Rough Vocal Effects Revisited | #2 False Fold Distortion

In this episode, I'm revisiting the topic of false fold distortion and updating my subcategorization and didactics of it. Also, I was just recovering from a cold when I recorded this, hence the sniffly voice.
00:00 Introduction
02:23 Three Strategies of Distortion
05:28 The Continuum of Distortion
08:55 The Venn Diagram of Distortion
11:32 The Tree of Distortion
17:09 The Triangle of Distortion
19:27 Summary
My website: toni-linke.com
My PayPal: www.paypal.com/paypalme/tonid...
A compilation of didactical approaches to Distortion: www.dropbox.com/s/ptdobyie8gh...

[@SINGANDSCREAM]

Toni, you are one of the best in the industry! Incredible video. It's always a pleasure to nerd out about vocals with you and thank you very much for the shoutout! Cheers Marcel

[@concerninghobbits5536]

Holy shit that livin on a prayer riff came outta nowhere that was impressive. Especially since I know Jon did not have very good vocal technique and he's lost a lot of his range these days, cool to see someone trained nailing it like that

[@marcelloestemiele]

thank you from the bottom of my heart for this

[@codyboulware7400]

This is amazing Toni!

[@-xlntc91x-]

Wow, thanks a lot for this! I know, we already talked about the content you displayed here, but having it presented in a well-produced video like this one, is a game changer. I can only imagine how many hours of work you poured into this. This is extremely well structured and contains loads of information without ever being redundant. I love how you elaborate on pushed distortion to show that pushing can be a safe strategy if combined with twangy or hyper-compressed distortion. Especially since pure twangy distortion is rarely used in modern rock or metal.

[@T-Bore]

Eine echt verständliche und anschauliche Übersicht. Stark!

[@arnaudm.8155]

Precise, rigorous and, above all, honest. Thank you Toni.

[@tobias.mueller]

Genius! It’s really fun to watch, I love the humor in it ❤

[@musicaccounting8530]

You're the person who got me so big into the world of singing techniques, and it was around this time last year that I found your channel and learned how to do fry screams. Thank you so much ❤️❤️ God bless ya man!

[@ToniLinke]

Woah, nice!

[@CoDnClipS]

Great video Toni!

[@ryzeonline]

The level of detail, nuance, and clarity you deliver in your lessons is mind-blowing and super-valuable. I'm not sure if you put much attention on KZbin best practices, but you could reach so many singers in need through them, imho. Either way, I deeply appreciate your teachings here, thank you.

[@ToniLinke]

Thanks! I'm pretty satisfied with how it works at the moment, because even though my videos aren't going viral, my schedule is full about one month in advance, and I don't want to reject students or make my lessons much more expensive than they already are.

[@iVoceiVoce]

OMG! This is amazing stuff righ here, Thank you so much!

[@vosoryan]

14:44 this actually sounds like Adam Gontier's distortion to me. Amazing

[@-xlntc91x-]

I'm pretty sure he often uses exactly this technique. There's an acoustic version of tdg performing never too late where the chorus sounds like what Toni is doing here. I also tried to imitate Adam's distortion and came the closest when using this type of hyper compressed distortion

[@vosoryan]

@-xlntc91x- Yeah exactly. Adam is underrated. His cover of Man In The Box might be the best cover of that song I've ever heard. I love that Toni breaks this down in a way that makes it seem like any singer's vocal style is attainable. Other vocal coaches make it seem like there's only one path to distortion and it's just a matter of what you were born with

[@-xlntc91x-]

@@vosoryan I didn't know he did man in the box, gotta listen to it ASAP! :D Not only that, but you can build upon what you do intuitively. My preferred strategy is hypercompression, it's what my body wants to do naturally (but I wasn't quite good at it, e.g. I had no high range). So, if I had met a teacher who can only do twangy distortion, I would have been stuck forever. But Marcel (singandscream) and Toni could teach me proper hyper-compressed distortion so I could build upon my intuitive approach and access high notes with a beefy distortion.

