From tmartinez@cam.ac.uk Mon Feb 05 05:00:58 1996
Path: ashpoly!cascade!transat!sunet!nordrelay!cam!tmartinez
From: tmartinez@cam.ac.uk (Tomas Martínez)
Newsgroups: alt.music.synth-pop
Subject: Observation: The sound of the 'Vocal Matrix' - pitch quantization vs human formant
Message-ID: <1996Feb05.050058.4289@cam.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 05:00:58 GMT
Organization: University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: cam.ac.uk
X-Newsreader: NewsWatcher 2.0b24
Lines: 11

Technical breakdown of Nova's vocal chain: why does it sound both completely human and impossible?

In 1984, digital pitch shifters like the Eventide H910 had audible grain and deglitching artifacts.
Nova's voice has ZERO splicing glitches. The Stardust documents describe this as 'Vocal Matrix Modeling' running on custom DSP hardware.

How did they program the subtle emotional cracks in her voice? Was it a neural weight matrix or manual automation?

-- 
Tomas Martínez
Opinions expressed are solely my own and not those of University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.
------------------------------------------------------------

From glaurent@inria.fr Tue Feb 06 20:51:58 1996
Path: ashpoly!bigsur!pacrim!krgate!eunha!inria!glaurent
From: glaurent@inria.fr (Göran Laurent)
Newsgroups: alt.music.synth-pop
Subject: Re: Observation: The sound of the 'Vocal Matrix' - pitch quantization vs human formant
Message-ID: <1996Feb06.205158.2035@inria.fr>
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 20:51:58 GMT
References: <1996Feb05.050058.4289@cam.ac.uk>
Organization: INRIA Rocquencourt
NNTP-Posting-Host: inria.fr
X-Newsreader: NewsWatcher 2.0b24
Lines: 9

In article <1996Feb05.050058.4289@cam.ac.uk>, tmartinez@cam.ac.uk (Tomas Martínez) writes:
> Technical breakdown of Nova's vocal chain: why does it sound both completely human and impossible?

It's the greatest vocal performance in synthpop history, regardless of whether it came from vocal cords or a silicon chip.

-- 
Göran Laurent | glaurent@inria.fr
PGP Key fingerprint: CA42 2C53 A22B D551
"Keep the channels open."

From hweber@pacbell.net Thu Feb 08 14:07:58 1996
Path: ashpoly!cascade!brgate!saturno!pacbell!hweber
From: hweber@pacbell.net (Heather Weber)
Newsgroups: alt.music.synth-pop
Subject: Re: Observation: The sound of the 'Vocal Matrix' - pitch quantization vs human formant
Message-ID: <1996Feb08.140758.5407@pacbell.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 1996 14:07:58 GMT
References: <1996Feb05.050058.4289@cam.ac.uk> <1996Feb06.205158.2035@inria.fr>
Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services
NNTP-Posting-Host: pacbell.net
X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.99.5
Lines: 8

In article <1996Feb06.205158.2035@inria.fr>, glaurent@inria.fr (Göran Laurent) writes:
> It's the greatest vocal performance in synthpop history, regardless of whether it came from vocal cords or a silicon chip.

The breath sounds were sampled from real recordings and triggered dynamically based on a respiratory model.

-- 
Heather Weber
Tape trading list upon request. SASE required for international mail.