I need advice on growling.

[Mr Genvin]

Uh yeah, I need some help with growling, or grunting. Actually any sort of extreme vocals would be really great. I've read a couple of the guides here, and this is what I came up with. http://s9.quicksharing.com/v/5830126/1REC02.WAV.html ah. So take a listen, and tell me how I can improve, coz I just listened to it and I can tell it sucks a lot.

 

[Conti]

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/growl.html

 

[MUSICisLIFE]

ill help you with growling because im self taught.

first and foremost - DONT FUCK UP YOUR THROAT. it will damage your throat big time. when screaming you have to tighten up your abdomen so your scream is mainly coming from your gut

second - you should scream along with a death metal band. but start of by whispering/scream along in a deep voice. but remember to tighten up your abdomen because thats where most of your scream is coming from.

before i go on to three i just want to say sorry if this doesnt make sense. im typing this up and not showing you how in person anyways.....

third - after you get the feeling of whisper/screaming you have to take raise your voice a bit and go step by step by step. it isnt something that will be mastered within a day. i would say 2-3 weeks.

good luck

 

[Mr Genvin]

Oh good, thanks. I was using my throat mostly, maybe that's why it sounded so weird. I don't really get the whisper-scream thing though, can you get an audio clip or something?

 

[Hege]

hi Mr Genvin,

to be a good 'growler', or to simply produce the desired
'death grunt' effect, You have to have a specific body type.
If You want that deep, orotund Amon Amarth-type sound, You have
to be LARGE. I mean lung capacity is important. You can't produce
that kind of sound if You are not large enough.
If You meet the bodily 'requirements', practise is the key.
Start listening to Your favorite band, download their lyrics (I suggest
darklyrics.com) and 'sing' along with the song. Don't worry if it
sounds terrible first. It is important that You never strain Your vocal
chords too much or for too long, it won't help, and it can cause serious
pain. Second, drink much water, or preferably beer (but don't get drunk ,
because it relaxes the vocal chords, like right after waking up. A relaxed
chord is likely to produce a deeper sound, because it's somewhat longer.
MUSICisLIFE is right, while screaming, the sound must come from your guts.
After a few week's practise, Your own, signature voice will start to evolve. Be satisfied with it, You can't be the same as Your fav.
If You're truly disgruntled, try using some voice modeling processor; that way, You can create some ghoulishly distorted freaky sounds (like in Burzum). But personally I think the best if You can produce the growl without any high-tech help.

I hope this helps You somewhat,
Good Luck

 

[The.Jester.Race]

last time ive been growling/screaming like 3 hours in a row and it didnt hurt at all, but the next morning my throat hurt and now I cant growl for almost a month and its fucking irritating.
My technique might suck or maybe it's because im 16.

 

[Hege]

The.Jester.Race what do u think about Anders Fridén's voice?
One of my favorite bands is In Flames but I think he could
be a bit better if he would use his 'old' voice he used on Lunar Strain,
Biosphere and Jester Race. These were In Flames' best albums IMO.
I've just been to an In Flames concert and it was great, but Anders
screamed on a high voice thoughout the concert and it was a bit
dull. In a death metal band, even if it plays the Gothenburger style,
the vocal ought to be in a deep voice. Anyway, In Flames is great.

 

[Nemesis_lxix]

I think that what makes Anders Friden’s voice so special is the fact that its unique and I really enjoy it as it is now.
I have never seen In Flames since I missed the two chanced I had coz I am stupid so I really don’t know how he sounds in a concert but I have “Live In Tokyo” and I don’t think his voice could possibly sound dull.

I also don’t think that IF is death metal (at least the way most ppl define death) so they I find it good the don’t follow the deep-dark-brutal voice stereotype.

 

[The.Jester.Race]

I also think that Anders 'old' scream he used in the older albums (the jester race, whoracle.. [the guy who sings in Lunar Strain is Mikael Stanne, today sings in Dark Tranquillity. Anders came first in The Jester Race]) is better than the scream he's using now, but I think he is still a nice vocalist.
The problem is, i don't really like their new stuff =[
Btw I think that Mikael Stanne is a much much better vocalist than Anders today, even though old Anders was better than old Mikael.

 

[CelticFlame*]

it helps for me when i growl is to sometimes make a a kinda double chin and use the back of your throat to have a low detah metally noise other than that if you want sorta a high pitch kinda look up and try to make your throat tighten up and high pitch scream

 

[MUSICisLIFE]

Oh good, thanks. I was using my throat mostly, maybe that's why it sounded so weird. I don't really get the whisper-scream thing though, can you get an audio clip or something?

i shouldve said that in different terms. whisper loud enough so it sounds like a soft voice scream. make anymore sense?

