19

I've been wondering how hard rock/metal singers (e.g. Layne Staley, James Hetfield, Dave Grohl) manage to achieve such a 'gritty' sound with their vocals. Do professional rock singers ever use distortion effects to enhance the 'grit', either in concert or when recording? Or would that sound too 'artificial' or 'fake' (or be considered 'cheating')?

If they do use electronic distortion, what sort of equipment would typically be used to achieve the effect? Would they use similar distortion to an electric guitar, or something more specialized?

Time4Tea
  • 918
  • 1
  • 8
  • 20
  • 4
    It's a singing technique, not a recording technique. See also https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/11111/why-does-tom-waits-voice-sound-the-way-it-does Distortion would sound like you're singing through a megaphone. – Your Uncle Bob Feb 04 '19 at 22:59
  • 4
    Compare Greg Lake's vocals on "21st Century Schizoid Man" (Distortion) with "In the Court of the Crimson King" (Normal) – mcottle Feb 05 '19 at 03:55
  • 3
    when I was 13 years old and my voice became broken I tried to sing like Louis Armstrong. I did quite well, but I spoiled my voice. – Albrecht Hügli Feb 05 '19 at 09:03
  • 3
    They use it all the time. I'd always add some distortion. Techically even compression is a form of distortion but I mean grunge and grime. Just run it through something to make it sound nasty and then feed a little nastiness back into the main vocal. Adjust to taste. Standard stuff. – PeterJ Feb 05 '19 at 09:46
  • 3
    It is sometimes done, but it's rare. You lose a lot of clarity with distortion. It inherrently brings in volume compression as the audio bus exceeds it's limit (usually in a pre-amp, so the volume isn't driven up too high), which can make it harder to hear the nuance, or, you know, words. It can be used for effect, but it's typically not. The sound you're referring to is, probably, a singer shouting into their mic. You could produce the same effect acoustically if you ask a friend to yell down your ear ;) – AJFaraday Feb 05 '19 at 12:40
  • 7
    (don't do that) – AJFaraday Feb 05 '19 at 12:40
  • 2
    Adrian Belew once wrote a song detailing how, when he has some words, he likes [to sing through a distortion box to make them sound menacing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCBnzUbKHps), providing a perfect example of what vocals through a "distortion effect" sound like. – Tobia Tesan Feb 05 '19 at 17:33
  • 1
    Some bands use them very obviously, to make the voice sound more like an instrument rather than just "vocals". See practically everything The Mars Volta has ever done. – user91988 Feb 05 '19 at 18:53
  • @AJFaraday - No reason it should cause any compression. The bus should never exceed its limit. Often it is done to aid clarity and help the vocal cut through, Totally inappropriate for some styles but very useful in others. It doesn;t need to be noticeable and often the listener won't know its being done. And then, parallel compression is distortion and well-used all over the place. , . – PeterJ Feb 06 '19 at 11:36
  • Another example (from one of the singers mentioned) is Dave Grohl's vocals on *White Limo* (distorted) vs those on *Arlandria* (clean). – walrus Feb 06 '19 at 12:03

10 Answers10

27

There are many aspects to hard rock singing, and each singer (hell, each song) has a different approach. I know that even death metal vocalists can do their scary vocals without doctoring them in the studio, and I know some really "clean"-sounding singers have to fix uo the tone in the studio. So it depends a lot.

In hard rock, a lot of the "aggresiveness" of the tone does in fact come from the singer. Particularly, volume and punchiness are all by the singer, along with simply each singer's own vocal differences. Often, microphones themselves lend to the effort by changing the sound a little (even unintentionally). In the studio, they can doctor vocals to sound unintelligible or whatever, but I've never heard of any hard rock singer that didn't sound "hard rock" without using any effects.

Frank Sinatra considered his instrument to be not his voice, but his microphone.

user45266
  • 12,289
  • 2
  • 27
  • 78
  • 12
    I used to think Kurt Cobain used a lot of tube warmth until I saw the Nirvana MTV Live show. He just sang like that, no tricks. – Tetsujin Feb 05 '19 at 07:36
  • 1
    @Tetsujin That Nirvana performance was on the show MTV *Unplugged*, which, as its name suggests, had bands perform their music using primarily acoustic instruments with minimal distortion and effects (they weren't literally completely unplugged though, they were able to use microphones and other similar devices to record the instruments and vocals). That performance was very different from what Nirvana sounded like at a normal concert performance. Despite all that, you're correct that Kurt didn't use any fancy vocal effects during live performances. – peaceoutside Feb 06 '19 at 19:10
15

It depends, is the answer. And it also depends on what you call "distortion" - do you mean it in the sense that a guitarist would, or just that the sound is changed?

