distorting the vocal

[JGriffin]

>>> Nothing says "power-ballad" like gated snare.>>>

I suppose the question, then, is "Why would you WANT to say 'power-ballad'?"

Anyhow, I third the Mini-Marshall idea, but here's another suggestion: record the vocal track to a cassette deck--severely overloaded, of course--and then fly the crapped-up cassette vocal back into the song in sync with the original vocal track. You can do this easily on a DAW like ProTools by recording the cassette player's output back into the session, then sliding the track back in time to compensate for the delay. (We did this to a drum track once and it worked great). If you're working with analog tape, you'll have to fly the parts in manually, but we used to have to do that sort of thing all the time back in the late '80s/early '90s.

[vvv]

"I've thought about taking up smoking to distress my voice faster, but then I probably wouldn't make it to 70. "

Yeah man, I already smoke, but I've been known to clear a 1/2 pack (and a couple cocktails) before a lead vocal, just for that rough voice, "natchural-distorto" vibe.

[dan-the-man]

I've recorded distorted vocals before on one session and I plugged a cheap mic into a Boss distortion pedal (HM-2 heavy metal) and out of the pedal straight to the mixer. It worked pretty good, because the pedal has a 2 knob EQ (bass and high) and you also have the mixer's own EQ.