Original Reggae song

[NCdan]

Here's an original I did. Please be as candid as you can with my vocals. I really can't afford lessons so I'm at the mercy of the forum members to spot what may be issues and figuring out how to correct them. The song is the first one: "This World is not my Home." Thanks in advance.

http://www.myspace.com/rejectconvention

[gno]

That sounds very good. Sounds like you are doing a lot of things right. Rasp is good. You've got a good smooth connection to your head voice. pretty good vowel mods. It's a stylistic choice only, but if you learned how to sing with a lighter phonation you could vary the dynamics more. You're singing pretty full on thicker folds the whole time, which sounds great, and what you could do is sing a little lighter on the verse for example, and then go full on in the chorus. There are some pitch issues in a few places. That could be another stylistic choice of yours because it sounds pretty cool like punk rock meets reggae. But if the off pitch parts were not intentional then you could work on that. Scales and arpeggios sing in 1/2 step increments, and slow enough to get every note in pitch, are great exercises to work on improving the pitch.

How did you feel while singing that? Pretty relaxed, or sometimes straining? I can't really tell that anything is strained, but that's something you can't hear. Is there anything you want to improve on?

[NCdan]

Wow, thanks for the kind words guitartrek. I've been working on singing with "more force" or "more emotion" and I think I'm doing better. Any off pitch notes are unintentional. I've been working on pitch but still have a ways to go.

I guess my biggest thing is sounding more "open" when singing with distortion. Singers like Dexter Holland and Fat Mike sound very natural when using distortion (or maybe fry as well,) but to me I sound sort of pinched or tense when using distortion.

So, how could I get a more relaxed, "not constipated" sound when doing distortion, and what are some good pitch exercises? Thanks for listening and the feedback. (Btw, the main vox are a collection of four different takes; pretty common in recording land, but I don't want to make any false claims.)

[gno]

NCdan - I am not an expert at distortion so I can't help you with that. As far as the pitch goes, practice the phrases with the pitch issues very slowly - slow enough to tune each note in. Once you can tune the notes quickly, you can speed it up a little. Don't go to full speed until you can tune each note quickly at the beginning of each note.

[NCdan]

Thanks for the tips. I have been taking sort of the opposite approach and focused on sustaining a note without fluctuating on the pitch. It seems to have helped, but I will be trying to get the pitch perfect right off the bat too.

No distortion experts care to chime in on how to get a "looser" or "more open" distortion?