Microphones are the first potential source of distortion. Sometimes you want a "smooth" mic, but sometimes you want one which puts a bit more "grit" inio the sound. Mics are fairly consistent as they come from the manufacturer, but mics from different manufacturers and of different construction will produce a noticeably different sound.

After that, you have the mic preamp. On solid-state electronics, turning the gain up so that the signal clips (reaches the maximum voltage possible) causes hard edged distortion which can sound pretty nasty. I've used it as an impromptu effect in the past though for someone jacking an electric guitar in directly, but it's not normal.

On valve-based electronics though, for starters they distort everything. Your basic distortion level is higher than on solid-state. However that distortion is initially mostly in even harmonics. As you push the gain up, a valve preamp doesn't go straight into saturation but instead just progressively distorts more, adding more odd harmonics as it gets crunchier. This is more commonly referred to as "overdrive". It's still distortion, but it's under a degree of control, and subjectively it sounds appealing to us.

Mostly a sound engineer would try to keep mic preamps out of this region, and stay within the most linear range of the preamp. The Rolling Stones though famously pushed all their mic inputs into overdrive, because they wanted that sound. Some other recordings used it more by accident, or couldn't get away from it because their gear was inherently not that good (for example, "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen).

Muse use distortion on vocals as an effect - check their cover of "Feeling Good", amongst others. It's an effect though, not a key part of Matt Bellamy's normal vocal sound.

You certainly can add some in, and if you think it sounds good then fine. But ultimately though it all does have to start with a good voice.

Graham
  • 4,742
  • 9
  • 22
  • 3
    Good answer, though the details about overdrive aren't quite correct. In fact valve circuits were originally intended to be linear too, and indeed they are _pretty_ linear at sufficiently low gain. Yes, they start distorting a bit already at ≈ -10 dB, but transistor class-A actually do that too. Only modern circuits cancel this with negative-feedback OP amps, which wouldn't be feasible with valves. – leftaroundabout Feb 05 '19 at 10:51
  • 3
    And, it's not true that valve overdrive is “all in even harmonics”. Rather, transistor overdrive is _all in odd harmonics_, whereas tubes at medium gain add _also_ even harmonics. But this isn't really the reason why valve distortion sounds less harsh than transistor clipping – that's more due to the softer edges (transients) in the signal, which means they add fewer _high_ overtones. About the even overtones I'd rather say they make the overdrive sound more _interesting_ and dynamic. – leftaroundabout Feb 05 '19 at 10:54
  • 1
    @leftaroundabout Sure, all those old electronics were *intended* to be linear - they would have killed for a good op-amp! But with the benefit of hindsight, we can see where the non-linear bits are good, and where those non-linear bits contribute to a characteristic sound we recognise. A good example of that is the Motown sound - the backing was laid down first and the singer overdubbed. The tape technology back then inherently compressed the backing, which is why it sounds like it does. And stupidly, the Motown musical makes no effort to reproduce that sound. (It was a lousy show too.) – Graham Feb 05 '19 at 12:30
  • @leftaroundabout Fair point about it not being entirely even harmonics - I'll clarify that. – Graham Feb 05 '19 at 12:33
7

The "gritty" sound in rock singer's voices is their natural voice, albeit a technique that gives the sense of screaming or growling. Something else that should be considered is that there are many hard-rock style singers who are smokers, which can significantly affect a singer's voice.

Note: Increasing your risk for lung cancer is not worth it to achieve a specific sound in your music.

sxmrxzxr
  • 101
  • 4
  • 1
    A nice bottle of whiskey helps, too. I've been in a couple of hard rock/metal bands and smokes and drinks were definitely on the menu to help the "grittiness" of the vocals. – Doc Hoss Feb 06 '19 at 17:17
  • @DocHoss I've heard from multiple separate sources that some vocalists that normally do not smoke cigarettes will smoke quite a bit before a show to give their voice a different quality (usually more raspy/harsh/gritty). – peaceoutside Feb 06 '19 at 19:15
  • @peaceoutside Yep, the singer in my metal band didn't smoke except right before shows. Worked out quite nicely, I thought. – Doc Hoss Feb 06 '19 at 19:46
6

The Beatles' distinctive vocal sound was shaped largely by double-tracking, in which the singer would record himself twice, attempting to repeat the performance exactly as before.

