Paul - Question about vocal technique

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richseered

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Sep 4, 2009
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Hey Paul, just wanted to ask about your approach to singing death metal / growl vocals. I really like your vocal tone on the death stuff as it sits well with the music and every word is clear, which is not always the case with that style - with some bands it can sound like white noise and get lost in the mix.

How do you approach singing in that style in terms of technique? I sing and would like to experiment with death metal style vocals, but I'm not sure how to do it without tearing my throat up. When I first started singing, I had no clue what I was doing and shredded my throat every time I sang, so I took vocal lessons and now I sing from the diaphragm. The teacher I went to showed me some death metal stuff and I got the sound I was looking for, but it's very quiet - when I've tried to go louder with it I've just shredded my throat again, so I'm obviously doing something wrong, lol!

Do you do any particular exercises to strengthen the low notes of your range? And what about larynx position, diaphragm, etc?

Since I started singing (about 11 years) I've read quite a few books, watched instructional dvds, etc, some of which were excellent and some of which just caused me to almost blow my vocal cords, and obviously with death metal vocals being so harsh, some of the stuff out there just strikes me as a fast track to vocal nodes!

Thought I'd ask because you've been singing in this style for a long time, so you've obviously been able to do so over a prolonged period without damaging your voice. Also, some death metal stuff actually sounds kind of painful, you can hear it's all off the throat, but your vocals don't sound like that.

There's very little out there in the way of books or dvds about death metal vocals, and I was advised by one vocal tutor who specialises in helping singers who've damaged their voices to avoid one of the more popular ones like the plague! Have you ever thought about doing a vocal instruction book or dvd?
 
There are a few different ways people growl. There's the quiet school, where you achieve the sound, and it more silent, and you allow the PA to amplify your voice, and then there's the guys who belt it out. I'm asked constantly for tips and explanations on "how to growl" like me, and I seriously wish I could explain it, because I really don't know "how" I do it, it just comes out. I can tell you, I push from my diaphragm and that gives me the low guttural sound, and when I want more of a piercing or higher growl, or scream, it moves to my throat.

As I get older, it does become more difficult to do. Not as much as creating the sound, but being able to sustain the voice for long periods of time. Multiple days on the road in a row is murder on my voice, so for me, the key is the PA. I tend to over do it, and belt it out, and for a one off show, that's fine, but if we're touring, I need to keep that in mind, and lay back a bit more, and control the volume coming out of my throat. The key to this is your monitors on stage. If I can't hear myself live, I tend to over push my voice to compensate for that, even thought the front of house can hear me fine. If my monitors on stage are LOUD, and I can hear myself, I can lay back, and concentrate on the tone instead of the volume, and then I have a much better sounding voice of the next several days of the tour.

Recording can be a bit of a chore too, as in the studio, I will belt it out, to make sure it's as powerful as can be, but then I lose the quality quickly. I'm really lucky, where as, for an example, I recorded all the growls for "Into Night's Requiem Infernal" in one hour and 10 minutes. Most of that CD is one take, unless I want to go back and re phrase a line here or there. I set up a video camera of my session, and have the whole thing. That would be funny release and show you guys. hahaha

The single most important thing for me to work on from day way, was enunciation of the words. I wanted to be as clear and audible as possible while maintaining the guttural growl. That was always something I felt would make me stand out from the rest of the pack.

Anyway, I'm not this was the answer you were looking for, or if this helped at all. I hope so, and good luck!
 
ya know, I still want to see that studio footage, but anyway, it sounds like paul really gave you some good advice, being a bit of a growler myself. There is a video somewhare on youtube of george fisher from cannibal corpse, one of the few death vocalists who really know how to anunciate, giving some tips. they really helped me.
 
I did a little growling years ago and definitely wasn't doing it right. It hurt like a bitch before I got a few takes down. Warm rootbeer helped though. A&W, not Barq's. Right now I'm doing some more of this growling type thing and it's much better. I use a lot less volume and a lot of air and get the throat vibrating slowly rather than quickly (the vibration is faster on a scream). What I've noticed is that to my ears it will sound like the growl is pretty weak but the recorded vox sound good. Mics tend to pic up a lot that you can't hear yourself. Also when I try to make the growl sound heavy to the naked ear, I will lose the enunciation quickly and need to get the vibrations moving much faster (which hurts). Also if you are recording and you still think it sounds weak, layer a couple takes. The vocal vibrations will never be the same between takes and it thickens it up quickly. Same reason why layering guitars works so well.

But I think your comment on nodes is quite valid regardless of technique. I don't think the throat was meant to make this noise for extended periods of time.
 
Paul, Kthulu, Frost, many thanks to you all guys, great info much appreciated.

I've been looking at the growl stuff more for stuff to do outside the band I'm in, as that's all clean vocals, so it's more for ideas I'm recording on my own. Also I've been asked to sing on some doom stuff that a friend is recording, so I thought it would be cool to throw in some more growly stuff on that.

It's weird, because the singing teacher I went to when I first started singing was, erm, a little bit eccentric, lol, and I was later told that a lot of what he taught was the main reason I kept blowing my voice out! Without going in to too much depth, he taught me to pull the diaphragm in hard a LOT, not gradually, but for any note I wanted to emphasise, rather than to let the air out gradually with steady breath pressure - the result was that 3 songs into a gig my vocal cords would be swollen from hammering them.
Despite all of that, he would have all his pupils try death metal vocals, so that we could develop the low end of our range - and on that stuff, the stuff that you would think would really damage the voice, he taught us to sing with gentle breath pressure and a pretty safe technique! How mixed up is that, lol, the extreme stuff was the safest, least damaging thing he taught!

