As someone who struggled with this for years, I can give you some advice that helped me immensely. The thought that "I don't like how my voice sounds" comes from personal reservations about how people might accept your voice, at least in my case. This is one of those destructive thoughts, your voice isn't the issue though. You have to understand that your voice is an instrument and often we have to practice our instruments to attain mastery. Consider the beats you are using, the genre, the mixdown, and the tempo of the instrumental. First, I would suggest looking into different tempos, then different production, this will allow you to understand where your voice sits properly in the mix. Next, I would have a hard look at my lyrical content. Some of the best tracks have little by way of production but excel greatly by the vocalist simply performing at a high degree of skill. Some words just sound better than others. Don't ever sacrifice your lyrical quality consciously to make it more appealing, but do some research on why the best lyricists are who they are. Often what we are missing to complete the puzzle is a piece that we were sitting on by accident all along. Look into the basics of mixing and mastering, song arrangement, and classic production techniques. If you are mixing and mastering yourself, you might be missing the skills needed to make your voice sound appealing. Alternatively, you can invoke the help of other artists with the skill set and have them try their hand at mixing your voice down. A different perspective is vastly underrated I'm afraid but greatly appreciated at the end of the day. Another method that I saw practiced by large rap collectives and even smaller groups is to have a partner, team, friend, or familiar artist hold you accountable for the quality of your work. Andre 3000 and Big Boi had the benefit of this when their group was coming up, citing the number of drills and exercises they had to complete to garner positive feedback from their older group mates. Sometimes competition can breed positive results and who better to keep you accountable for quality than another up-and-coming artist? Find someone who can give you an honest opinion and don't take it personally, the music is generally for the masses and it helps the songwriting process overall.

@Devin Perez Of course man, if you ever need help just reach out, I'm always willing to provide information I gathered.

I'll never be worried about AI, to be honest, not at the level it's operating at and not in the near future. From a developer's perspective, this technology may be powerful, but in the end, it needs a source to start the " creating " process. It is simply re-creating what is fed to it algorithmically, or stolen, using millions of filters and conditional statements. The major downside to AI is that it cannot create what has not been created yet, only emulate what currently exists, and that is why we as artists will always be better. AI might be able to play Coltrane, but it can never play like Coltrane.

@Friday Jones The problem is that we as humans have not yet even come close to quantifying the amount of information we can use mentally as stimuli for a greater purpose. As human beings, there are countless actions, activities, people, events, and interests that collectively are attributed to what we consider "human nature", what makes us human. This process is what makes everyone who they are, whether you believe in nature or nurture, god, Yahweh, or Buddha; none of these are considered when an AI is created. There are even irrational items that contribute to human behavior. Autism is still unknown in regards to how it is developed in the human brain and is a great example of how much more we can achieve with our brains. AI will only be able to create, think, and do what is possible at that moment, but we as humans can create and idealize something that, more often than not, did not or should not exist. When you think AI, you should think of words like Directives, protocols, and objectives, these will help understand the fundamental difference and logical assertation. Until we have replicated or understood the human brain's functionality 100%, we cannot create a being, sentient or otherwise, that can mimic what we consider free will. It might be a very high-level analytical process, but AI will never have the human experience, therefore, it can only mimic the behavior but always fall short of authenticity due to its logical and calculated nature. That is why playing "as well as" Coltrane is not worrying for me. Let me ask this; if someone put your voice in an AI generator and told it to mimic your speech pattern to your mother without fail, could it be done? In most cases no, simply because a close family member will always have an intuition, a gut feeling, something telling that even while there is a logical assessment that makes sense, doesn't seem right. AI doesn't have a soul, and won't until we can quantify and capture what we consider a soul. Don't let it worry you too much though.😀

@Marco D'Amico That is an admirable way of thinking, you can never go wrong when you love what you do.

@Lex Bratcher No I completely agree with you, I think that there is a level of acceptance we all strive to reach and having a hit record is definitely a way to get that. Van Gogh once said "Art is to console those who are broken by life," and I personally believe we are all broken in some way. Great insight!

@Jean Paul I'm going to be releasing the development logs on YT for others to document and get involved with the process later this month after I finish negotiating the networking costs for multiplayer with Unity, that's one of the reasons I'm taking some time to get other things in order. The story line is pretty much done, I have to hear back from an editor who is reviewing the document. The website should be up and running within the next few months for the public, but I'm always near my computer, I can give you the broad spectrum details of what it's going to look like, features and functionality any time. Maybe through DM's? I'm not sure if this site has DM's but either that, or I can pull together some stuff to put online for you to see the progress or just go over the story.

@Jean Paul I'm definitely going to take you up on that, appreciate it!

Personally I have been at odds with myself over this subject. If you use the textbook definition, I have focused practice ~5 hours a day, even while at work because I work from home. But some of what I consider practice isn't conventionally considered practice. I listen to new music everyday to train my ear. I practice piano for about ~30 min - 1hr a day. I am consistently mixing my songs throughout the day with these other activities in between because of ear fatigue. I research hardware and plugins as well as techniques producers use to build a better producer foundation. I write lyrics when I wake up and before I rest for the night most days and in the middle of the day I'm writing for a publication I'm making. I'm creating graphics and editing videos for social media. To me, even relaxing in the sun is practicing resting your mind from the stress of this dream. If you are doing any of these things or more, in my opinion, you are practicing something. My 4 yr old helps sometimes but it looks like we both make it work somehow.