Home VOCAL DEMONSTRATIONS for the Bold!

Under The Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Hey There Dudes and Divas!
I just got done with a vocal lesson and my instructor told me that I wasn't expanding my chest properly. I was expanding the top fine but not so much the bottom and she also pointed out that I tend to raise my chin a lot which stretches the vocal folds and puts unnecessary tension on them. She gave me some exercises to try and I noticed an immediate improvement! Sometimes it pays to have an experienced set of eyes on you while you're singing for sure. Here is my first attempt at a cover while attempting to apply what she taught me.



@Michael4000 @doc_ramadani @Vocality @Wigs @coffeecrank @shining @d1g2w3 @jmstanle @sjonrokz4u @Klaus_T @LumiMoon @maximgottmer @Gunnar364 @DogMeat

Comments

  • Michael4000Michael4000 STREAMING PRO Posts: 992
    Not bad. Pitch was excellent, I hear no issues with that at all.

    I think overall you need more chest in your voice, it seems a bit thin,,, needs more "meat". Inhale all the way and give your sound more weight.

    On the chorus, I think you should sing it like the original with the slide down on "feel" and "love".

    The volume on your vocals is clipping and getting distorted, can you adjust that?

    Overall nice job. I covered this a while ago, I think it's on the forum somewhere. I'll try to find it.

    Michael
  • Michael4000Michael4000 STREAMING PRO Posts: 992
    I found it. It's from a little over a year ago. I think you can see that I've improved quite a bit since then. My voice is very thin in this one.

    https://forum.kentamplinvocalacademy.com/discussion/10677/under-the-bridge#
  • Chris82Chris82 2.0 PRO Posts: 594
    Thanks for the tips! @Michael4000 and @coffeecrank I can try some of that for sure! I tend to max out the volume bar in a lot of my songs unfortunatly and that's with the mic moved away from my mouth too so I guess I really need to work on holding back my vocal weight sometimes. I'll try to uncover the chorus a bit, I've always struggled with those lower parts for sure, this was the best I've gotten the chorus part so far IMO but I can always do better with practice.

    @Michael4000 I really liked your cover version too!
  • Klaus_TKlaus_T Moderator, 2.0 PRO Posts: 2,406
    good job. some room to improve, as mentioned by the others, but a solid version.

    my tip for setting the gain: sing the loudest part of the song as a test when setting the gain, make sure it does not clip, then reduce it a little bit more (when the red light is on, people tend to give a little extra, that's why you want to reduce it that extra bit. in a pro setup, you would also use an analog compressor/limiter to reduce peaks before going into the converter, to be extra sure.

    if you record in 24 bit or more (as opposed to 16), you can actually lower the gain even more (after adjusting it as mentioned above) to be extra safe. it has got to do with the dynamic range of the digital recording: you want to have enough gain to be well over the digital noise floor, but still have some headroom, and avoid clipping. that's a bit of a balancing act at 16 bit with very dynamic vocals, but no big deal for 24 bit and upwards.
  • maximgottmermaximgottmer 2.0 PRO Posts: 313
    Great job Chris, sounds very good. Is your mic distorting at the end (3:29). Keep going.
  • LumiMoonLumiMoon 2.0 PRO Posts: 165
    edited June 2020
    This sounded great! I liked all of it and have nothing to critique. I do think you need a better microphone and I only say this because my crappy laptop mic was always getting overloaded when I was singing no matter what I did. And then we dug up a 20 year old actual microphone we had and it made a huge difference. Now I can actually adjust the gain and sing however I want without it blowing things out. I think it's better to get better equipment if you can than try to hold back on your singing.
    Also, do you ever sing anything by Counting Crows? I think your voice would sound great on their stuff, especially Rain King or Mr Jones.
  • VocalityVocality 2.0 PRO Posts: 1,601
    Great job @Chris82 you have captured the orignal feel of the song very well and yes very good pitch, you are progressing very well.

    Vocality :)
  • sjonrokz4usjonrokz4u 2.0 PRO Posts: 1,287
    I agree with vocality and on a personal note I like your slightly masky compared to Anthony’s
  • JmanJman Member Posts: 23
    Good pitch. Nice timbre. I would vary the volume or presence at the discrete moments sung in the original. Some times softer, some times harder.
  • WigsWigs Moderator, 2.0 PRO, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 5,042
    Good job on identifying the chin raise, I used to do this unconsciously as well. To me it sounds like you are using your resonance to your advantage in your lower register to make the sound project out. This AHA moment is what made me really enjoy singing in lower registers. I sometimes imagine im a fog horn when Im trying to get really good low resonant tones :smile:
  • DogMeatDogMeat 2.0 PRO Posts: 437
    Great job Chris. You have very nice tone, and pitch is always great. Nothing new to say from me. Something wrong with your recording setup because it's clipping. Try what is already mentioned here and you'll be fine :smile:
  • Gunnar364Gunnar364 2.0 PRO Posts: 26
    Hey man!

    Really nice job! Only a little bit of clipping with the mic, other than that it's a great listen. Keep it up!
  • jmstanlejmstanle 2.0 ENROLLED Posts: 141
    Oooooooooooh I love your vibrato! So cool! I don't have any advice for improvement I thought it sounded great! But I guess this was about your getting a live lesson and learning from that. So good job! And interesting to note. But what about a video lesson with Ken?
  • MaratMarat Member Posts: 10
    Dude! This is my favorite band! My dream is to learn to sing like Anthony Kiedis.
    Many underestimate this vocalist, but this is my favorite vocalist!
    It is very nice when people do covers on them, and you did a great job, I liked it.
  • Kevin123Kevin123 2.0 PRO Posts: 101
    Well done, Chris. And that is a challenging song!
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