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This singer's videos were doing the rounds recently and have got some mainstream media coverage (1, 2) and I'm intrigued to know how the effect is achieved. It sounds a little like the voice 'breaking' effect used in yodeling, Irish music and country singing, but I've never heard that controlled to such small intervals.

How is this achieved and is it something that would be possible for most singers to learn?

user45266
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Нет войне
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    Eat your heart out Cher! It does sound just like autotune. Are you sure it's not? – Tim Jan 14 '17 at 10:13
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    @Tim I'm not at all sure - but if it's a hoax I don't believe it has been rumbled yet! – Нет войне Jan 14 '17 at 10:16
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    Life imitating art - sort of. I loathe auto-tune when used like that anyway, now someone's actually learned how to sound like that without AT... what is the world coming to? ;) – Tetsujin Jan 14 '17 at 11:49
  • If this is recorded on a smart phone, it could be that an AT application is running during the recording. But if there is no AT, I would like to figure that effect (and the voice exercise) out, because it could come in handy for some folksy blues effects. – blusician Jan 14 '17 at 12:18
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    @blusician an autotune on smartphone-recorded audio track would mangle the piano accompaniment (assuming this is actually an acoustic piano and not just a separate digital piano track mixed afterwards). — I rather believe the girl is actually doing this with her voice. Can't say I much like this particular recording, but I find it much more respectable than if somebody actually just lazy turns on autotune. – leftaroundabout Jan 14 '17 at 12:59
  • Seems kinda silly, using autotune to tune to equal temperament. – Scott Wallace Jan 14 '17 at 15:00
  • @leftaroundabout - I wonder if it would mangle the piano part. After all, the piano's in perfect tune, so the auto-tune should ignore it. – Tim Jan 14 '17 at 15:36
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    If I were going to fake it, I'd record the vocals (very dry), process them, play back the vocals while playing the piano and lip-synching -- that way the records sounds like everything is in the same room. But it seems that it is not a fake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fojqf0TXpW8 – Dave Jan 14 '17 at 15:59
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    @Tim it doesn't matter whether the piano is in tune – autotune† is monophonic, so if it tracks&quantises the voice then any piano on the same track will at each point in time be pitch-shifted by the same amount as whatever is required to move the _voice_ to an exact 12-edo pitch. As a result, the piano would then _not_ be in tune after all. (Besides, piano is never perfect in tune anyway, but that's a different story...) – leftaroundabout Jan 15 '17 at 00:24
  • †At least the classic Autotune, that is. I don't know if newer incarnations can accomplish some polyphonic tracking&shifting, too – Melodyne can now do that, though it scarcely works perfect. – leftaroundabout Jan 15 '17 at 00:27
  • @leftaroundabout good point, but also thought what you added - autotune probably would not affect the piano part. Hmmm... my experience with autotune, which I use quite conservatively in recording with VL 3 Extreme, is that I set an input for target key, such as a guitar thru or ambient sound, then it just corrects my voice. I think she is doing the same here but setting the autotune mix very high so it sounds robotic/machine. If she actually is hitting that pre-yodal on her own, then awesome! I want to learn that level of voice control. – blusician Jan 15 '17 at 06:10

1 Answers1

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I don't think it's auto tune, because as @leftroundabout says, the piano would bend out of tune too.

One comment on Youtube mentioned Sideways Yodelling, which is basically like what happens when (if you're male) you're going through puberty and your voice breaks.

It can be used to make some very cool sounds. Here's a tutorial on how it's done (from 2008, which is well after autotune was being used to fix out-of-tune singing, but before the trend of over-using auto-tune as a vocal effect):

naught101
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