Official Vocals thread (READ OP FIRST)

[BabyKBK]

8 hours ago, noprinterjustfax said:

Hyolyn is still recovering from COVID tbh plus since the start of the year she didnt catch a single break. 

For example, the only time she sounded rested was during her YHY performance, and she sounded pretty good over there. 

For this round of Q2 you posted she was literally rehearsing for 3 stages at the same time plus she even had events inbetween... 

Singing in lots of events is very tough on the voice, considering the practice time outside of performances, lack of sleep through planning performances and getting up early for radio interviews and rehearsing etc. 

I wouldn't hold a few rough performances against vocalists, everyone sounds rough during their active time. The concern is when a vocalist never performs at their past level for months or years and has issues that appear out of nowhere. 

Especially vocalists that sing challenging pieces with their mic turned on like Hyorin.

Most singers sound better when they are not promoting and on hiatus for months

[BabyKBK]

IMO there's a case to say Jojo is maybe a soprano. I don't hear any significant gap intensity wise compared with Solji in the fourth octave. Her voice is quite a bit less heavy than Miley, Adele and Jiyoung. @ZRH23

 

[BabyKBK]

12 minutes ago, RATY said:

I disagree and apparently her approach shown to us right now is mostly light and heady, she probably shows more chest moments in 4th octave , but through C5 and up she'll downgrade correlation of chest voice and her issues are not just heady but her coordination is also very light and that's how she does it live.

C#5 In the encore it sound heady for me

She is making more efforts in the recording studio but in live performances she seems afraid to use more chest voice on 5th octave

I haven't heard anything truly chesty from NN on any note tbh, including below C5s. 

0:56 compare NN to Solji in usual mode right after, huge difference (every note)

 

[BabyKBK]

3 minutes ago, RATY said:

I think she tried to use her chest more in this performance.

 

Again, it's only relatively less light but I wouldn't call that strong, chesty belting at all. 2:18 you can compare to NN

 

NN is of course a much lighter voice but the approach makes a difference too. 

[BabyKBK]

2 hours ago, jeong jaehyuns boyfriend said:

but i agree with you that a heady mix isn't necessarily a bad thing. imo it comes down to a personal preference whether you like more chesty singing vs. a light & bright approach. personally i prefer the latter, and id rather her be light rather than trying to pull chest voice all the way up and straining a lot more than she would if she didnt lean into her head voice.

Being lighter isn't always bad but chesty singing also does not result in strain if you have great chest coordination up there.

Hwasa and Seunghee are examples of chest pulling without chest coordination. Whitney and Patti Labelle could bring even more chest voice into their belts and still achieve big resonance. Ofc this isn't relevant to NN but chestiness gets a bad reputation sometimes. It's only bad when incorrectly executed. 

[BabyKBK]

1 hour ago, Sarah Oon said:

Seosica level?? That seems quite low for someone who most likely has C5/C#5 and is relatively developed in all their registers.

NN has range but overall quality is important.

We already know about her issues above C5 but even below that, Minseo has shown way fuller mid-range:

1:31 fuller phrases than NN 

2:23 Again stronger 

2:50 NN can't produce this kind of sound either

 

SeoJess have both shown support up to C#5/D5 before as well.

 

For NN's lows, she might have F#3/G3 roughly but again her fullness is still noticeably below Solji.

0:42 NN on G#3

0:51 Solji on G#3

 

I wouldn't say the head voice is that developed either. It's not even Yuju level. 

 

 

 

 

 

[BabyKBK]

Is it fair to say that Solar has G#3 consistently? @ZRH23

 

[BabyKBK]

3 hours ago, Tsukimono said:

What's the consensus on Lily M's ranking now? I've seen some places that place her AA-P(Viet FB) and others that say AA. Shouldn't AA-P at least have resonance? I'm not sure if I've heard resonance from her

 

1 hour ago, RATY said:

As far as I know, there's no consensus on who she is right now and I don't think there's a need to rush to rank the new singers that are still lacks content but from what I hear she is probably in high AA - AA-P 

  Reveal hidden contents

The idea of Viet FB is weird, I don't want to attack anyone but as far as I have read the analysis on the page and they say Bb4-C5. Lily's is equal to the girl in this video vocal battle  https://www.facebook.com/290414534683314/posts/pfbid0PqFtmYLAgZTwyrjbrkjmTi6jqVK11ohftAYTQBd65gPd3Agno2nDk1LsdKhmrZXyl/

and of course that's not true, the Vietnamese woman has a very light coordination, Lily won her all  (and other pages are even more nonsense)

 

 

Resonance ? As far as I've listened to most of her singing clips I can't hear any resonance from her and  she still lacks openness and Haewon seems to be closer to resonance than her from the previous wedding singing clips.