Later recordings used the equipment to accomplish a similar audio effect on only one recorded track: automatic double tracking.

A similar, but scarier, effect is obtained in newer songs like Metallica's Enter Sandman when the vocalist records the song twice, attempting to repeat his performance exactly, but at an interval of one octave. The effect also appears on Blue October's "Into the Ocean" and various other modern recordings.

elliot svensson
  • 591
  • 3
  • 10
  • This is very interesting, thanks. I'll have to go listen to Enter Sandman again ;-) . I guess that effect must be a bit tricky to replicate live though. – Time4Tea Feb 05 '19 at 20:51
  • @Time4Tea, it was an emphasis in the bridge, starting with "it's just the"... not the entire song. – elliot svensson Feb 05 '19 at 20:57
  • 1
    You reminded me of the later era of punk, where they would bounce many vocal tracks like this so it sounded like a crowd was singing. –  Feb 05 '19 at 22:25
4

It's generally singing technique. Some schools even call it exactly that, "Distortion".

Techy singing-geek description here: https://cvtresearch.com/effects/distortion/

Personally, for FX I add a tad of reverb and a short slapback delay, but actual audio distortion is generally unwanted (I only get that when I am too loud for the pre-amp....). Some individuals may use it for effect though!

kpollock
  • 161
  • 2
3

I have been a bad singer for 5 years, an OK singer for 10 and now a pretty diverse and consistent professional vocalist for ten years and still learning.

Just like anything associated with skill and talent you beat your self up for making mistakes, over work , and constantly challenge your self. When you have some success and you overcome your difficulties, the brain labels the accomplishment and tries to make that file easy to recall.

Makes me think of golf. When you step up to drive the ball you tell your self what to do what not to do, like a little speech.

Then you swing and if there is any error to the hit, you add a new piece of information to that speech or you obsess trying to figure what part of the speech you didn’t follow. The interesting thing is the speech gets shorter and and easier over time, it gets compacted into something like a gesture or a breath or a muscle flex. Rather than words. The brain learns how to compartmentalize lots of data in to a few clicks.

Singing is the same to me. It has a lot to do with the little things a singer tells himself before he uses that tool, to get that effect. It’s a tool the way I think about it. It’s a tool that you sort of select from a variety in your head. That same tool can be used in a different song in a totally different way.

When a tool like that needs to be used it gets paired up with one's history with the tool, the song, the statement, the audience, the motivation, the consistency. And the toughest part of it can be everything but the tool. A distortion that’s rich, with a good zip, is definitely a tool in the head.

Brian Towers
  • 5,562
  • 4
  • 18
  • 42
Jairus Minsky
  • 27
  • 1
2

As sxmrxzxr said, sometimes it's a technique that could be achieved setting your vocal chords in the same way used when you try to "growl". Increasing air emission, effect is similar to an aggressive, gritty tone. If you try, you'll notice it hurts. This is why many teachers told me to never sing that way.

JaKaiser
  • 21
  • 2
2

Distortion on the track is possible, like in Big Black's "The Power of Independent Trucking" and a lot of the Butthole Surfers' catalog, but the effects I normally hear are reverb and delay. The aggressiveness of hard-rock singing is in the voice.

Dave Jacoby
  • 13,070
  • 2
  • 33
  • 64
2

There is no known example of an hard rock singer using distorsion effects all the time on his voice, excepted for adding a specific embellishment on a specific song as an artistic choice: hear for example, Ted Nugent on his "Scream Dream" and "Flesh and blood" songs, excerpted from his "Scream dream" album. Moreover, gritty voices exist also outside of Hard Rock!

ghavet
  • 21
  • 1
1

Most of the times rock singers don't use distortions effects, many of them just have a very low voice, but of course there are some songs where they use effects, but I think they tend to use a kind of echo, reverb or vocover, not distortion.

Milo_666
  • 331
  • 1
  • 3
  • 12