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Thanks Darrison, this place makes me question what I teach and if I'm missing the boat somewhere. I've studied under countless teachers over the last 20 years and the simplest teachers had the biggest impact on me and maybe it's just the way my brain works or doesn't work.

I started working with Nate Lamm about 7 years ago and he forever changed my life and his teaching is simple and fundamental. It has had a deep and lasting impact on how I sing first and formost and then how I teach. For me, my singing always comes first, if I'm on pioint vocally then I teach better. Kind of like the analogy of the crashing plain, the mother puts the oxygen on herself before the baby. The belief being you're no good to your baby if you're dead. I'm no good for my students if I'm not in good voice. I don't know where I'm going with this I just wanted to put it out there, if this is all confusing and makes you feel alienated it doesn't mean you can't get it or become an awesome singer. You'd be surprised at how little some GREAT singers know about singing!

The 80's and early 90's were crazy for me for sure! Saw the world from behind an SM58 and Les Paul. Amazing I made it out alive, for me I had to get clean and sober because the years on the road took their toll and thank God I did because I'm 44 and sing and scream better then ever and still look young. I see guys from that era that I am friends with and some look really rough. My voice was genetically pretty tough and could always take some abuse but the combo of partying and little sleep nearly killed me.

I'm working with a major label dark metal band right now and the singer is struggling vocally, he also stays up all night drinking Jagermiester (sp?), smoking weed and hangin with the chickies and his voice sounds like shit and he's letting his band down.

Balance!

I think Tate's voice started it's decline after Operation Mind Crime. It started to darken and he started to drift into singing safe and covered land. Saw him live then and to me his voice was no longer compelling or urgent, not that it ever was all that much to me (always a Bruce fan for that style). Same thing happened to Journey after Escape. 20 months on the road and Steve was never the same. I studied with the same coach as he did during that time, Gina Morreta in Miami.

Years on the road can take their toll. I did a stint in the early 90's playing guitar in Dokken after Lynch left and those guys use to party with Queensryche... Whoa. I've seen videos!!!! Don use to crack them out about 3/4 of the way through a bottle of JD and we'd trip out watching them. \M/

At least they can say they had fun.

J

p.s. And on another note, you guys must hate me, I'm like the only guy on this forum that's not into Geoff Tate. But you gotta admit it's pretty rock-n-roll. ~

Peace

I think for me I go along more with Bruce Lee, he felt that any structured technique would be flawed and make a person vulnerable and also make them perform the same as others did which would in turn give the opponent the opportunity to use it against him. He use to say he taught 'the technique of no technique'. That's pretty much what I believe and what I'm about. There are aspects of different style of teaching that I use and aspects that I don't but at the end of the day not everything always works with everyone and you must be open and flowing to move your voice and thinking as things occur. Some days I warm up with standard stuff and some days I lie on the floor in the dark and sing to 'The Best Of Earth Wind And Fire'. You have to find what works best for you. Some people only study a set way of thinking and do great but that wasn't the case for me, though I will say Riggs has done wonderful work and is a good man.... and he laughs at my jokes.

Hey guys I feel like I'm forcing something here, I think I'm craving some high end mic discussion on this board and I just need to let it go.

For me, my passion is singing, producing music and coaching singers in the studio as they track records. My approach as far as just pure voice coaching goes is so simple and in such opposition to most of the complex techniques I read here from the coaches that I never feel like I have anything of any great importance to add so I stay off the threads for the most part and just read them.

Anyway, it's 11pm and I need to stop typing and get some sleep.

Peace y'all

J

It takes $$$$, trust me. I have the best vocal sound I've ever had in my studio:

Neumann U67>Neve 1073>Urei 1176 = 13K

Here's me doing an acapella this morning for a movie track.
http://www.jameslugo.com/sounds/voc_6_7%5B1%5D.mp3

The 67 and 1073 were the ones used on Jeff Buckley's 'Grace' record.

The cheaper Guitar Center stuff is always hyped and geeked out. Though I have been using a TLM49 and it's not a bad mic. Good luck.

For me getting the grit has always been a departure from vocal technique. I scream because that's what I feel and hear in my heart when I do it, not some technique. Technique for me can be a limitation, thinking of all singing in terms of the fundumental X's and O's can be very mind narrowing and pull a singer further away from their goal.

