Voice is one of the trickiest things to master... I too sought help from Andrea early on, as well as every other resource I could find, and struggled immensely. It's taken well over a year to get from there, to a working and passing voice which my voice therapist called fantastic.
. Now I'm onto trying to master my female singing, a whole other ballgame.
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Anyway, for me, understanding what I was trying to achieve physically in the throat was key. The tutorials all try to cause the same kind of thing to happen physically, just in different ways. Also, it took some time to develop sensation of the muscles I needed to work with, and even longer for it all to be strong enough to use, and to be in muscle memory.
Before I try to describe, a bit of a disclaimer... the detail in this is probably wrong in some ways or other, and is just information out of my head. But the technique did work on me at least.
Also as a preface... pitch should be the last thing to focus on. That's because your throat ( in the correct position ) will likely only be able to produce sounds in the female range. Also, pitch is the easiest part to control, so should have least attention early on.
So in getting your throat in the right position, basically you need to tighten muscles at the bottom of your larynx , relax the ones at the top of your larynx, move and hold the whole larynx upward, and tighten up vocal chords. The muscles above and below the larynx control airflow through your vocal chords, and that plays major parts in resonance, which is key to getting the right sound and stamina. Sounds hard right? If you try to gargle ( without making sound or gargling anything ), then you're essentially putting most of your throat and larynx in the right position. If you feel around your throat while doing this, you should be able to notice tightening of the muscles at the bottom of the larynx. Also, feel that your larynx should rise from its resting position when you do this, similar to when you swallow. Being aware of those muscles and being able to control them is the absolute key fundamentals in mtf voice in my opinion. You can't sound female without being able to control those.
Spend time to control those muscles without gargling / swallowing. It will take some time but is so important. While your throat is in the right position, try to make a long 'ah' sound and feel all around your throat. Feel where muscles are, and feel where vibrations are. Pitch doesn't matter at this point, so try to avoid focusing on it. If you keep the sound going with your throat in the right position while letting it slide back in the relaxed (male) position, you should be able to notice a huge difference in what's happening, both in your chest ( resonance ), and your throat position and muscles. That should being about an awareness in exactly what muscles do what... Master being able to get in and out of the right position... This took me quite a while - as in months.
Once you've got the muscle control to move your larynx and control the lower muscles, the next steps are resonance ( controlled through the muscles above the larynx ). If you try to 'pinch' in your throat, you should notice that it's harder to make a sound, and feeling your throat should show changes in the vibrations. Female resonance is in the head and throat, while male resonance is in the chest. Loosening the muscles above the larynx should help encourage resonance in the throat and head. Once that is under control ( again, will take a long time to learn ), then pitch can be looked at. My baseline pitch is about 190hz which is plenty. Anywhere from 170hz to 220hz should be more than fine, but it's important that it's a pitch which is easy to maintain in an 'ee' sound. You don't want an unmaintainable pitch which strains your vocal chords.
With all of that learned, you'd be well on your way to perfecting your voice. Start with simple words ( days of week, numbers etc ) and move on from there. Just practise, and practise, and then even practise some more. Frequent practise sessions over longer practise session are also recommended.
Hugs, and all the best. And feel free to PM me if you've any questions about this information.
