80's rock guitar tone.
Shitty sounding choruses.
Too much gain.
Cold, sterile acoustic guitar sounds on recordings.
Vocalists who are imitating Kurt Cobain or Layne Staley.

Children's voices.

Again, good, good.

Marshalls with the treble and presence cranked up.
Supersmoove processed leads with effects for "sweetening". Steve Vai, I'm looking at you.
Plugged-in acoustics. Sorry Ani.
Chorused high gain tones.
Recto Red/Modern through a Recto cab.
Inhaled screams.
Otto Tune.
Fake-ass sounding metal drums.
Audible clipping in mastered recordings. Only really apparent on a nice hifi. Then ouch.
Metal records where they bury the bass guitar.
Most flangers.
Overly bright, thin recorded pianos that sound like a Yamaha DX7 even when they're real.
My voice into a 58. (I love Beta 58s. Different animal.)
A bus full of screaming teenagers. They hurt my ears.
The goddamn blinds in my kitchen thwacking against the windows from the wind.

I enjoy that you just called out inhaled screams.
I am fairly proud of being able to do pig squeals with exhale vocal fry technique.


Shitty ass high DM vocals (If you're not Tomas from ATG chances are you should shut the fuck up)
Non-melodic, clinical guitar solos in music that is supposed to be melodic.
Non-abrasive guitar tone used in an aggressive context.

When I was bassing in a thrash cover band for a bit I actually did it onstage through the mic. We brought someone up from another band to join us on something-or-other and I said something along the lines of "aw, man, don't do inhales, that shit's weak".

I'd think it would actually be, well, easier to do the proper way? Maybe I'm old.

The non-abrasive guitar tone thing I absolutely agree with. It's my overall biggest bitch with modern metal in general, the uberslickness takes the, well, balls out of it. Totally neuters it. If I want that sort of hatred I want it delivered by either actual human beings or evil robots. Not nice robots.

Doing it the proper way takes a fucklot of training and diaphragm control.
Seriously, EVERYONE can do inhales.
Exhaled squeals are a skill that takes time and work to attain.

It's funny, Geoff and I are actually fairly unique in that we both are capable of both vocal fry (gurgle/squeal) and false vocal chord (growl) techniques.
Most people can only do one or the other.

Go figure. The thought of making those sorts of sounds whilst inhaling never even occurred to me until I read about it on the intarwebs a few years back.

Gnar shredding

I just learned how to do it on my own after listening to Waking The Cadaver in 9th grade.


Or I learned the shitty way to do it, atleast.
I only figured out how to do exhale squeals well about 6 months ago.

King Diamonds voice
Vaccum cleaners
Children
Dull guitar tones.

My singing voice.

You poor dear! *hugs*

Practice. I used to hate mine too. An old friend convinced me otherwise. We had a bit of a falling out; I miss her. But I'm a much more confident singer now.

Also, PRACTICE. Rock is not about technical perfection. Punk is the distilled essence of what rock is about :be you, fuck the rest. Fuck around until your respiratory system makes sounds you like that are notes instead of just AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! Doesn't matter whether it sounds nice or pleasant or even on key or whatever. Does it convey what you want it to? Mission doubly accomplished. Even if it doesn't, can you at least make it sound interesting doing so? Done.

What don't you like about your singing voice, anyhoo? I'm curious.

It's fairly pitch-y, it's very picky about what parts of my range I sing in.
I can get a sound that sounds like a man singing rather than a boy in certains of my range, but other than that it's just... GAY.
Also, the general timbre of my voice is just dull and boring unless I'm really singing out.

These are all fixable, Mr. Cam. I know this from experience.

Well, I suppose I shall continue to practice, my wise friend.


I thank thee for the encouragement.

It just takes work, is all. Ignore teh suck and have fun doing it. I was not always the versatile vocal chameleon I am now, I'll put it that way!

I do indeed have fun singing.
Which is really the only reason I do it at all, but I would like to be able to do vocals for my RAWKZ project.
It would keep creative control in my grubby, greedy hands.

That's why I took up guitar in the first place. I was writing guitar parts on keys. I wanted to be able to play my own songs.

I had no idea, to be honest.
When did you start playing guitar?