Could I Get That Song in Elvis, Please?
17/12/11 16:30
I've found an interesting article in an old issue of The New York Times. It tells about a new software where you can create your own artificial singer. Just write the lyrics, determine the tone and length of each syllable, and the machine sings your very own tune.
Vocaloid is the name of the program and is based on a lot of small samples sung by (unknown) singers and collected in a library of all possible syllables. Then a kind of algorithm (an expressions that I hardly know what it means ...) assembles them into comprehensible vocals.
Vocaloid software used in japaneese version of “Poker Face”.
If you search on Youtube you will find many musical examples of Vocaloid, and it sounds ... awful! It probably need some development before the artificial voice can replace a real after all. The NYT author philosophizes about what would happen if even famous singers did have their voices recorded and treated this way. Who would have the copyright to the song? Would the ability be abused?
Abuse or not, I have autotuned Elvis' voice a couple of years ago so that he was singing my song "Now or Never II". There is probably no one who believes that there is an original recording of Elvis, but I can tell it’s more authentic than any Elvis impersonator ever.
I am just about to take the concept one step further and make a music video for the song. As I wrote in an earlier post, it is based on two-dimensional images of Elvis that has turned in to three-dimensional using the software SketchUp. Hoped to present a finished video before New Year, but as I do the work in spare times, not much has happened lately. I'll see what 2012 has to offer, hopefully I have time to finish during next year.
It would be cool if a Hollywood producer one day decides to make a whole new Elvis movie with the a computer generated movie star. “Blue Hawaii Pt. II” would be a great title! ;)