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How low can you go?

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That's what it feels like and sounds like, Geno.

I just looked at local pollen count. No mountain cedar, only ragweed, which usually doesn't affect me. So, it must be some kind of low grade respiratory infection. Now and then, I've had feelings similar to a cold or flu, but not real strong, so I tend to think it's just a response to some allergies.

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I just couldn't wait. My voice has cleared up a little today and I was managing some falsetto to full voice on the way home. But, it still sounds scratchy and there's a little break that I didn't have before. I was even game to do some of "Breaking the Law" a capella but, even though I did it well and I did the live version, I just don't sound like Halford. I even started that part with an apology to Mike. Then I deleted it. Nothing wrong with it. I just sound nothing like Halford.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8750209/siren.mp3

Maybe I will do "Breaking the Law" later.

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Damn Ron, you sound sick as hell buddy. I wouldn't even attempt singing if I was like that. Give yourself a chance to recover and then start easy. I can tell on the recording that you are not any where near 100%. A suggestion though when you do the low to high sirens is to not push as you ascend higher. Instead relax and lessen your air velocity so that the sound can still have somewhere to resonate. It sounds like you were pushing too hard my friend.

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Your singing was cool Ron but you are distorting really badly in the recordings. You may be able to make it sound better by reducing the mic input level in your computers settings. Even with the fancy equipment I'm blessed to use these days I still have to be aware of the input levels not being to hot. I'd really love to hear your voice through a better set up but I realize that it may take some time. You have a very good high head voice and I enjoy your singing but the audio is not showing us your true vocal capabilities for now.

On the subject of sirens I recorded this one a few minutes ago for you. Hopefully you can hear that I try not to push more as I ascend. Maybe a little extra compression but hopefully no more air flow.

https://files.me.com/muskysnax/v7fo6c.mp3

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Your singing was cool Ron but you are distorting really badly in the recordings. You may be able to make it sound better by reducing the mic input level in your computers settings. Even with the fancy equipment I'm blessed to use these days I still have to be aware of the input levels not being to hot. I'd really love to hear your voice through a better set up but I realize that it may take some time. You have a very good high head voice and I enjoy your singing but the audio is not showing us your true vocal capabilities for now.

Thank you for understanding that. And either I am not recording it right or the mic is incapable of handling the input and I'm sure it's a combination of both. And I can create a lot of volume. And no, it doesn't hurt my feelings to say I suck at recording. Hopefully, distortion aside, you could see I have no issues of timing when playing guitar and singing simultaneously, for that is how I am used to doing both. I may vary the vocal melody to coordinate against accompaniment but that is to tighten the performance, rather than a desire to change the song.

But it took me a while to learn something about timing when recording over playback. When I sing and play guitar, my vocal cues are from what my hands are doing, which is necessary to coordinate voice and instrument. But, against playback, I have learned not to wait for the musical phrase but anticipate the start of the phrase so that the actual start matches up, unless melody calls for syncopation or even counterpoint.

And there's times where I have recorded something from the guitar and it's not catching depth of tone and overtones the guitar produces. So, I know it can't be catching the real sound of my voice. Often, my voice sounds different in one of these recordings than what is in reality. There are times when, recorded on these little mics, I sound like Billy Corgan in a soup can and that is not how I sound in person. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I wished I had written "despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage ..." and it needs to be sung in just the way he did it. Then there are other times a person thought, in a recording, that I had a weak note when actually that note was quite strong and another note I knew was weak came through sounding fine. And I don't say that to be contrary, it's a fact.

I have an old Tascam Porta 3 analog 4-track recorder and an old condenser mic that looks like a line-level voice coil mic with about a 1 inch ball but both are about 20 years old and, in addition, I don't have a way of converting analog to digital with that.

Sorry I derailed my own thread a bit.