 

[Mr Genvin]

Yeah it's starting to make more sense now. I think I get it, the only problem is I can't try it out because I've got a friggin' cold and my throat is so screwed up I can't even talk right sometimes. And I don't wanna use voice distorters and processors, coz I reckon it's a cheat. I heard Alexi Laiho and Angela Gossow use processors, and I really like the sound, but I'd much prefer to be able to do it without effects. That way, you can do it offstage and practice easier. I've been using that technique CelticFlame mentioned, how you lower your chin and use the back of the throat, and I've also read that if you kinda raise your tongue so its almost touching or touching the roof of your mouth it helps, and I was doing that on the audio recording that I started with on this thread. And I heard somewhere that I shouldn't growl if I'm under fifteen, and the thing is I'm thirteen. If you guys could specifically give some tips on how to do the Akerfeldt growl, that would be great, coz Opeth are AWESOME.

 

[AJM]

haha i love growling!

 

[The.Jester.Race]

Yeah it's starting to make more sense now. I think I get it, the only problem is I can't try it out because I've got a friggin' cold and my throat is so screwed up I can't even talk right sometimes. And I don't wanna use voice distorters and processors, coz I reckon it's a cheat. I heard Alexi Laiho and Angela Gossow use processors, and I really like the sound, but I'd much prefer to be able to do it without effects. That way, you can do it offstage and practice easier. I've been using that technique CelticFlame mentioned, how you lower your chin and use the back of the throat, and I've also read that if you kinda raise your tongue so its almost touching or touching the roof of your mouth it helps, and I was doing that on the audio recording that I started with on this thread. And I heard somewhere that I shouldn't growl if I'm under fifteen, and the thing is I'm thirteen. If you guys could specifically give some tips on how to do the Akerfeldt growl, that would be great, coz Opeth are AWESOME.

lol Mikael Akerfedlt is maybe the best growler i know, he's so fuckin great.
I doubt everyone can get that beast of a growl though.. and maybe the fact that he smokes makes his growl even better (even though i think its dangerous for his voice in the long run), because it adds to the raspy sound in it
Growl at thirteen? o0.. sounds abit young to me, but what do I know :s
Anyway, never growl/scream when your throat hurts, cuz it causes damage and might prevent you from growling for like a week or even a month (it happened to me like 3 times so far, and I only started growling like 4 months ago..).

 

[Hexer]

And I don't wanna use voice distorters and processors, coz I reckon it's a cheat. I heard Alexi Laiho and Angela Gossow use processors, and I really like the sound, but I'd much prefer to be able to do it without effects. That way, you can do it offstage and practice easier.

I think you got something wrong about how people like Alexi or Angela use effects on vocals. they use stuff like echos, delay, reverb, sometimes on the albums some other stuff is used for some special kind of effect. they dont use it to make the actual growling sound more extreme or something

good examples are Shagrath from Dimmu or maybe Peter Tägtgren (Hypocrisy): they use a lot of effects, but the growling/screaming is all done the "real" way

quite often on albums, vocal-tracks are done multiple times and layered (Behemoth is a good example for this, they did it to the extreme on "Demigod")

 

[Mr Genvin]

Rightyo then, I've never really thought about it properly like that. A question, where dyu get the gear for reverb and stuff? I see and hear about loads of people using it but I've never actually seen how the system works. I've got that Demigod song, its the only Behemoth track I've heard so far, sounds pretty awesome. See what you mean with the layering. And I was just wondering, do many artists growl and play guitar at the same time? I've tried to picture it in my head but for some reason I get the impression its done better if you're doing vocals only.

 

[Hexer]

in the studio most people (if not all) will do guitars (or whatever instrument they play) and vocals seperately I'd guess. this way they can concentrate 100% on everything
live quite a few people do both. I used to play guitar and do lead-vocals in a band for some 2 years myself. you need to pay attention during song-writing so you dont write stuff thats impossible for you to do with both at the same time and you have to practice your stuff very well.

adding effects to vocals in a studio-situation is no problem at all.

in a live situation if you play at a big location with very good equipment and a good sound-guy who has a rack or something with effects and stuff he can assign to the mic-channels you dont have to care for it except for telling the sound-guy what you want.
for small locations and all that stuff youd most probably need to buy some effects-gear yourself and use that as most small locations wont have the equipment.
you can get rack-equipment or multi-effects floorboards (quite similar to what you can get for guitar)

 

[Draznog]

if you can't growl don't try to force it. Simple

 

[Mr Genvin]

Um is the Cannibal Corpse growl generally considered hard? Coz I was tooling around yesterday with growling and I was listening to Hammer Smashed Face by CC and it really doesn't sound that hard, you just need to get it real low. I took a shot at it, I sound more or less like the vocalist, whatsisname.

 

[Hexer]

I dont think Hammer Smashed Face is that hard as long as you can get low enough. why? well, you dont need to do understandable vocals to nail that tone