i'm a pretty good singer but i can't scream for sh*t...
so i'm trying to find a method to make vocals more aggressive sounding for industrial rock NIN style stuff.

I'd rather not use distortion as it doesn't seem to work that well on vocals to my taste. sounds too much like what it is; weak vocals through a guitar pedal vst.

the vocal modulation-esque distortion on aphex's come to daddy is quite nice, but it would need to work on relatively unagressive vocal input and i'm not sure it would.

any ideas? inspirations?

Well, I'm not an expert when it comes to vocal processing, but I have come across a few tricks that can give a vocal a darker, more aggressive kind of sound.

One way is a harmonizer or a vocoder (with a fairly gritty, distorted carrier synth, with some of the highs rolled off, also be sure to set the attack of the vocoder or harmonizer to something quick, and if it has the option to add noise to the signal, add a fair amount of it), using 4 or 5 note chords instead of one or two notes. This in conjuction with a small amount of distortion and/or clipping (tweak this to taste), layered with the dry vocal at a lower level and some moderate to heavy compression on the whole thing can yield something that still has some aggression and bite, while still being coherent, and without taking over the whole mix. Plus, it sounds really cool . Even cooler if you send it through a some reverb, a bit of delay and a little bit of chorus, to give add more depth, width and modulation. Another thing you can do, if the harmonizer or vocoder has this option (it usually does), is to mess with the formant of the harmonies/ vocoded signal. This can yield some really cool effects (think The Knife) if automated.

Good luck, hopefully this helps you a least a little bit.

Ask your neighbour a favour??

i agree with the advice of using a vocoder. i recently did a track with vocals that i slapped a vocoder over, and the vox turned out nice and gritty almost as if they were being yetlled - but were only spoken. it happened pretty much by accident, as i originally went in expecting to do a more Daft Punk-esque kind of vocoder sound instead... but i was pleasantly surprised at the dark results