Nailing the Traced In Air vocal sound

[GarethSE]

Ok, so I'd figure that since the vocal sound on this album is totally motherfucking mindblowingly awesome, I'd make a topic about trying to recreate it.

So I've tried re-creating this before and the way I did it was
Singing the album in a sort of medium range, not falsetto
Autotuned to fuck, t-pain style, duplicated twice, then the two duplicates were pitch shifted an octave up and down respectively and blended in, but however I blended it, it sounded like it was t-pain with some satan effect shit underneath and some hamster dance shit above it, just sounded totally wrong, not a cohesive sound at all.

So I figured as far as removing the t-pain shit, you could replace antares autotune with melodyne, which is what i plan on doing next time i attempt this
i find i can get much more natural sounding vocal sounds out of melodyne as far as note transitions go, which is the element i want to remove from the equation, that autotune-esque note hopping. Then I can remove the natural modulation of the voice for that synthy sound.

But what about the layering, any suggestions?



Also, as much as I know pretty much everyone on this forum adores the pants off traced in air, if youre gonna come in here and bitch about the MUSIC, you can go fuck yourself
lets keep this topic about achieving the VOCAL SOUND, purely for shits and giggles!

 

[A Midnight Requiem]

Autotune or Melodyne is definitely a good place to start. However, that alone won't get you the synthy sound, and neither will pitch shifting it. A vocoder is a must in recreating the Cynic vocal sound. I'm not too fancy with vocoders and such, but I'm sure some of the other members on this forum can help you with that.

AMAZING album by the way.

 

[chonchball]

There's a really bad ass vocoder part in the song "My Girl Is Calling Me A Liar" by Chromeo. That whole album rules hardcore.

 

[GarethSE]

aparrently traced in air is autotune, not vocoder
which is the part that leaves me stumped

 

[A Midnight Requiem]

aparrently traced in air is autotune, not vocoder
which is the part that leaves me stumped

Where did you hear this?

There's definitely autotune, you are right there. But I can also clearly hear a vocoder along side of it. That particular synthesized effect simply can't be done with just autotune alone.

The vocoder is a lot less obvious than the one on Focus, but it's definitely still there mixed in lower. I'm actually very glad they mixed in more of the dry signal of his voice, because even without the effects his voice sounds great.

 

[GarethSE]

my bud pasted this to me earlier
"It's a TC Helicon VoiceLive. http://www.tc-helicon.com/VoiceLive.asp It's not a vocoder. Paul uses pitch correction and doubles the vocal with a pitched version an octave up and an octave down."
he pasted that from somewhere, he's not smart enough to figure that shit out himself, not into audio engineering or anything
dunno the source

 

[AdamWathan]

Tymon posted that himself on this very forum. TC Helicon hardware unit used on album, pitch shifted an octave up and down and tuned within the hardware.

 

[GarethSE]

orly?
thats fucking cool
hella expensive though, damn
i presume he uses that live too then?

 

[Harry Hughes]

I'm gonna deviate from the topic for one post and say, Integral Birth is the best song from the album.

 

[DanLights]

Can´t contribute to the thread, but will agree with Petrovsk, IMO integral birth is the best. but what an AMAZING album that is from top to bottom, really timeless

 

[Jason Selden]

(Off topic)


My fav. on TIA is "King for those who know"


But.....the whole album is just beautiful!



J.

 

[006]

LOL sorry Dodo but even more off-topic-ish talk...

I have found that if I listen to the last couple of songs first (excluding the outro track) and then listen to 2/3/4 they have a much better impact than if I start with 2 and go in order. Can someone else try this and see if it's the same for them? I thought it was weird, but it works out that way every time.

All in all I really dig that album, even turned my friend that would probably never listen to that kind of music otherwise. I can never get over how great the drums sound, all natural like that. Tasty.

Anyway. YES. It's a TC unit tuning and pitching, NOT a vocoder. Vocoder is OLD Cynic. Period.

Dodo: I would suggest getting ahold of Jeff (DSS3) as he nailed the Cynic effect on that Ruins project at the end of one of the songs. He said just AutoTune and duplicate/pitch-shift and then panning/levels. For more in-depth answers hit him up via PM or AIM.

 

[GarethSE]

Sick shit man, I will shoot a pm his way.
got a link to the track btw?

 

[006]

Get AIM you chav!

 

[GarethSE]

fuck you mike! haha
real men use msn

 

[bpcrshooter15]

Could we possibly get an answer on here if the pm/AIM gives an answer? I'd love to know. That album was on repeat for me for a long time.

@ 006: I never really liked how the intro track went into "The Space For This." Idk about 6 and 7 before 2/3/4, but i think Adam's Murmur or Integral Birth would have been a better #2 coming off that intro track. Just my 2 cents though.

 

[006]

The very first and very last track on the CD I never listen to. Integral Birth is prob my fav, but Adam's Murmur is killer too, I love the beginning of it.