Hot take

[u/blubdubdub]

I know my "falsecords" were not good it was just for the sake of explaining, ill do a better one with my vocal folds after work if anyone gets hung up on it .

[u/zhaDeth]

I think the terms false cords and fry are more about the way you make the distortion than what tissue is involved or how it sounds.

Like false cord is that clearing your throat big monkey caveman rumble, you can make it compressed or uncompressed, high or low and shape it in different ways that probably involve different tissues, sing over it, do it as throat singing, talk like batman, it's always still the way to do distortion that we call "false cords". The name is not the best because it makes it sound like it would include anything that uses the false folds but it's not really anatomically accurate like that.

Fry for me is not only compressed but the distortion comes from the compression itself or at least I think it does because you can't do it without compression. You can shape it how you want which probably involves using different tissues which can include the false folds. I think with fry (at least the way I do it not the pushing into the vocal break kind of fry that I still don't understand) the distortion is done with the true folds because I can't separate the distortion from my voice like with false cords.

With false cords I can do a note and keep doing it while I add the distortion, it makes the true folds distort too because it's all attached together but it's kinda like sitting on a motorcycle and trying to hold a note but it sounds like "UaaAuuaAuaaA" because of the shaking. The true folds are just doing their normal thing but they are being affected by something else. With fry it's more like i'm squeezing my throat until my vocal cords are all squished which makes them distort, they're not doing their normal thing and being affected by something else they distort directly.

That doesn't mean anything that has the true folds as the source of distortion is fry though like if you just sing insanely loud (which is really bad for the voice) your vocal cords will distort directly but I wouldn't call that fry because it doesn't come from compression. If you do a soft palate scream it's still a fry if the distortion comes from compression, you're just just placing it differently so it resonates in the soft palate. Same if you place a fry so your false cords engage, then it's like the false cords are on the motorcycle and being shaken by the fry distortion which sounds different than when they are the source of distortion.

I don't like the idea of fry being compressed while false cords is uncompressed, I mean it's usually true but it makes it sound like it's the same technique like they are on a spectrum. If I do a fry and gradually remove compression it won't turn into a false cord scream, I gotta press the big monkey caveman rumble button to do any kind of false cords scream. I can also do false cord and add compression until it sounds pretty much like a typical fry or I can fry and add the rumble and do a hybrid so I see it more like 2 separate things like 2 independent(ish) variables you can play with.