First time trying metal vocals

[LeSedna]

Ok, my thread has interested no one in the Rate My Mix section. Another reason why I hate it

Anyway, I'm spending more time playing music than just reading and philosophing about recording or production these days, I now take my guitar to play my own songs, or songs I like, and I though why not record a full song almost live, and make it a fun vid to put on youtube ? Would be fun and a good motivation. So I grabbed my bass and guitars, and spent a few hours doing that.

As I was recording it, I took a sm57 and tried some vocals, which I never ever tried in any "metal" type of vocals (except for fun in my car when no one can hear me ).

So here is the result, it's shit but still, if you could criticize me and give me which parts have potential etc, that would be cool. I'd love to have a decent scream voice. I already feel like the last part of the vocals in the song is shit because I was tired and tried to follow the original, where Joel the singer hits a note while screaming. I tried to hit the same note but as I'm not used to it, it sounds like shit Also I have a big inconsistency, once I get a voice, I pause for a minute, and the next one is different, because I don't know myself yet. Oh and the part in the middle is me as well, with Aether and an ambient preset.

Normally I would be shy for that but I thought let's jump.. !

tl;dr : tell me how are those vocals, which parts suck (even if it's the whole thing) and tips to improve ! Cheers

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/881054/Renders/LeSedna - Gojira vocal first try.mp3

 

[updog]

the key question is, does doing that hurt your throat at all?

you can shape your tone a lot by imitating your favorite vocalists (you can do that at whisper volume), but if you're going fundamentally the wrong way there's a good chance you're doing a lot of damage to your vocal chords. your real voice seems to get through a lot, the key is to use mainly your 'false chords', so you don't need to be actually shouting. depending on the technique it can still sound pretty loud, though, but it's not necessarily something to aim at.

it's a pretty common tip, but try imitating the barking of a large dog. woof woof. i didn't hear about this until i found a decent growling voice, but when i tried it the sound was actually pretty close to how i growl. at least for me, doing high screams and lows is part of the same technique, pretty different but cut from the same tree, so it wouldn't hurt to try that even if you're not interested in actually growling. a lot of guys say they do highs and lows using completely different techniques though so again, what works for me might not work for you.

hope any of this helps, i can't go too deep into what works and what doesn't because i only know what works for myself. oh and the car is a perfect place to train your voice it's pretty much the only place i can do it, which isn't so good because i haven't had the chance to keep up my tone. once you get the hang of it you'll need to do it every now and then or it'll worsen until you train it more again.

 

[LeSedna]

na that doesn't hurt me at all, I just got tired after half an hour or an hour of experiment like this, because eventhough it's my first try at metal vocals, I have had lessons and read and teaches myself as well. I know when to stop pushing (in clean singing), and without those lessons I would never have been to even experiment like this because I wouldn't know how to push air or to avoid using the vocal chords !

 

[AD Chaos]

Needs more growl (bass) instead of just scream imo.