 

 

 

She has never shown resonance but that's alright. Neither does Jamie, who's AA-P.  

The main problem with moving her beyond AA is her mid-range and overall sense of support throughout, it's not as established even compared to lower AAs in quite a number of clips (Sejeong).

Yeah Hwasa, Lee Hi, Wheein, JeA are not AA. 

 

Also she's barely shown enough clips to assess her lows, her hv too might have surprises. I'd say she's safely higher than Solar as of now. 

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by BabyKBK

[BabyKBK]

4 hours ago, RATY said:

light lyric Mezzo-soprano?  

Yeah I don't hear anything than a light soprano.

NN is an adult, not a child. At that age any healthy voice won't change that dramatically that she'll grow into a mezzo by 30. 

She has no traits of mezzos.

Edited July 12, 2022 by BabyKBK

[BabyKBK]

1 hour ago, RATY said:

kpop female singer (I wonder how many female singers in kpop do she know) 

The example used in some clips is messy & sloppy 

 

 

They tried at least but the majority of these vocalists aren't agile.

As a Solji fan even I admit she's not really agile, she stopped attempting runs once she became a sad music/ballad artist. 

 

[BabyKBK]

1 hour ago, BAZISSINO said:

tried ? It MEssy Af  but ofc you would say that he's your bestie in the same group chat and all .... wbk 

Wbk? 

Bold assumption..... I've never had any input in their analysis videos or rankings at all. 

Just because I don't call people out doesn't mean I agree with everyone. 

Edited July 15, 2022 by BabyKBK

[BabyKBK]

1 hour ago, ZRH23 said:

He'd still be at least a Proficient. His vocal weight in itself doesn't mean much (because in most cases, there's no discernible gap in difficulty for pop music at least) but Hwanhee coordinates wayyy heavier than the usual pop tenor. He does have a relatively lower larynx position and all that, and quite consistent with resonance up to G#4. He is basically the tenor version of MoonTaek now, except with less skill above G#4 but better lower range. But I wouldn't say he's beyond P-G, his mixed is very limited for a tenor. 

Aside from the clip RATY showed, the head voice thing is a bit of an inconclusive thing as far as vocal typing goes. Some can bring their head voice to the 3rd octave even. 

 

1 hour ago, fire_dagwon said:

 

His A4's in his busking performance of Amazing You starting at 3:43 and especially the one at 3:48 all sound very nice to me despite the major pushing.

If he's consistent up to G#4, then his rating would be at least AA right? Maybe AA to P? And what his voice type be? I know he can sound either very light or dark depending on the song, so for me it's really hard to judge. My best guess is he's a Full-Lyric Tenor?

While specifically labelling pop and kpop singers with sub-typing a isn't necessary at all,

Han Dong geun is heavier than a full lyric from that video. The "Full-lyric" label has been used as an umbrella term to generalise any voice that sounds bigger and mature in kpop and pop. A lot of these supposed Full-Lyrics would arguably be Spinto and Dramatics if classically trained. Meanwhile some "full-lyrics" like Celine Dion, Hyena Park, Lara Fabian and Sonnet Son are actually developed standard sopranos. Their voices carry very little weight and is actually light in timbre despite sounding matured.

I don't want to debate much but let's just say spinto and dramatic voice types have been under-identified. 

Edited September 19, 2022 by BabyKBK

[BabyKBK]

21 minutes ago, NoelVys said:

Hey y'all, I'm just bringing this here to ask and confirm, Taylor Swift sounds Average recently right? Her midrange I noticed before was dark, solid and settled, so W-A seemed fine. 

(shoutout to the climax note at 5:03, I think that's decent belting there up to Eb5, not "supported" but not super tense) 

But then the performance above has her phrase into and shortly sustain B4s, like throughout the whole (seriously they're nearly everywhere, in falsetto, mix or belt, especially the Wildest Dreams choruses) and they don't sound bad to me (C5s aren't so bad either). Pushed, arguably yeah so I'm wondering now if it's Average-worthy material or just still W-A. 

Either way, it's way better than the Weak tier image people used to or still have of her. (I'm tentatively giving her A3 - B4 but that could change due to someone's take and that the lows could be better) 

Here's some other reference clips 

 

1:11 B4s

Midrange showcase 

Wow that's nice. I like the phrased B4s. Nice seeing you around here!