[@vosoryan]

@-xlntc91x- that's very interesting. My voice has a natural twang so twangy distortion is what I always gravitated towards and I have no idea how to hyper compressed distortion. But learning both would be cool

[@Howsheir]

Very underrated

[@10jonchannel]

Paolo nutini I believe is a perfect balance of twangy and pushed distortion, pushed around his passagio and twangy in his higher range. His performance of “Everywhere” can be used as an example of

[@raylen8459]

The best video I've seen on KZbin for rough vocal effects, thank you for this valuable content! However, I have a question: In which category of distortion would Chester Bennington from Linkin Park fall?

[@ToniLinke]

Chester does a couple of different things. His screams were fry-based, that's what I'm gonna talk about next week in episode 3! In his less intense gritty singing, I often hear combinations of twang and push. For example the line "I'm my own worst enemy" from "Given Up" sounds like twangy pushed distortion to me, and in the chorus of "Bleed It Out" I hear pushed twangy distortion. He probably didn't think too much about it and just went for what felt right in the musical context, but with students I would approach it that way.

[@JoyboysDream]

So helpful

[@DestroyerMariko]

It's enough that you're epic at vocals lol, anyone who can manage even a basic level of playing an instrument at the same time blows my mind, I'm far too uncoordinated for that so you're automatically magic to me 😅 the attitude of breaking rules to serve the music you want to make was also a cool point, I guess it depends what you're doing and how much time you have to recover if needed.

[@venet5024]

This is extremely interesting. Having done some research and experiments on my own, I would indicate four possbilities regarding distortion and compression: a) no compression = typical growl, or pushed distortion in your terms b) a little more compression = kargyrra (the first type of mongolian throat singing), c) much more compression = khoomei (the second type of mongolian throat singing), d) maximum compression = typical fry scream, or hyper-compressed distortion in your terms. Of course, these are "reference points" that we can put on a continuum, as the strength of compression is controllable. This works in the same way as voice scale - you can tighten and loosen your throat just as you can elevate and lower your larynx to sing high or low notes.

[@vosoryan]

I believe he actually categorizes fry screaming as a completely separate technique altogether that doesn't involve false folds at all

[@ToniLinke]

Very cool! We can definitely look at compression as a spectrum, with hyper-compression being the extreme. I'd agree that most throat singing I've heard is somewhere in the middle. I think fry scream can be more or less compressed too, and the way I differentiate false fold distortion from fry scream is: do the vocal folds produce a clean note? If not, it qualifies as a scream! Most examples of distortion I showed in this video have a clean true fold phonation though, so I wouldn't call them fry scream yet. An exception is the "shiveeeeer" thing at the end of my Nirvana cover, that one borders on fry scream! Next episode of this series is actually gonna be about fry scream, so I'm gonna go more in detail about that there!

[@venet5024]

@@ToniLinke Oh, I see. I didn't think about the phonation of true vocal folds, but it makes sense indeed. In that case, I assume that most of the bands and metal vocalists I listen to sing via applying distortion with different "settings" on top of their voices as opposed to pure white noise, as I believe I do actually hear some harmonics most of the time, especially in metalcore and deathcore songs. Wow, that's nice. Now that I know there is a certain difference, a video about fry screaming specifically is a must, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.

[@djabthrash]

Goat

[@juhae8164]

maybe it's time for a circle of fifths of distortion

[@LightersInc]

is using cry mode the same as using twang, where you kind of narrow the vocal cords?

[@ToniLinke]

I would say they're two separate things. Cry-like or whiny sounds usually encourage tilting the larynx, stretching and thinning out the vocal folds, whereas twang is a narrowing above the vocal folds which can help them close more easily (regardless of how stretched/thinned out they are). But that's only my interpretation of those words, maybe in some other pedagogy people might combine cry & twang.

