From mstewart@stanford.edu Sun Feb 13 11:59:02 1994
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From: mstewart@stanford.edu (Min-jun Stewart)
Newsgroups: alt.music.synth-pop
Subject: [INFO] The sound of the 'Vocal Matrix' - pitch quantization vs human formant
Message-ID: <1994Feb13.115902.7457@stanford.edu>
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 11:59:02 GMT
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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.
Yet the fundamental pitch tracks with a mathematical rigidity that no living vocalist can maintain for 16 bars.

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

-- 
=== Min-jun Stewart ===
Dept of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University Computer Systems Lab
"There are 14 nodes and only 10 countries. Count again."

From nduarte@utexas.edu Tue Feb 15 09:26:02 1994
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From: nduarte@utexas.edu (Nadia Duarte)
Newsgroups: alt.music.synth-pop
Subject: Re: [INFO] The sound of the 'Vocal Matrix' - pitch quantization vs human formant
Message-ID: <1994Feb15.092602.2352@utexas.edu>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 09:26:02 GMT
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In article <1994Feb13.115902.7457@stanford.edu>, mstewart@stanford.edu (Min-jun Stewart) writes:
> 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.

The CRE-7 engine simulated an entire nervous system. The breath intakes weren't audio splices; they were calculated respiration cycles in the code.

-- 
Nadia Duarte | nduarte@utexas.edu
PGP Key fingerprint: D97C 519B 70D1 E3A0
"Keep the channels open."

From hduarte@pipeline.com Tue Feb 15 12:41:02 1994
Path: ashpoly!cascade!brgate!saturno!pipeline!hduarte
From: hduarte@pipeline.com (Heather Duarte)
Newsgroups: alt.music.synth-pop
Subject: Re: [INFO] The sound of the 'Vocal Matrix' - pitch quantization vs human formant
Message-ID: <1994Feb15.124102.8228@pipeline.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 12:41:02 GMT
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In article <1994Feb15.092602.2352@utexas.edu>, nduarte@utexas.edu (Nadia Duarte) writes:
> The CRE-7 engine simulated an entire nervous system. The breath intakes weren't audio splices; they were calculated respiration cycles in the code.

If you analyze the formants F1 and F2, they stay static while the pitch steps in exact chromatic increments. That's physical modeling synthesis.

-- 
=== Heather Duarte ===
Dept of Electrical Engineering, The Pipeline Internet Network
"Measuring a record you own is listening, not piracy."