MusicPlayerNetwork.com Forums MPN Archives The Studio Business Forum A Black Box Nightmare

This is sort of a sideline thing to Ed's subject of "The Future".

I have this dream/nightmare that I have to share with you. I swear it's true. Any of you also had it?

There is this black box that I just KNOW has already been invented in some garage somewhere that has no glitches, works flawlessly, goes way beyond the auto-tune technology and does the following...

You plug an inexpensive little Radio Shack mic into one jack of the box and deliberately sing in the most off-key, raspy, unintelligible way possible. What comes out of the audio out jacks is your mouth formations, now in perfect pitch and intonation..sounding exactly like any type of voice..even a celebrity! Just hit the "crooner" button on the box and you sound like a perfectly tuned, intonated Frank Sinatra. And I mean EXACTLY like Sinatra. You can not tell the difference. Or, let's say you're a ten year old kid and you hit the "Jazz" button ... your voice now comes out sounding exactly like Louis Armstrong. Or if you push the "British 60's Invasion" button, you sound just like ...agggh...Jagger! Or you might be a member of a heavy metal band. You write a tender ballad that's not conducive to your basher singing voice. What do you do. You go into the studio, hit the "Barbra Streisand" button and record the ballad in a perfect female vocal voice. And I mean exactly! And the tweaking buttons on the unit include things like, alter celebrity voice to something not quite so noticeable", "U-87 at Abbey Road #1", "U-87 in a barn", etc so that you get completely accurate control of how the voice is produced. And of course the unit has SMPTE or wordclock sync and the ability to quantize your phrasing to capture any kind feel in the most perfect way without sounding quantized.

And in this dream, the box is released and available at places like Target and Sears. And of course, because of the perfect "sound-alike" nature of the box, the lawyers for people like Jagger and Sinatra come out in force. But since the box is now being made out of the country and is multiplying in astronomical numbers, the lawyers finally give up and begin to license the use of the sound of celebrity voices for a reasonable royalty fee. And then the price of the box drops to $29.95 and everybody has one, especially anyone who can't carry a tune.

There you go ...I see THAT in the future. Pretty scary huh?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BOOKUMDANO:
[B]This is sort of a sideline thing to Ed's subject of "The Future".

Hey, It's been here for a long time. They call them impressionist's. When I was young, a women named Marilyn Michales would appear on the tonite show. A truly amazing vocal impressionist. You would close your eyes and there was no discernible difference between her and Streisand. Very challenging concept for me at ten years of age. Later in life I used that and other similar experiences to realize why Marilyn Michaels could never sell records. No truth. Art is about truth. It is ALL the 'layman/woman' hears and sees.TRUTH. How else could you explain the success of such varied Artists' as Dylan, Iglesias, Aznavour.....Jagger, for that matter. Not what you would call great 'singers' in the classic sense of the term. I was watching the John Lennon documentary with he and Phil Spector. Watching John sing was a riveting experience. So many nuances. SO MANY. Way in tune one moment...very if'y the next. All coming out in the end as truth and style. Nothing ever, ever, EVER invented will replace that. Not if you actually love music. The longer we go without hearing the 'rub' of many violins being played at the same time (absolutely a physical immposibilty to play exactly in tune together), or the wildly variable immperfections of most stringed instruments, then we will continue to seek this modelling approach. Soon enough I don't think you will actually need the black box. Humans will evolve into being able to replicate what you speak of. To a degree they already have. Any drummer, say twenty five or younger, has ONLY heard programmed/sequenced/pro-tooled....whatever, drum tracks. Unless, of course, he has the inclination to seek out what went on before. Hence, they're concept of dynamic range is almost non existent. I actually believe a lot of these 'Mickey Mouse Club'singers, if you will, sing more in tune because they have grown up with such perfect recordings. We didn't notice or care that Steve Marriott of 'Humble Pie' was singing SO sharp! His vibe and truth were so all incompassing. Truth. That what art is all about.

Benjy

BOOKUMDANO:

How about putting "Band in a Box" together with a mic modeler and pitch correction unit.

Teh you're already halfway there, only at (currently) 10 times the $30.00.





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Bob.

I did once read about a plug-in that could impart vocal "stylings" onto a track. I don't know what it was doing or how it did it, but if you wanted a Sinatra vibe to your track or a Streisand vibe, it could add it.

Now all I have to do is remember where I read that.

Rich...