I'm one of the guys in LA who's known as a guy who teaches screaming, which honestly I don't really view myself like that but I'm viewed by others that way. In all my years I've consistantly had my lowest success rate with teaching people to scream with people who try to intellectualize it and 'figure it out'.

Open mouth, drop jaw, think down, sing out, unload on world... Sounds primitive, well screaming is primitive. I was Axle's roomate when Appetite came out, that guy was f*ckin' insane, his inner rage came out on tape, that's what you are hearing.

I don't know if any of this helps you man. Good luck and keep singing/screaming!

J

I use to do that stuff as a kid as an inhale not an exhale, kinda like Prince. You should email Ralph from the Atomic Punks he's the best in the world at that scream. Tell him I sent you.

Hey man nice work.

Voice is full sounding, sometimes though you want the voice to compress more and narrow to cut through dense mixes. Sometimes the tighter a rock singers voice gets around G and higher the more intense it actually sounds because the guitars take up such a huge part of the sonic pallet that if the voice is to big it can get crowded. One of my mentors and best friends is Michael Wagner,
http://www.michaelwagener.com/html/discography.html

about 4 years ago at sushi he told me, 'the key to making a great rock record is to figure out how to get the guitars as loud as humanly possible in the chorus, that's what makes the record rock'. One way is to tuck the lead vocals in nicely. Some of the greatest records have singers with tight top ends; Zep, ACDC, Soundgarden etc... Listen to Givin' The Dog A Bone, Whole Lotta Love and the tune Superunknown (listen to how low in the mix Cornell is in the chorus, perfect example), all are great examples of this concept. Bigger isn't always better, think Bruce Lee.

My only other thought was be careful of singing to clearly, sometimes the best part of rock singing is the smear of words; Elton, Plant, Jagger etc... Over enunciating can be the straight ticket to a day job. What the hell was Curt saying??? lol

Peace buddy, sing with vigor you sound great.

James

Whoa, India. Glad to hear you bringing the rock there.

Not sure about the time difference but you can call me pretty much anytime on Monday. I haven't been posting so much around here lately, works been intense but this thread has sparked something in me, I really want to see you get your voice going to its full potential.

Nice job man. Gotta get a deeper tone, more chest. It's a sweet blend but to much head for my taste. I ran lights for Kansas back in the day, heard the tune a few million times. lol

Think down and hunker in when you go up. Don't let the tone lift. Don't be to polite on the hook it loses its ergency and no longer speaks. Don't sing it like your performing for a bunch of vocal coaches, sing like a rockstar!

Peace,
Great work man

James

Honestly SLS is not always best for metal, IMO. I know from personal experience.

I'll preface what I'm about to write with:

1. That I am friends with Seth and love him, (he has always been very supportive of me)
2. I have lectured with him many times
3. Studied his method inside and out and took lessons from a level 5 instructor

To me, SLS is to soft and heady for metal and creates bad habits by extending the head voice down which is the kiss of death for metal. SLS is for people who want to learn to skateboard, singing metal is like doing back flips 10 feet in the air off a pool lip! It's apples and oranges.

So here's my story, about 8 years ago I started a record, we tracked all the drums and bass at a studio and while tracking I laid a scratch guitar and vocal. The vocal was me in the control room using a 57 with click bleed. We had a falling out with the producer and went looking for a new one, with little money. A killer LA rock producer fell in love with the project and my voice. We worked on the record for 3 months all the while using my scratch vocal as a reference. As we started the record I decided to study with a coach to get my voice as badass as possible for vocals.

I went to a top SLS instructor for 3 months, he changed vowels, got me singing in the 'Mix', honoring my bridges yada yada yada.... The day came when I started vocals so I came into the studio with all my new found knowledge of singing, got behind the mic to show the producer how I had improved. He stopped the tape midway through the first chorus and he said and I quote "what the hell's wrong with your voice", remember he had been listening to the scratches for months and knew them inside and out. I started to tell him how I was working on some new stuff, he cut me off mid sentence and told me to grow up and stop f**king around and sing! There you have it, 5 grand of lessons later I learned my lesson.

I am not writing this as a coach I'm writing this as a metal singer.

I know there are many SLS instructors here and I don't write this as an insult I just think it has it's place and most SLS instructors I know don't claim to be very good at teaching metal, hell a lot of the LA instructors send metal guys to me because they just don't understand the sound.

Again remember this is just my opinion. YMMV.