As someone who has been singing low his whole life, I‘d like to add some insight into a post someone made in r/singing stating „you probably aren‘t a bass“, regarding all of the posts by people thinking they were basses who were not. There are many reasons for the confusion that must be clarified.
1.) Timbre and resonance determine vocal type; not range
2.) In Opera, historically, pieces written for both baritones and basses were referred to as „baritone“ works
3.) In choral settings, many „bass“ singers are simply those who can hit a decent E2 (without a microphone) when needed…a bass or bass-baritone E2 will nearly shake the room
4.) Vocal fry and subharmonics are often used outside of Opera, Theater, and choral settings…they allow even tenors to go very, very low…but it isn‘t chest voice (if a bass, E2 and D2 will come easily to you and take almost no effort) and these notes have nothing to do with vocal classification
5.) Untrained male singers often tend to speak and sing in their low register, leading them to believe they are naturally low singers…many are not
6.) You cannot train to be a bass…the length of your vocal cords limits how low you can sing (in chest voice, at least)
7.) Someone a few days ago on here thought E2 was the start of the bass range…no, it is the absolute lowest loudly projected note needed for a bass singer in Opera; a basso profundo would go down to D2 or C2 a times, but generally anything below C2 is not heard on stage
8.) Til Lindemann of Rammstein and similar artists in the Goth and or Industrial Metal genres are often referred to as bass-baritones (baritones capable of singing powerful low notes)…they sometimes use the proximity effect and a bit of vocal fry to reach their ultra low 1st octave notes…they naturally have deep voices but they are able to extend their ranges using technique
9.) Baritone is the most common vocal type; you are most likely a baritone, as a male
10.) As any vocal type can learn to sing low, so can any vocal type learn to sing high. Being able to reach up into the fifth octave does not automatically make one a tenor…plenty of baritones and even some basses are capable of producing beautiful sounding high notes
11.) A popular trend today is for males to sing high and with a light timbre…this also complicates voice classifications