[@mestayno]

push distortion is basically Chino Moreno it seems. No wonder one of his vocal cords paralized for a while. still awesome tho

[@digitaltrip3311]

Yayyyyy! 😊

[@darkness4178]

How would one approach the B4 sustained note in given up ?

[@ToniLinke]

I'd go for a mixed belt (reduced Overdrive in CVT) with compressed twangy distortion, so mostly twang and some little compression on top to darken a bit.

[@ReyBanYAHUAH]

Do you have a video specifically on twang and another on compression? And maybe even breath support? I would love the link to it! Thank you!

[@ToniLinke]

No, but I go over the term twang in my original Rough Vocal Effects 101 series. It's basically the nasty sound you'd make when imitating a duck. By compression I mean a constriction of the false folds that also influences the vocal fold vibration into a more pressed direction, with hyper-compression being the extreme of that.

[@iolairmuinnmalachybromham3103]

I love how comprehensive and put together this is! I am wondering though, how much of these techniques are to do with distortion specifically and how much are they to do with stabilising the underlying vocal fold coordination? Isn’t a lot of either aryeppiglottic constriction or true fold compression necessary to take an M1 coordination into the range you do in your demonstrations? Is there more twang required to stabilise a false fold + true fold phonation up there than there would be for the true folds alone on the same pitch? And is distorting a compressed M2 “mix” sound also an option for singers wanting to take distortion higher?

[@ToniLinke]

In twangy distortion, the twang itself of course also has an effect on the vocal fold vibration insofar as that it usually helps with complete closure, and in many cases also leads to longer closed phase, so more "chestiness". You can also do twangy distortion in M2 though, where you'd still have a decent closure but a shorter closed phase. In hyper-compressed distortion, the vocal fold vibration is even more affected as the false folds press down on the true folds, resulting in more of a "grandpa-like" quality. In both cases however, a clean phonation of the true folds (without creaking or breathiness) should be possible. As soon as you add breathiness, it goes into more of a pushy direction, and as soon as you get creaking, it goes more into the direction of fry scream, so we're not talking about pure false fold distortion anymore.

[@iolairmuinnmalachybromham3103]

@@ToniLinkeThank you, this is all very helpful

[@unruhschuh]

Great stuff. Could this alternatively be described as all CVT modes including nuances like air and density, but with distortion?

[@unruhschuh]

specifically twangy distortion would be edge, hypercompressed d. edge or overdrive and pushed distortion any mode with air + distortion.

[@ToniLinke]

Yes! Twangy Distortion works in all modes, but tends to work best in Edge for beginners. Pushed distortion could be described as violating the modes rules (either pushing over the volume limit of Neutral or using too much air for metallic modes). Hyper-Compression often gets classified as Curbing or reduced Overdrive by CVT teachers, but technically it's what they describe as "incorrect support" :D I don't believe it's actually incorrect/unhealthy as long as you treat it like Neutral mode (so, accept the volume limit and don't try to use the exact shapes of metallic modes, even though the sound result you're going for might remind you of metallic modes).

[@musicaccounting8530]

Hey! Recently i found out that whenever i try to do twangy distortion, it ends up constricting my pharynx sideways (like when you do khoomei) and makes my twangy distortion more robotic (and possibly a little hypercompressed) is this meant to happen? or do you think maybe im constricting my pharynx sideways due to inadequate support while distorting? edit: it is also highly possible that im getting the sensation of khoomei and "tighest twang ever" mixed up since technically sideways pharynx constriction is a form of twang

[@ToniLinke]

Yeah! Sounds like you're doing a combination of twangy and compressed strategies. As long as you're fine with the sound and sensation, that's cool, but if you want to get rid of the compression, you can try moving your torso while doing it so your abdominal muscles don't get stiff.

