank you for taking your time and explaining what you meant, and for the careful listening, its very useful .

Well, in the USA, the word "I" can be pronounced at least 2 different ways. Probably more. Im in the "south" so we hardly ever use a diphthong "eye" for the word "I".  So if I say "I am tired", both the "I" and the "tired" are only 1 syllable....they DONT have the gliding diphthong sound "eYE".
 
So "I" and "eye" dont have to be homophones
in the south if we say "i'm"...it's 'im' not "eyem"
 
Its a type of laziness where we dont go to the trouble to fully pronounce a word. So we just say "I" with the mouth wide open as opposed to the diphthong which requires more movement etc
In the same way, a person from up in the mountains would say a word like "our" as "ire" with the mouth wide open
 
haha, its hard to explain in text. if we say "mine" it wont sound anything like "mayan"...whereas if we say "mayan calender" it may come out more like "mine calender" lol
 
So a lot of times that applies to rock and roll where the singers dont want to sound "correct" or "intellectual" lol. Seriously. If I hear really good annunciation I think of Bruce Dickinson or maybe Geoff Tate style metal...an almost operatic style.    (style?? is it "stile" or "sti-uhll" lol)
Rock pretty much CAME from the south and from southern blues so a lot of that blues/black/country slang and lazy pronunciation stuck.
 
At least as I hear it, on the DP bridge its "I" know "I" must remain etc....not "eye know eye must remain"
 
pretty clear example here. 'I wanna rock and roll'....not "eye wanna".  also check "while" and "style"...no diphthong
 
or this one. about a hundred "I"s..but not a single "eye"
 
HAHA!! Actually Felipe....I got to thinking about "Holy Diver". Is it "diver" or "deye-ver" and sure enough Dio says something like "deye-vuh" and I checked your cover and you did it just like Dio. But then on "oh dont you see what I mean" Dio just says "I" (or actually it sounds like what ah mean").....and when you sing that line you do it like Dio lol. You do "what I mean" and not "what eye mean"
 
So you ALREADY use both (non homophone) "I" and "eye" lol
 
if you go thru many rock songs id say the "I" is used 10 times for every 1 "eye"
 
Beatles rocking the 'correct' "eye love her"
 
Good one here. Not only does Sammy say "I" cant drive 55....he actually pronounces the word 'look me in the EYE" as "look me in the I" lol!
 
 
Same thing for many words in rock. "mii mii mii" not "meye meye meye"
 
 
and again, im not saying there is any right or wrong in rock n roll lol. I just pointed that out in the DP song because I have heard that song 9 million times and the 'eye' stood out a bit to me
 
Peace, JJ

just in the first 30 seconds of this there are 4 or 5 different ways to say "I"
"eye" am the teacher
you were lost but "ah" (or "uh") found you
"hive learned a few things" (not "eye've" learned)...as "ive" travelled thru the years (not "eye've""
 
 
Thuh magician is mii name
 
We'll leave "naim" and "nai-um" for another discussion lol. English is a hodgepodge

Hi guys, today I had some spare time and recorded another Def Leppard song: Bringing on a Heartbreak. Please leave your comments, the good, the bad, an the worst. I hope you guys enjoy it. Cheers
https://app.box.com/s/bc96apne2x4cifsdy8ey1uzszk3rb2ft