Paul, would be cool to see the video footage of you recording the vocals for INRI!

Thanks again guys :)
 
One thing that I think is important to mention is pitch also. The closer you get to your own tone in terms of lows/highs in your growl the easier it is to sustain the technique. Earlier I always tried to growl as über low as possible like the cool guys (Åkerfeldt, Corpsegrinder etc.) instead of finding my individual way of doing it. Now I'm mostly in an aggressive mid range with the occasional low growl and many shrieks. It's definitely an important part of the growl "schooling". :)
 
I am by no means an expert at this, just a guy who does some home recording, but when I push the air out fast it really hurts and doesn't sound good. I prefer to do it smoothly. I still require a crap ton of air though. Much more than clean vocals.
 
Frost, I read that the reason it hurts when you push the air out fast is that the breath pressure makes your vocal cords swell up, like a black eye. It's only temporary, but that's the exact smae problem I had with what my first vocal coach taught me - pulling the diaphragm in all the time, which would blow the cords out in no time at all. I basically had to re-learn to sign - I asked a few different singing teachers about how to correct my technique, and they all said to let the air out slowly.

I've tried / read a lot of books and dvds and it's been a real case of trial and error - if a guitar book gives you bad advice, you're just going to get bum notes, but when your voice is your "instrument", it's a bigger risk because you can do yourself some serious damage.

If the mods are cool with it, would it be ok for me to post a few links for useful singing stuff I've found? I've got a couple of books and dvds that are really great and show you a lot of stuff in addition to vocal technique, like how to sing when you have a cold, supplements you can take to fight off colds, etc, warm ups, how to get your voice relaxed if you're going to do extreme singing, etc? I'm not shilling for these guys,lol, just found some cool stuff :)
 
another word of advice DO NOT CHEAT AND CUP THE MIKE!!!!!!!!!!!!! it makes you sound more agressive more easaly, but you will lose all youre clarity. Its one of the reasons paul and corpesgrinder are so audible is because they dont cup the mike.
 
Unless it's just the occassional sick sound, but not the main vocals, like in Suffocation I agree. The super fake-ish cup squeals in many deathcore acts and such are just ridicilous. One guy who does those modern kinda sounds right, and really loud I may add, is the singer of Benighted. Usually a good old classic growl does the job :)
 
OK, here goes -

The best overall singing book I've read (comes with free mp3s on the website) is "Raise Your Voice" by Jaime Vendera - he's a staight up, no B.S. kinda guy. I actually emailed him before I bought the book and said I just wanted to ask a few questions about what he taught, after having bought other stuff that had voice damaging stuff in it, and he replied saying that he'd had the same experience and that was part of what prompted. him to write RYV. He also has a book called "The Ultimate Breathing Workout which is really good. The "Raise Your Voice" book has a ton of info on how to build up and develop your range, and also has info on larynx position and overall body posture and how this affects singing, and on top of that there's a section called "The Singer's Medicine Chest", which has a list of supplements and medicines that you can take to boost your immune system if you have to sing when you have a cold, stuff that clears phlegm, etc - I was able to sing with a bad chest infection at a gig 2 years ago by following the advice in the book. Jaime is a rock / metal singer too, so the info he gives is relevant to the likes of us! :)
www.thevoiceconnection.com

Another good teacher is Mark Baxter - he's got a book called "The Rock & Roll Singer's Survival Manual" and a dvd called "The Singer's Toolbox", both of which I've got. The "...Manual" has info on what various substances (from cigarettes to cocaine!) do to your vocal cords and how they affect your singing. More good info about singing when you're not feeling too good also. The dvd has more info on hydrating your voice properly, warm ups, etc
His site is
http://www.voicelesson.com/home.htm

And he also does 2 MP3s on getsigned.com, a 15min vocal warm up, which I use every time I sing, it really is good, and easy to follow. He also does another one called "Secrets of Screaming", which is great for singing extreme vocals, cos it gets you to warm up gradually and relax your vocal muscles so that you don't instinctively force, tense up or push the voice because you know you've got a part coming up that's hard to sing, eg a scream, growl, etc.

the link for these is
http://www.getsigned.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?

You can also get the Jaime Vendera books and Mark Baxter's book and dvd on there too.

Stuff to avoid - not to slag anyone, but I would avoid anything that mentioned "speech level singing", cos it teaches you to sing in high registers with a raised larynx and that can cause really bad damage (there's a vocal teacher called David Jones who's commented on this after having taught singers who've damaged their voices using that method - he's got a cd that's very good, but more classical based, although the exercises are really good and there's a lot of useful stuff on there, and his articles are very informative - http://www.voiceteacher.com/).


Thomas Appel's "Can You Sing A High C Without Straining?" is another I tried that basically resulted in strained vocal cords, and I was advised by a vocal coach that that's down to part of what he teaches - a kind of grunting thing when you're going for high notes.
I was also advised to avoid Melissa Cross's "Zen of Screaming" - although a lot of people say it's good.
 
actualy, smoking hurts your growl. My cousin said they had to kick his vocalist out of his band cus he started smoking and it KILLED his growl. he couldnt pull the air through his diapham properly and lost almost all of his power. I wont even start about his cleans.
 
There's some info on what tobacco smoke and marijuana smoke do to your voice in Mark Baxter's book - not good!

I gave up smoking 12 years ago, about a year before I started singing lead (used to just do backing vox). Before they brought in the smoking ban here in the UK, I wondered how I ever managed to stand inhaling cigarette smoke once I'd quit, cos it would dry my voice out really badly, really quickly.
 
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