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Here's another deep voice sample I did this morning. I had a fun jam with some other musicians for the first time in many years and it felt so GOOD to sing with a live band again! This morning my voice was real deep and full sounding after all that working out and I recorded a quick clip for you guys...

https://files.me.com/muskysnax/7dmrwr.mp3

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I, on the other hand have had improvement. A combination of advice, including yours, Mike. A cold or respiratory symptoms can include partial laryngitis, which is often caused by a virus or even bacteria. Sometimes it is due to tears from abuse of the chords. I might have been pushing the work on distortion too much. I could have injured myself and not know it. And even though it didn't hurt to do "Highway to Hell" last weekend, I might not have helped things. I may, eventually, not be able to do much distortion but I wanted to do it for that song, especially as others thought it would help the performance. Go ahead and ask me, "how can you injure yourself and not know it?" I have a high tolerance for pain and discomfort. I can put up with pain and discomfort forever. I wake up every single morning with back pain. I worked in a construction area on the side of a hill with a broken toe. I also worked on that same project, climbing in and out of ditches with a torn intermedial cartilege in my left knee. Put on a knee brace and suck it up. On your feet, soldier (it's the way I was raised.) I have worked with a broken hand and didn't realize that it was broken until a few days later when the pain wouldn't totally diminish. Too late then, just keep on working. And that is my work ethic. Accomplish the objectives regardless of obstacles. Keep working even when you don't feel like it. I have worked with the flu to the point of almost passing out while standing up. I've had a tooth extracted and then left the dentist to go to work, half a vicodin and a gauze in my mouth and on the go. I've worked in the freezing cold until I can't feel my hands or feet. Why? He who stays home doesn't get paid. So, I could have done something to hurt my chords and not realize it. In fact, the initial injuries to my back during the 90's didn't affect me the day I did them. My back would go out completely from strain about a week later. I showed up for work one day and I couldn't stand up out of the car. I had to left myself fall out and slowly pull myself up. By the time my supervisor showed up, the left side of my body was falling asleep. That time, under doctor's orders, I spent four days at home.

The only other explanation I could think of was allergies to some kind of pollen or grass or tree spore, which didn't make sense because they have been kind of low, lately.

Anyway, so I've done gentle and easy sirens from high to low, which seems to help my coordination better. I've gotten back some of the finer control and so I came up with this today, which I haven't been able to do for a couple of weeks, either the volume and timbre, as well as this part of the range.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8750209/breaking%20the%20law.mp3

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Told you I was gonna top (or bottom) you all: http://www.box.net/shared/ugyht0go4s :)

Well, at least it's ONE of the lowest clips on this thread (if not the lowest). But I cheated a bit because I just got out of bed. In fact, I may have still been sleeping when I recorded this. I also put the mic very close to my mouth. Why not?

You're human, right ? Just kiddin' That was really LOW

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Those aren't usable notes for me to sing live with, not unless perhaps if my band is playing very softly ... and I just woke up ;) When I play live I usually don't go lower than B2 (on the guitar, that would be the note on the second fret on the A string), because I find it hard to sing that low with as much volume as I need for rock songs. F.ex. I sing "White wedding", which starts on a B2 and the highest note is F#4 and I often find it hard to make myself heard on the B2, even though on most days I can easily sing at least as low as G1 without vocal fry or even E1 or maybe slightly lower, just with very little volume. So I doubt I would be considered a basso in opera. Maybe not even a baritone. Probably a high baritone or a low tenor or just a tenor or a benor or just a singing dude. I dunno. Cheers!

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I think jonpall is the winner, for lowest note. My lowest was in the usable range, but not usable without some kind of amplification.

And my voice is getting better. I'm beginning to think it wasn't allergies but a muscle strain or swelling. Working on the sirens Mike suggested, I would have better luck going high to low, so the problem seemed to be one of coordination. Which makes me think it was a muscle strain. Once I have some coordination going, the voice comes back in the areas where it was missing. Which makes me wonder how I did that. Was it from twanging so hard to get a rattle and put some vocal distortion on my last recording of "Highway to Hell"? I haven't been singing much and when I do, I am careful not to push air and to feel my way into comfortable configurations. I'm getting the falsetto back, where it has been gone for a few weeks. That's another hint towards coordination, rather than damage or allergic reaction on the chords, themselves.