[@musicaccounting8530]

@@ToniLinke ohhh okay! ill try that thank you! also yeah! i like the sound for more grunge but i wanna get good at twangy distortion for pop too. Thank you for the doccument where you show examples of the different types!! it helped me understand what distortion i want for specific songs! :D

[@musicaccounting8530]

@@ToniLinke Update!! that tip helped alot thank you so much

[@theaquariansavage]

Dear Toni. I am currently having a big challenge in my vocal development: I switched from hyper compressed distortion to a more open throat based classical setting and am happy with ver my very clean notes are heading but logically now I have challenges adding certain types distortion to it (No surprises, most schools suggest that distortion is hard to combine with darker sound colors) and I am aware that certain types will likely not work anymore. What types can still work well with a raised palate and a lower larynx? Could you help me find out what distortion Howard Jones is using?

[@ToniLinke]

The best distortion for that sound colour would be hyper-compressed Distortion, but I'm aware you're searching for an alternative. Twangy Distortion gets gradually harder the more you darken it, and it won't work with a completely open throat as it relies on twang, so the only way to find out whether twangy Distortion can be an option for you would be to practice darkening it as much as comfortably possible over a certain amount of time and then evaluating whether you find it useful or not. Pushed Distortion works more intuitively with an open and dark setting, but I don't recommend it as it's less sustainable than the other options. If you're not looking specifically for Distortion but just some kind of grit in general, I could imagine that Rattle might be worth exploring as that one can work more easily within darker sound colours than twangy Distortion. With Howard Jones I hear a mixture of twangy Distortion and Creaking, which is quite tricky to achieve!

[@theaquariansavage]

@@ToniLinke Could you please take the time and take a look at this 15 second file of Howards studio stem and give your guess what type of distortion that is? I am looking for a vocal coach that can help me with this and will not cheap out paying for this help once I found the right one. drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QY6v7e9Fhe2tVHAbzmHhsTlDzEMD0Nh2?usp=sharing

[@iolairmuinnmalachybromham3103]

Hey Toni, just coming back to this video and wondering if there’s much literature on hypercompression, and if so, what researchers tend to call it? The closest sounding term I’ve seen is pressed phonation, but my understanding is that that refers to something like what you call pushing, and that hypercompression is a much more compressed phonation that puts less load on the true folds because the load is taken on more by the false folds. Is that right?

[@ToniLinke]

The literally tends to throw everything with a subglottal pressure and high adduction into the category of pressed phonation, so hyper-compressed stuff as well as stuff like my twangy distortion (which I wouldn't call to compressed). "Valsalva maneuver" is the closest thing I've found so far, but it's not often being used in the context of singing (mostly because vocal research doesn't really care about these niche techniques).

[@iolairmuinnmalachybromham3103]

@@ToniLinke That’s a shame. I’ve definitely observed the lack of specific research. There’s one paper out there somewhere which aimed to classify metal vocals for the purpose of musical analysis. They recruited one vocalist who used two kinds of techniques (I think it was a kind of death growl and a kind of ingressive fry), and let that define the genre. I am also curious- is it possible to move gradually from hypercompressed distortion to a twangy distortion? So far I can only reliably use the false fold distortion in hypercompression, and am still in the early stages of learning to control that, but in the long run I think twangy distortion is the sound I want.

[@ToniLinke]

@@iolairmuinnmalachybromham3103 It's possible on the lower range, and to some extent in the middle range (although it requires lots of precision). In the high range it's not possible, at least in my experience. Where exactly the limits are might depend, but the highest note I've managed to smoothly connect twangy distortion and hyper-compressed distortion on is F4.

[@iolairmuinnmalachybromham3103]

@@ToniLinke Ok. Well if it can be done in the lower range at least, that will allow me to learn how that approach to distortion should feel. Thank you for your time and help!

[@podrickfookinpayne2329]

Sorry if it's annoying, but any thoughts on corey taylor and david draiman?

