Ok, so I've been writing and recording for 30 years or so and my voice has always held me back.  I have ability and range, lots of passion and drama, but I have an ugly voice.  I would have no problem with a vocalist recording on my songs, or as collaborations, but I don't think anyone is interested in re-recording vocal work on about 12 albums worth of music accumulated over the years. "here you go, please re-sing these 130 songs and let me know when you're done, thanks."  
 
That ain't gonna work....
 
So...how about using some effects to color and remove the ugly from my vocal tracks?  Maybe something that becomes signature, for me and my style.  I've experimented a little with Amp Sims and phase effects, but they sound a bit too familiar and cliched and almost sounds like I'm trying to emulate Deftones (although I do think their vocalist uses a certain effect as signature to color his voice too)
 
I'm just not very inventive about FX.  My musical style does lend itself to creative effects but I'm just not real creative with them. Does anyone have any ideas on what might work for hiding the ugly tone in a person's voice?  
 
I included a song here as an example of what I sound like.  Maybe some heavy EQ'ing...?  
 
http://www.vodalavoid.com/music/boundandloved.mp3
 
 

Melodyne.
 
Don't mess with anything else. I listened to the first 10 seconds of your singing.  Your voice works well for the rock style.... you just need to fix the off pitch singing. 
 
What sounds ugly to you sounds pretty good to other folks.  We all tend to not like to hear our own voice. Me included. However, with Melodyne Editor (ME) or even the less advanced versions, you can fix the pitchy stuff that makes the vocal track sound amateurish.
 
Melodyne is amazing and will correct the vox without adding artifacts and without using FX of any sort.   Just a tad of compression and Reverb and some EQ is all you should ever use on a vocal. Unless you're going for a specific sound.... like the echo of the 50's style music.
 
Not only does it fix pitch, but also timing can be adjusted as well as vibrato and other aspects of the vocal can be tweaked.
 
And it's certainly cheaper than hiring a new singer on 5 songs.  There's a small learning curve but it's a quick learn. The more you learn, the more you can do to fix a vocal track. Always work manually even though it has an "autocorrect" mode. Avoid the temptation to let ME do the work. Once you're up to speed with ME, you can fix a simple vocal track in a song in under an hour.  

I agree with Guitarhacker, there is nothing wrong with the character or timbre of your voice, it just needs a little pitch correction. Have you ever thought about taking lessons to work on your pitch? Or just finding some pitch exercises online? Otherwise I would agree with the advice to apply some Melodyne to your vocals. I think your timing is fine, you don't want to get that too mechanical anyway. 
 
It's very common to hate the sound of your own voice. I've been told many times that I have a good singing voice - they always had me sing the lead in school musicals, and when I was in a Barbershop quartet they insisted I sang lead, yet whenever I hear a recording of my voice I just want to curl up and die because of how awful it sounds. It's a natural human reaction to feel weirded out when you hear your own voice from the listeners position, because you're so used to hearing it from inside your own head. 
 
When you said you had an ugly voice, I was expecting to hear something along the lines of Donald Fagan, something which sounds quirky at first but which grows on you (like whiskey). But really, there's nothing ugly about it at all. Correct those pitch inconsistencies and you'll be flying. Although I'm absolutely 100% sure that people have told you that there's nothing ugly about your voice before! I'm guessing that you just thought they were being nice....

Yeah, your voice sounds just fine to me (it could be a little louder in that particular mix).

I understand what you're saying though about trying to find an FX to enhance your singing. In my case I depend on Melodyne  (a lot!) and Izotope Nectar. Being the stolid Nordic type that I am, I wish there were a "passion and drama" plug-in.  


Bjorn

Hey thanks ya'll.  Sounds like I need to make friends with Melodyne Editor.  I will take your advice.
 
Maybe fixing my pitch issues is the key here.  It's funny, I can always here pitch problems with others, but I don't hear my own, apparently.  
 