Anyway, well done, jonpall.

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I've read somewhere that when you do the siren and notice a note that sounds distorted or not clear enough then sing this note longer, it will come back then

I often do this siren thing too, but with less power and slower ... sometimes I notice the point where I go into falsetto, it's like an interruption

other times I don't notice any interruption at all

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I've read somewhere that when you do the siren and notice a note that sounds distorted or not clear enough then sing this note longer, it will come back then

I often do this siren thing too, but with less power and slower ... sometimes I notice the point where I go into falsetto, it's like an interruption

other times I don't notice any interruption at all

Thanks for the advice, Nik. If you've read the thread, I had a partial loss of voice for a few weeks and couldn't figure out what was causing it. In another thread, I did a new version of "Highway to Hell" with some of the suggestions and that went well enough but I wondered if I strained some muscles and didn't know it. I have a high tolerance for pain and I can damage myself and not realize it until later. Anyway, it's coming back to me. I've been singing bits of "I Don't Believe in Love" by Queensryche, here and there, throughout the day.

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ok, this thread mainly is about how low someone can sing, but also about voice ...

yesterday I tried to rap for the 2nd time, first time was a few days ago

as a sidenote, it's for a cover project that a German rapper and the Deutsche Telekom initiated

I didn't feel like I strain my voice but after some takes I suddenly felt like my voice becomes hoarse

I don't know if you know this feeling, it was like the voice doesn't "flow" out, it was a bit like some kind of rattle, not strong enough to stop singing, but it took more effort to sing

I also didn't shout, I rather tried to just talk with adding some melody so I don't rap at the same pitch all the time.

that made me wonder because I usually don't feel strained even if I try to record something for 3 hours or more

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ok, this thread mainly is about how low someone can sing, but also about voice ...

yesterday I tried to rap for the 2nd time, first time was a few days ago

as a sidenote, it's for a cover project that a German rapper and the Deutsche Telekom initiated

I didn't feel like I strain my voice but after some takes I suddenly felt like my voice becomes hoarse

I don't know if you know this feeling, it was like the voice doesn't "flow" out, it was a bit like some kind of rattle, not strong enough to stop singing, but it took more effort to sing

I also didn't shout, I rather tried to just talk with adding some melody so I don't rap at the same pitch all the time.

that made me wonder because I usually don't feel strained even if I try to record something for 3 hours or more

Just be careful, whatever you do. I guess that's why it helps to have a coach or instructor, if you can afford one. Otherwise, stick with what doesn't hurt or leave you hoarse after one performance. Nor have I had that, even with my exercises using supertwang and rattle. But even so, you can wear something out and not realize it.

And true, this thread is about the lowest note you can hit, though I think, that should be the lowest, whether it is usable or not. With amplification, just about any note can be usable, I suppose. But, like with Mike's ascending siren, sometimes it's neat to have a high note here and there to provide contrast to the lows.

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  • 1 year later...

I'm more than a year late to this party it seems...

but this is a fun topic, and i love bass so much, ill add my own stuff for kicks and giggles

back in the day when i was singing bass ALL the time, i could get more of the lower stuff to sound fuller. look at me saying back in the day... im too young for that! :/ dont know how much 'vocal fry' or 'twang' im using to get this stuff. some clarification on that would be nice, that stuff confuses me. i dont think i would be considered a true bass... but thats not something i care much about

here it is, used E as DO: http://www.box.com/s/03hsxnpi92x1sqgtbsxm

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really Snejk? i always found the opposite to happen to me. it would always confuse me when i was trying to just sing high notes in what i now know as quack vocal mode, it seemed to warm me up and i could go a lot lower than normal. when im singing in quack up top, it kinda feels the same when i sing really low. kinda. i THINK going lower is a combination of twang or just more compression maybe, vocal fry, and getting the chords used to doing it...

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