[BabyKBK]

9 minutes ago, fire_dagwon said:

Super interesting take. I didn't think of it that way but it actually makes so much sense. A lot of supposed baritones who have been re-evaluated to be tenors may actually be a very low type of tenor like spinto and dramatic, since they're honestly too dark to be regular full-lyrics but not quite heavy enough to be true baritones.

It made no sense that every single vocalist was put as either Light Lyric soprano/tenor, Full lyric soprano/tenor or Lyric Mezzo/Baritone.

Of course people find the spinto/dramatic label very intimidating because of descriptions like "extremely powerful and cuts through an entire orchestra" but the thing is we're listening to contemporary singers who do not sing in a way that's efficient in revealing their vocal weight.

From discussions with several people here there's actually a number of heavier (non-lyric) sopranos in kpop: Seo Moontak, Kim Yeonji, Ock Joohyun, Solji, Lee Younghyun, Eunji, SPICA BoA, Ann One etc. (You can put them next to SSY and Celine Dion, they are very much heavier and darker)

Most claimed mezzos like Hani, Yuqi and Lee Hi are just standard sopranos that place their voice low. I don't even think they're heavier soprano personally.

 

 

[BabyKBK]

18 minutes ago, fire_dagwon said:

Yeah I think you hit the nail on the head. People are just afraid to use opera terms and voice types outside of a classical setting, but like you said, these are pop singers and quite frankly we may never know what their "true" vocal color and weight may be like. We have to make do with what we have and give our best educated guess even if we may be hesitant of the conclusion we come to.

I also agree that people like Moontal, Yeonji, and Solji probably are a very dark type of soprano, like borderline Falcon quality. 

And yeah STAYC J is another idol commonly mislabeled as a mezzo. Nah, she's just another soprano that forces a dark, chesty quality.

Agreed for J definetly.

It's actually sometimes easy to tell the weighty ones apart:

Example A Celine Dion 2:38

 

Joohyun 4:03

 

Example B Seongyeon 0:50 

 

Solji 2:51 

 

In both examples they're singing in similar range yet it's very obvious Joohyun and Solji are on another level of weight compared to Celine and Sonnet. It doesn't make sense that they were all "full lyrics" 

[BabyKBK]

40 minutes ago, rere9991 said:

I love the discussion about fake baritones/mezzos a lot of fans mislabel idols although I do admit I did do that before and i'm still learning (for example I really did think Jaehyun was a baritone till I noticed how bright his F4s-G#4s are lo even V used to be thought of as a baritone). I do have questions about what about other labeled baritones like Key, Kai, Lucas, Felix, Jisung are they also just lower tenors or are some baritones here? 

I don't know these vocalists much but Key, Kai and Felix all sound like the standard tenor. There are many light tenors who can sing up and down the second octave and there's a lot of sopranos too (Beyonce is an obvious example). Being able to do low notes does not mean you are a mezzo or a baritone. 

The best way to identify baritones is by listening to true baritones for example Scott Hoying and hearing where their voices increase in intensity/need to thin out. 

You can also filter out most untrue mezzos and baritones quickly by putting them against other sopranos or tenor

When you put Lee Hi against heavier sopranos she clearly does not handle A4-B4 more intense than the others.

She even sounds like the lightest voice there.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by BabyKBK

[BabyKBK]

7 minutes ago, ZRH23 said:

G#4/A4 seems a bit too high for their second passagi lol. E4/F4 might be more of a lower tenor’s passagi but I think F4/F#4/G4 is the general one for tenors. Baritones’ would be around C#4~Eb4ish, depending on the weight. 
 

I mean… the whole basis of their ‘criteria’ earlier on is based on the singer’s ability to sing past their 2nd passagio (i.e. an AA tenor would be able to support past F4~G4 range) so it seems a bit odd that it’s way up there at A4. Other users here who’s more into voice typing also refer to F4 ~ G4 as the passagi for tenors. 
 

That blog is rather old now and maybe there’s information here and there that might not be updated. Especially the general notice/summary thing, I don’t think that one had been revised for a while.

The second passagio as G#4/A4 is widely accepted as the passagio for mezzo soprano.

Contralto and tenor types overlap so yes it makes sense the second passagio for tenors would be around F4-G4.