I'll try this and if this doesn't work and I still sound repulsive, I will likely be back bellyaching about it looking for an FX solution.
 
Seriously, thanks for taking the time.  
 
 
 

I wouldn't make an ugly face if somebody handed me that vocal and said "make it sound better". There's plenty to work with there. In fact, my primary mission would be to do as little as possible to it.
 
Pitch-correction wouldn't be my first stop. There are only a couple notes that could use a little help up, but for the most part Melodyne would probably do more damage than good unless used very conservatively. It's an aggressive style that neither wants nor needs to be perfectly on pitch. Making it so would only weaken the performance, IMO.
 
Given that overdubbing, double-tracking and re-tracking aren't options, I'd fall back to some basic techniques. A harmonic exciter / parallel distortion plugin could roughen it up a little. A subtle chorus or flanger could add texture, especially if preceded by some kind of harmonic distortion effect. I'd lay on some heavy delay on the "ooh yeah yeah"s, just because that's what Robert Plant would do.
 
If you're looking for specific product suggestions, here are a few things I'd want to have on hand for this type of vocal, if I wanted to take it into outer space:
ValhallaDSP UberMod
ValhallaDSP ValhallaRoom
FabFilter Timeless 2
D16 Redopter (or the newly-released Devastor 2)
Audio Damage RoughRider
 
But I wouldn't put any of them on from start to finish, but rather automate them to come in for emphasis.
 
 

I dug the tune and agree that you don't need much tweaking on that cut....it fits the bill in my rocking preferences.  

There is nothing wrong with your voice! You may wish you had a different style of voice, but IMO you should embrace what you do have.
 
If you were tracking at my place - I'd work with you on phrasing and pitch. I wouldn't jump on melodyne so quickly to fix the pitch issues unless it was the last resort... I'd try and capture better pitch to begin with (the way they used to record ).

Bitflipper - I think highly of your opinion, so I'm going to try some of your suggestions.  I've never done any of that level of FX and engineering - I generally try to capture good performances and put minimal FX on things.  So it will be an interesting trip here to dive in to this. 
 
BASSJOKER - much appreciated.  To be honest, I don't mind my raspy scream-o vocal stuff, and it's right in my sweet spot - but I really don't like my smooth vocal one bit.  I have to close-mic and add heavy compression to find a smooth vocal tone I can stand.  And that wouldn't work on this song at all, nor most of my other material. 
 
Codamedia - I hear you my friend, but the funny thing is I've never really embraced the idea of being a vocalist one bit.  I never wanted to do it.  I'm a musician, not a singer.  I like recording instruments and writing the melodies and putting that all together - but the vocal stuff is a bottle neck for production for me.  I've got probably 20 songs just waiting for me to do vocals.  Everything else is done.  Some of these songs have been done for years.  I wish I could just be an instrumentalist, but vocals just dominate songwriting in my mind and thoughts. 
 
I would absolutely prefer a clean performance with good pitch and transitional notes, something more honest.  But it doesn't hurt my feelings to cheat on vocals since I don't consider myself a vocalist in the first place - see how I just rationalized that?  Ha ha. 

Ok, so Melodyne is out of my budget and is a non-starter for me at this time.  Maybe in a couple of months...  Really would like to know how it would improve my pitchy problems, but I'm just going to have to wait.
 
ValhallaDSP Uber Mod - wow, way cool and I could really get into this.  At 50 bucks, this seems like a great deal and I can afford it now.  Come on payday....
 
Fabfilter Timeless 2 - another wow, and I could really enjoy this one too.  A bit more at 129 bucks, but hey, it sounds worth it.  I'll wait until I'm acclimated to Valhalla first before I dive into this.  
 
The others were neat too, but those two really stood out to me.  Of course, I'm beholden to the demos I could find online.  
 
These effects are really over my head.  It's going to take a bit of time to *understand* what I'm doing and what's going on.  But all of it sounds very promising.  
 
Thanks ya'll!