Im super discouraged about accessing my mix and mix belt

[ivory ridge]

How am I supposed to know when I’m in my mix or mix belt? Sometimes, I feel like I am but I can’t tell for sure.
And even when I feel like I am, I’m super nasally and child-like. Is there any way to sing mix belt without all the immature whine sound? I know that’s how you access it, but then how do you make it pretty?
It sounds strained, but it doesn’t feel unhealthy. Is there any way to fix this? I know probably not scrunching my face or body will help.
Advice welcomed!

[fallen oar]

Hey I'm also working on my mix, and I've achieved and yes it will sound stupid. The thing is, achieving mix is seperate from making mix sound chesty.

I recommend you using a spectrogram, theres a 30 day trial for VoiceVista Video if you're on pc

The thing is spectrograms don't lie, they tell you resonance and closure. You just have to know what you're looking for.

It might not sound like a mix, but knowing it's got the right closure and resonance will disprove your ears.

Try to have a clean transition from Chest to Head first, if you can do that then it'll mean you have good coordination for both your TA and CT muscles. It'll sound stupid but trust the spectrogram.

If you can do that just hang onto your head voice feeling, and experiment. Try to achieve a balance of H1, H2 and H3 while trying to get all the other harmonies upto H16.

This is what Mix belting would look like

H1 is the fundamental pitch, usually if it's dominating H2 and H3 it'll mean you're in head voice

if H2 is dominating it'll mean you have alot of closure, aka you're belting

if H3 is dominating it'll mean you have really good resonance or sometimes fuller or brighter sound

the other harmonies H4-H16 contributes a lot of brightness aswell

This is what head voice would look like

This is chest voice

This is mix

shitty mix that is, but this is what you want to try and find

and almost perfect balance of H1, H2 and H3 with the other harmonies coming up

Don't worry if it sounds bad, theres other techniques to get a more chesy sound

[fallen oar]

Also this was F4 or A4 not A2, sometimes you’ll fry and it will cause sub harmonics. It can actually make your sound fuller but I don’t recommend going into that rn

Also I totally tought u wanted to get mix, i dint realize u alr know it 😭

anyway dominant H2 is what u want if u want a nc mix belt

ur 2nd formant is what shapes H3 and if u remember H3 is brightness etcetc

[normal pawn]

you 100% right my guy in that chesty mix and just mix it's same thing but mix is not only chesty it can be heady very fluit like or balanced. Mix is a just a balance between the TA and CT muscles in your larynx. and when you access mix first it'll be heady or balanced at best. the difference between heady and belted mix/chesty mix/power mix or whatever people call it is actual physical corset engagement and compression in your vocal chords (belted mix is very dangerous technique that can lead into injury/polyps/nodules/strain so be careful)

[fallen oar]

It could be dangerous, but it shouldn't persuade you @ivory ridge from trying harder. Mix is generally more healthy since it's offloading the work to both muscles being mechanically less straining, and belting mostly amplifies resonance the cords are producing. So in theory it shouldn't be as dangerous, but what does get dangerous is when you really pull chest.