[BabyKBK]

14 hours ago, WWW3 said:

Doesn't Lee Hi use a heady mix though? A4-B4 for mezzo is like B4-C#5 for soprano and I have heard Sopranos have ease in that range with heady mix ike Ningning.

Lee Hi doesn't have much chest development but you can still tell that she's a very clear soprano by seeing where the natural changes in her voice occur.

A mezzo second passagi is G#4/A4 and if you look at true mezzos like Big Mama's Jiyoung you'll audibly hear a very obvious increase in intensity and the adjustments in their approach they have to make to sing above that. 

With Lee Hi, her approach does not change at all on A4 and she floats through Bb4s and B4s. 

2:48 Her voice doesn't increase in intensity at all around A4 and she doesn't need to make any changes to her approach.

 

She sounds lighter than the likes of Moontak, Solji, Joohyun, Yeonji etc. so I don't even think she's a truly heavy soprano. 

I wouldn't use NingNing as a benchmark to compare any suspected mezzo, aside from her approach she's genuinely one of the lightest sopranos I've heard. 

 

 

 

[BabyKBK]

The newest Korean-Australian vocal queen:

She sounds either Proficient or Proficient to Good.

Her consistent supported range is estimated as G3/G#3-Eb5/E5-A5.

[BabyKBK]

9 minutes ago, Tsukimono said:

Is she producing resonance? Some of her B4's sound really good(resonant maybe?) but I'm imagining Nayul as the competition for Proficient... I'm not sure if I hear the same midrange resonance as Nayul in the B4-C#5 area but she still sounds good to me, yeah 

That being said I really like that Eb5 @1:16 

She's more of an all-rounder, her head voice and lows are much better so I'd place her above Nayul. 

[BabyKBK]

Highly recommend this Dami Im performance:

Edited September 23, 2022 by BabyKBK

[BabyKBK]

55 minutes ago, Tsukimono said:

Which sopranos have the best lows? I know U.ji, Joohyun, Lena Park(?) BoA(?) have good/decent lows but I was wondering who else does. 

Eunji and Anne One have very nice lows. BoA SPICA and Lee Hi are decent too (for average).

In terms of western sopranos, Beyonce, Celine Dion, Tori Kelly have good lows.

There's a lot of ppl but these are the ones off the top of my head.

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by BabyKBK

[BabyKBK]

3 hours ago, MelonCake30 said:

Question,

Are F3-A5 and E3-G5 vocal ranges for a mezzo soprano or does it depend on other factors?

Second, how does one tell the difference between a dramatic, lyric, or coloratura voice type? My understanding is it has something to do with the weight, but that could be my ignorance.

Hey there,

No range does not determine voice type. Even untrained, weak sopranos can sing below E3 and a lot of sopranos can sing well into the second octave.

Even singing Bb2s with decent tone doesn't mean you're a mezzo soprano. 

The difference between a soprano and mezzo soprano is most clear above A4. A mezzo voice starts to have to put noticeably more effort there because they are a lower voice and you'll hear a distinct "pull" and intensity in their voices that sopranos don't have on the same notes. 

JoJo is a light mezzo and Beyonce is a soprano. Belts start at 3:36, you can immediately hear that "pull" and they sound noticeably more intense/require more effort than Beyonce.

4:32 C#5 the difference is even more obvious as JoJo goes into the fifth octave (C#5 is already quite high for a mezzo whereas it's a mid-belt for sopranos). 

Terms like dramatic, lyric and coloratura are non-applicable to pop singers. Those are operatic terms. 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by BabyKBK

[BabyKBK]

6 hours ago, MelonCake30 said:

  I wanted to join my local choir and was asked what type of voice I had. I wanted to go mezzo (alto section) because I sound really "girly" the higher my voice goes. The director wants me in soprano because of how "light" my voice sounds. However, I feel more confident in my lower range because I don't feel it as much in my nose. I start getting nasally at A4 and prefer area where I don't tickle my nose (F4).


Also, isn't Beyonce a mezzo?

Singing in "alto" does not mean you're a mezzo soprano. Comfort range also doesn't just depend on your voice type, your technique and level of development etc. affects it as well.

For voices in training, a lack of development can easily make you sound like you're struggling even within a relatively simple range for that voice type. Singers just starting out especially feel more comfort in a lower range usually. 

Beyonce is definetly a soprano. Even next to a very light soprano like Sohyang, her Bb4s don't sound any noticeably different in intensity. She's not even the heaviest of sopranos.

1:32 (this video is inaccurate with labelling contralto, mezzo and soprano btw).