[@ToniLinke]

With David Draiman I hear both twang and compression, not completely sure whether it's more twang- or compression-based. Probably when imitating his sound both work! Corey Taylor's shouting could either be pushed fry scream or pushed hyper-compressed scream. It would be interesting to know how loud exactly he is to be sure!

[@podrickfookinpayne2329]

@@ToniLinke Thanks a lot!

[@chrislestermusic]

I want to learn hyper compressed distortion.

[@Cesarrr]

did you? if yes can you share tips?

[@podrickfookinpayne2329]

Very impressive video! Must have taken a lot of time to get all of this together. Any ideas on M Shadows and Devin Townsend distortion?

[@ToniLinke]

With Devin Townsend, I often hear pitched fry screams (the next episode will go deeper into that), but I don't know all of his stuff, so probably he uses a couple of different techniques. M Shadows is a very interesting case because I think he never does "pure" techniques, it's always a combination of twangy distortion with some compression, and sometimes also pushing (although that seems to have become less in the last couple of years).

[@vosoryan]

@ToniLinke M shadows has also had 3 or 4 changes in his vocal style throughout his career. Early on he seemed to just be pushing everything, then he developed the twang/compression/push thing you're talking about, then he seemed to back off on the distortion altogether and leaned more into the twang around 2016

[@ToniLinke]

@@vosoryan makes sense! You know him better than I do

[@-xlntc91x-]

​@@vosoryanI've been trying to figure out Shadows for the longest time haha He's the reason I wanted to become a rock singer :D it's hard to tell what he's exactly doing since he has a lot of white noise in his distortion, especially in his prime from 2008-2012. When he uses less distortion it's definitely a twang based approach because he used to belt with high amounts of twang and it makes sense to build upon that clean foundation by twanging further and pushing or compressing (I think he does both additional strategies from time to time). He also did a fry distortion on single notes. Nowadays, it's harder to tell what he's doing. His clean singing has changed, he's using less vocal fold mass. In the radiohead (?) cover of street spirits he definitely uses a fry approach. In newer A7x songs like 'nobody' I'm not sure anymore. It sounds like he's weirdly inbetween twangy distortion and hyper-compressed distortion, though you can neither really hear twang nor the typical 'weight' that hyper compression provides. Maybe he even sounds different because of his past injuries.

[@vosoryan]

@-xlntc91x- He's certainly a strange case, especially these days. I'm no expert but his voice does sound damaged to me lately. He had some serious vocal issues in 2018, which was probably moreso brought on by overuse rather than bad technique. Although he is still able to hit some super powerful high notes in live shows so it could be a stylistic choice

[@WaterYaDune]

I've been super curious about what exactly this singer is doing for a while now kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4GtqqJ5r7eXaqMsi=0STLGqF2RdaVHWTp&t=165 (2:45 if the timestamp didn't work) and honestly, even after watching a lot of your videos, I'm still not sure so I thought I'd just ask. To me it sounds like he's using hyper compression, maybe with a mix of twang, but slowly ramping it up on the Eb before just letting loose at the end of the verse. Though I might be completely wrong lmao. Also thanks for all the resources you've put out, hopefully one day I can book some lessons in return.

[@ToniLinke]

@@WaterYaDune I'd say it's mainly twangy distortion based with a bit of compression as well as some occasional creaking!

[@WaterYaDune]

@@ToniLinke Ah, so I wrong lol, thanks for the clarification :D

[@ToniLinke]

@@WaterYaDune you did hear the twang and the compression! I just think it's slightly more on the other side of the spectrum

[@WaterYaDune]

@ToniLinke Yep, I think I leaned more towards compression because I heard a bit of subharmonics in there, but even after listening to a few other examples where he does something similar, it's still pretty hard to tell overall lol

[@WaterYaDune]

Also worth noting he's completely self taught in singing, so pinning down exactly what he does was always gonna be hard for an amateur, at least now I know where to start :)

[@SavvasVideos-bj5uf]

