AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - "Auto-tune" a spoken voice?

(WBRW) wrote in message . com...
Is it possible to "auto-tune" a spoken human voice?

Not in my experience. Auto-tune looks for a definable pitch to
manipulate - if it doesn't detect a pitch it doesn't change a pitch.
Vocalists with a gravelly voice or a very breathy voice are sometimes
hard to tweak for that reason - the actual note produced by the singer
is somewhat masked by the breathy quality of the delivery.

There's a new radio commercial by Dick Clark, and while it definitely *is*him
talking, it just doesn't sound natural. At first, I thought some sort
of digital compression "artifacts" were going on, but I've never heard
any that sound like that... in the commercial, Dick's voice has some
strange inflection, pitch, and speed aberrations, and it's clearly not
from a wow-and-fluttery tape recording, either.

I suspect the "abuse" of a digital time compressor program rather than
a pitch-shifter. The technology is used to time-compress radio
broadcasts, both by the syndicators and by the stations. By using it
over a certain period of time the syndicator or the station can
usually slice enough seconds off of a program to add another
commercial.

Time-compression really irritates a lot of radio talk show hosts for
what it does to their delivery. A lot of their effect and
entertainment value comes from how they deliver their statements - the
timing and phrasing of key dialogue. When time-compression is used
the effect of the host's delivery is skewed. What is most irritating
to the host is that, in general, they have no control over the use on
time compression - it's often added by the subscribing radio station.
It's also a part of the television domain.

It almost sounds to me like they got a sub-par reading from Mr. Clark,
and rather than have him go through numerous takes to get everything
perfect, they just accepted whatever they could get from him, and then
subjected it to some significant manipulation to get it to sound more
polished and enthusiastic -- like deepening his pitch to emphasize
part of a sentence,

Could be EQ, multiband compressor, he was closer to the mic on that
take, used a different mic on that take...

and screwing around with the speed and inflection to stress certain key words.

He could have given them several readings & split. Then the engineer
had to chop together whatever the ad agency rep told him to do - even
if it was against the engineer's better judgement:

(1pm, editing suite after the recording)
Engineer: "But sir, that edit doesn't sound natural - it doesn't
sound like Dick Clark. If you use this other take the whole phrase
sounds better."

Ad Rep: "It's fine as it is. It really emphasizes the product.
Besides, I've got a 2 o'clock meeting to play this for the client.
When you you be finished?"

Engineer: "Well, it makes Dick Clark sound like Darth Vader at this
one point, and it messes up his phrasing."

Ad Rep; "Huh? The client paid for Dick Clark to sell his product.
And that's what they want. Can you put a copy of this on cassette for
me?"