The Song Fight Bulletin Board

From the current fight reviews:

PiGPEN wrote: I didnt say "good", i said "female".....pitch UP.
And really any difference you make to that would make it "better".

On this subject, what do the experts here recommend for making a dude sound like a lady?

My experience with pitch shifting is that depending on the plugin and settings used, it either ends up sounding like I've inhaled helium or I'm singing falsetto. Neither sounds convincingly female.

I think the experts, though maybe I can't really speak for them, would recommend against doing it at all. It's just not going to sound good, no matter how you do it. Try to get one of the few female singers on here to collab with you instead.

jeff robertson wrote:
On this subject, what do the experts here recommend for making a dude sound like a lady?

My experience with pitch shifting is that depending on the plugin and settings used, it either ends up sounding like I've inhaled helium or I'm singing falsetto. Neither sounds convincingly female.

I use pitch-shifting a lot for backing vocals - usually in 3 or 4 layers with lots of chorus and reverb on top (eg. vocals at the end of Cute Boots). I don't know if I sound like a lady, but I feel like a lady and I enjoy the opportunity to celebrate my femininity.

jeff robertson wrote: My experience with pitch shifting is that depending on the plugin and settings used, it either ends up sounding like I've inhaled helium or I'm singing falsetto. Neither sounds convincingly female.

I wouldn't worry about sounding convincingly female since it's not likely to work (though check out Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend" for a pretty great attempt). I would encourage you to use your pitch shift plug ins anyway. You'll get the raised pitches and an interesting effect to boot.

Some of the most convincing females I have ever met have been guys with plug-ins.

People often think that my harmonies are "girl vox." So if you want someone who sounds like a girl...

Maybe you could try interacting with real-life girls, maybe even make some of them your "friends", and ask them to lay vocals down for you. Most girls will find this very flattering and will do it for free.

Then, you can impress them with your efficiency apartment/mom's house/dorm and fancy M-Audio interface, which will surely lead to coitus.

I'm married and all attempts to get wifey to participate in songs have failed.

Honestly I'm not sure I'd want her to know some of the lyrics I submit here, anyway.

Also, my "interface" is the Tascam portastudio I and bandmates (all blood relatives.. it was Alabama after all) pooled our money to buy used in 1990. Still with the guitar cables that I soldered into its motherboard so it could have an effects loop sticking out the hole in its back. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a woman who would be impressed by that.

Sober wrote:Maybe you could try interacting with real-life girls, maybe even make some of them your "friends", and ask them to lay vocals down for you. Most girls will find this very flattering and will do it for free.

Then, you can impress them with your efficiency apartment/mom's house/dorm and fancy M-Audio interface, which will surely lead to coitus.

Before you get all accusatory and what-not, I feel compelled to submit the the record...

I have more female than male friends, and most of them are too self-conscious to let me record them singing.

All of my female friends are only interested in penis in both girls' mouths, and then penis in both girls' vaginas threesomes. They don't have time for singing.

This has become a great thread.

Had someone informed me that an M-Audio interface, would surely lead to coitus, I wouldn't have bought my FireBox.

Best. Thread. Ever.

Jeff, right now I don't have a huge amount of time, (what with trying to set up the West Coast Tour) but I'm always up for collabs -- next time you want some female vox, give me a holler!

Regarding simulated female voices --
I once pitch-shifted my voice down for an animation thingy that I did -- and what I noticed was that I sounded male -- but really really gay. That is to say -- I sounded really really effeminate. More research is needed -- but it seems that perhaps women have more pitch variation than your average dude in their normal speaking voice. Men must default to a monotone delivery. That's my guess anyhoo.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah! Impersonating a female vocally is likely more about delivery. If you DO pitch-shift, do it with a light hand. Try to accomplish more of the transformation pre- pitch dial. Sing close to the top of your natural range, and try to channel your inner girly-girl. Experiment with different styles -- try singing from your nose instead of your chest. You have a very low voice naturally, so it'll take some experimentation.

Does anyone remember Lin-z? I always suspected that that was a boy successfully imitating a gal -- give that track a listen!

I wanted to chime in here since the original comment was about my song this week.

Some of the notes that I was singing are at the absolute top of my range without breaking into a falsetto. If that were pitch shifted up an octave it would be ridiculously high.

Sounding like a female is more than just pitch. It's got much more to do with the timbre of the voice.

Do your best impression of John Mayer seeing a puppy lick a kitten's face. I bet that would sound pretty girly.

anti-m wrote: but it seems that perhaps women have more pitch variation than your average dude in their normal speaking voice. Men must default to a monotone delivery. That's my guess anyhoo.

This is totally true! My favorite female impersonators were Kids in the Hall.. they always had their characters' voices down pat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NubcKsQTuNQ

Caravan Ray wrote:Some of the most convincing females I have ever met have been guys with plug-ins.

Comic genius.
Great thread.

Generic wrote:I have more female than male friends

...which is as clear an indicator as possible that one is not actually having sex.

Sober wrote:

Generic wrote:I have more female than male friends

...which is as clear an indicator as possible that one is not actually having sex.

Which really wasn't ever the question to begin with.

AS I remember it, some other fella was asking about studio tricks and then you laid into HIM with some assumption that he didn't have any association with "real-life girls" and as it turned out he was actually married to one. How about that?

Gosh Hoblit, when you put it like that, you could almost think he was being an arsehole.

Sober wrote:Maybe you could try interacting with real-life girls, maybe even make some of them your "friends", and ask them to lay vocals down for you. Most girls will find this very flattering and will do it for free.

For most girls this is true. Doesn't work all the time, though. And there's always the chance you'll pick a girl who sucks at singing.

Logic Studio comes with a Vocal Transformer plugin which allows you to modify the formant. I have used it on occasion under an alias which pretty much everyone knows. It takes a lot of experimenting to get good results (which is something I still haven't gotten... even my best efforts still sound rather cartoony, and there's a bunch of other obvious signs of manipulation), and I'll second what anti-m said about it being more about a delivery which leads to transformable results. When I do use the vocal transformer it's really not pushed very far.

One thing to try is sing in falsetto but bring your pitch down as far as you can without breaking the falsetto (which is a lot lower than the point where you switch to and from falsetto naturally). That might not sound very convincing but from there you can use a vocal transformation plugin to do the rest.

anti-m: I always figured Lin-Z was just a singing synthesizer (like Vocaloid or something). It had that ultra-synthetic sound to it.

Jesus. This is the most stuffy, uptight board. Maybe I've grown accustomed to the good-natured harshness found at Fark and 2+2, but this board is seriously killjoy lately.

Obscurity gets a nod for being on the same track, in his own way.