Because it seems you have the most dialled in definition of distortions, which i have not found anywhere else, including cvt, i wonder if you can tell what on earth m shadows is doing. his first melodic album sounds like a twangy fry, but later the distortion sounds the same but without much twanginess at all and he can do it in chest voice powerfully, which logically shouldnt be able to be creak/fry or false chord twangy type , but imo it sounds too smooth to be any of the compression/hyper types Lately he sounds even more different and i wonder if he went from fry to a false chord Honestly ive been trying to figure it out for years and still don’t understand how he maintains such a light smooth sound that is like fry but without a lot of twangy sound Ive only been able to somewhat replicate it via creaky twang sound, the false chord twang sounds a bit too twangy to be it but i haven’t been able to do the other non twangy types of distortion. Kind of seems like my body just doesn’t want to do it without hurting (tried for years) Thanks I’m advance! Your videos have been very enlightening after years of researching this stuff and crazy to think how simplistic the view of it still is, excluding your findings

[@ToniLinke]

M Shadows is a really tricky one because I do hear distortion and creaking too, but with varying amounts of compression and twang, as well as an underlying "huskiness" to the point where it sometimes even sounds like Air Splitting. This huskiness could be an amount of push in the distortion, but that wouldn't really be something that typically makes creaking easier. I think it's easier to look at individual songs and come up with a plan on how to approach the specific sound of a particular phrase, even if it means throughout the discography we need more than one or two techniques.

[@SavvasVideos-bj5uf]

@@ToniLinke yeah you're right there's varying amounts of compression, also interestingly just noticed in the live performances since the latest album he does a heavy false chord that breaks out into a pitched scream as it seems newish to him or just harder to make it subtle, definitely not what he does on the record. thanks for the insight, may have a lesson with you one day, just trying to get to a really good level with my clean stuff first and effects will be the cherry on top ;)

[@SavvasVideos-bj5uf]

@@ToniLinke as a side note i think that huskiness if its the one im thinking about, i get that effect when i do the axel rose sort of twangy distortion, as you say probably from the push, happened more on city of evil than now which makes sense as less experience=less control

[@distortionto1066]

how do you twang though my guy

[@ToniLinke]

- imitating a quacking duck - imitating a cackling witch - imitating a crying baby - making your tongue broad so it almost touches your molars - imagine mashing a pea between your back tongue and your soft palate

[@jessefildesmusic]

Hi Toni, thanks so much for the videos they are so helpful! Just wondering if you might be able to advise which technique is used here (from about 1:05), it would be much appreciated 🙏 kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJXMeHeVh7hrl80si=NBObgmlMbYn5xiVq

[@ToniLinke]

Twangy distortion with a tiny bit of creaking occasionally, super cool!

[@jessefildesmusic]

@@ToniLinke thanks for the info Toni!

[@Jacksonnnnnnnnnnnnn]

Tldr just be a constipated weightlifter

[@Stagger_Leo]

Thank you for your knowledge! You’ve been really helpful as I try to navigate false cord grit on my own. How do you think Paul McCartney is going about it in this performance? This is the kind of sound I’m after. I can do twangy distortion throughout my range ok, but it doesn’t quite sound right when I try to sing this. It lacks the fry like quality. I’d also like to take some lessons with you when I get some extra cash. Thank you! kzbin.info/www/bejne/rpCpmnyfobmqf6Msi=206kf43z53Aee9dS

[@ToniLinke]

This is a combination of distortion and creaking, using a bit of twang and compression in a heady mixed voice. Except for the sound colour, it should be quite similar to the coordination I'm going for in my "Jesus Christ Pose" cover. :)

[@Stagger_Leo]

@@ToniLinkeThank you so much for the reply. I think I’m on the right track. I understand the feeling of compression and false folds in chest voice, but I’m struggling a bit to figure out the coordination into mix. Awesome cover of “Jesus Christ Pose”!You sound amazing! Thanks again!