Really good Adam, I enjoyed it and you captured the desperate/crazy feel very well. Nice use of registration too, Bellamy does it wonderfully and its not easy to approach anything from Muse due to that :).

GJ and keep it up!

Adam Mishan said
I'm wondering if there is anyone else posting here. I've noticed a bunch of threads going unanswered. I appreciate your feedback because I wasn't sure if anyone would answer.

This forum has definitely been pretty slow. I always prefer when I can get several good critiques and compare them, we had that community going nicely here for a while and then idk what happened haha. It's more like people jumping in once in a blue moon now.

I'm wondering if there is anyone else posting here. I've noticed a bunch of threads going unanswered. I appreciate your feedback because I wasn't sure if anyone would answer.

First of all, the second mix is definitely a huge improvement to my ears. Now that I hear it, I think that was probably the biggest reason it wasn't measuring up to the original at first. I can way hear more of the subtleties in your interpretation now and they're placed in that "in your face" spot the original has. I really like it now!

Essentially yes I was saying to mimic more, but now I that I see your goal with this, that advice alone wouldn't line up. However I would still recommend you not WORRY about sounding too much like Matt. Because even if you're doing your own thing with the song, you don't want to ignore his artistic intention, I think it's actually best to understand it very deeply and be able to practically copy the original first, before deciding to put your own artistic stamp on. It will ensure that you don't leave out the best parts of the original interpretation, and show you how in depth you'd have to go regarding any changes you decide to make to work in your own artistry, if you want them to measure up to the same depth and dimension of the original interpretation.

What I felt about your version is that rather than really put your own artistic stamp on and making it better, it sounds more like you just left out some of the great subtleties of the original, and that's really all that changed. So definitely think about that. The new mix still made a big improvement in that regard though.

I'm curious to hear other opinions if anyone wants to jump in. I may be way off in what I'm saying.

My objective here was to put my own artistic stamp on the song. I was worried it would come out sounding too much like Matt but I guess, based on your post, that's not the case. I am glad you wrote that up because I am happy it came across as my own spin on the song!

I would love to delve into more of Matt's earlier stuff to apply to other songs I work on and just expand my vocal tool chest but I would not want to use that to try and sound more like him here.

This is especially true when this cover is a follow-up on my instructional video of how to sing this song and in there I stress that I want people to avoid trying to copy the other singer's sound.

However, I did fine-tune the mixing aspect of the song with your tips in mind. What do you think? https://app.box.com/s/v7ddj2qjto769onn1g2rxvv57f11ehoh

I think, by itself, you did an excellent job. If this were your own original song it would be perfect as is. The thing is, it's so hard not to compare to Matt Bellamy hahaha! Everyone has their own right to take the "I'm just gonna sing it like me" approach and many people will love that, but you would just have to accept that some people will already have their mind set on hearing a Matt Bellamy sound-alike and may be let down by the approach you took here.

I'm not the hugest Muse fan but I'm quite familiar with them, especially their older stuff, and as I listen to your cover it's like I'm eagerly waiting to hear more of that signature Matt Bellamy character in your interpretation and I feel like you could have honored that expectation more. Besides just closer study of the original song, what also might help you is listening to some of Muse's older material where Matt really leans in more weight and adds more vibrato, because that's more of a foundational component of his style. In this song, he's let go of a lot of that to this breathy thing and if you studied just this song only you may miss out his background - but if you study older Muse stuff too you'll start hearing how essential that fuller approach is to his tone and how he brings it back in veeeery subtle amounts in this song, and then more so later in the song. There's a feeling like he's totally ready to go for that big operatic sound any second, and he's holding back slightly to tease the audience - and that's really the magic of it. The one thing he does do that makes him really sound like himself here is something about his pronunciation - it sounds kind of "masky" to me, not sure how else to describe it but that's something to tune your ear into. And how as he goes louder he lets go of that and goes for more of a deeper sound. Also studying Matt's influences would help you get a more complete perspective of his style. I know Thom Yorke from Radiohead is very strong influence on his vocal sound, not sure about others. I think I can hear some Bono and Freddie Mercury influence but you're probably already familiar enough with them.

The other thing I notice is that Matt's vocals are compressed very heavily in the recording which is part of his signature sound. I would recommend playing around with the compression on this and see if you can imitate the quality of compression on the original…it would be a good mixing experiment and probably teach you some cool things. If it sounds too weird for your voice you can always back it off, but try it out and maybe go halfway with it.

If you are really interested I think giving this another try where you take some more time to study the interpretation more deeply would benefit you a lot and lead to a better response to the cover. I know you can do it and I know it will sound awesome, it's just a matter of if you're interested in taking your voice in that direction.

Great job so far though. I'm only bringing all this up because like, if someone's like "oo a Muse cover, they're my favorite band" i THINK their mind is already going to be tuned into this attitude of "let's see if this guy sounds as good as Matt Bellamy" He's a hard act to follow. It's just something to be aware of.

I also feel like the way you sang the song here may go over great LIVE - you could stay more true to your own vocal sound just like you did here and I think it would sound awesome in that situation. But for a recorded cover where everything's under the microscope I think it's more appropriate to honor the original singer a little more.

Take this all with a grain of salt, it's all just my personal opinion as a critical listener. I know that when you're the singer actually putting in the work, even just getting to a "good" level can feel like a huge accomplishment and you definitely did that with this cover, you should be proud of yourself!