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Question: Caveman 2003 :: Total Votes:54
Poll choices Votes Statistics
Mike and a woman 36  [66.67%]
Mike and Mike with a high-pitched voice effect 18  [33.33%]
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Topic: Caveman 2003, The duet< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
MusicallyInspired Offline




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Posted: Dec. 28 2003, 08:28

It just can't be Sally. I won't believe it until someone gets me an MP3 or something of Mike actually saying it's Sally. But even then, like Dbruce, I will still have my doubts ;).

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"The beauty in life is in the embracing of the variety of things. If all the world was blue there would be no colour blue."
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dbruce Offline




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Posted: Dec. 29 2003, 11:50

I've uploaded three MP3s that should help convert some people. I've not done it as precicely as I could, but I don't really want to spend ages on something so trivial.

Original excerpt: http://www.enigmatism.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mo/Original.mp3

Raised pitch (+25%): http://www.enigmatism.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mo/Higher.mp3

Lowered pitch (-20%):
http://www.enigmatism.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mo/Lower.mp3

In the Higher excerpt, you should be able to hear that what was originally "Caveman" now sounds quite like Cavewoman (and Cavewoman sounds like Caveman-with-bits-on-fire :p).

In the Lower excerpt, Cavewoman now sounds like Caveman, (and Caveman sounds like Caveman-the-morning-after-big-night-out).

(And before anyone says that they should both have the same % change, a 25% increase = 1.25 × original speed, and a 20% decrease = 0.80 × original speed = 1/1.25 × original speed.)

David
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Korgscrew Offline




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Posted: Dec. 29 2003, 14:38

It would be possible to make a woman sound like that, but it would also be possible to make a man sound like that. Formant shifts are important here, and they're something which dbruce's files don't show the effects of - it would be possible to make the two caveman voices sound even more like each other by shifting the formants (those are the resonant peaks in the frequency spectrum of a voice, some are fixed, some variable - the fixed ones are what make a woman and a man speaking at the same pitch sound different. Shift down the formants of a typical woman's voice without changing the pitch and make a high pitched man, shift up the formants in a typical man's voice and make a low pitched woman. Pitch shifting up a recording of a voice on its own doesn't create the same sound as that same voice singing/speaking at that raised pitch, as the pitch shift also shifts the formants upwards, making the classic chipmunk type sound). Formant shifts could of course probably be used to make Mike sound like Sally and Sally sound like Mike, or they could be used to create quite convincing male and female cavemen from the same voice.

My thought is that it could easily have been more of an accidental thing, with Mike finding that, while processing the voice part, it was rather funny to shift it upwards instead of down, and the caveman duet was born...whatever happened, those voices certainly don't sound natural to me, the high one especially.
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Ugo Offline




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Joined: April 2000
Posted: Mar. 15 2004, 18:09

[Off topic - maybe... :)]

Shifting the formants is something that's been often used to 'correct' stuff in dance music. This is what usually happens: you speed up a song to make a dance remix out of it, and you end up with the original vocal track sounding like a Chipmunk's. How do you avoid that? Simply by shifting the formants down, in order to bring the whole vocal track back to the normal pitch. ;) Upward shifting is also used quite often, and deliberately, in dance music - a guy from Germany called Mark'Oh (Marko Albrecht is his real name, I think) did it on his first two hits, respectively an adaption of 'Soleado' called 'Tears don't lie', and a song he wrote himself, called 'Love song'... and he still does it now: his latest hit 'Stuck on you', a cover of the Lionel Richie hit, features vocals by Lionel himself (despite the vocalist being credited as Martha Zaremba...), taken from a live performance of the song - with the formants shifted way up. :) Exactly like Mike's cavewoman. :)


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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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The Big BellEnd Offline




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Posted: Mar. 16 2004, 17:41

It's Fanny for Gods sake

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I, ON THE OTHER HAND. AM A VICTIM OF YOUR CARNIVOUROUS LUNAR ACTIVITY.
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MusicallyInspired Offline




Group: Musicians
Posts: 1445
Joined: June 2001
Posted: Mar. 16 2004, 18:15

LOL! That makes everything clear now.

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BrandonBlume.com
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The Big BellEnd Offline




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Posted: Mar. 16 2004, 18:35

To Inspired,I'm glad to see you have a good sence of humour.

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I, ON THE OTHER HAND. AM A VICTIM OF YOUR CARNIVOUROUS LUNAR ACTIVITY.
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Korgscrew Offline




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Joined: Dec. 1999
Posted: Jan. 11 2005, 06:57

It actually is Mike himself - there was an interview in the German Hiawatha II magazine a while ago where Mike confirms that (I've only just read it). He doesn't give full details, but says that it was a plugin on his Macintosh which he used to do the sound tweaking. So there you have it...
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Sweetpea Offline




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Posted: May 21 2007, 01:44

"Shangeba!", "Shoindba!"... seeing those sounds in text like that makes me think of them as naughty euphemisms.

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"I'm no physicist, but technically couldn't Mike both be with the horse and be flying through space at the same time? (On account of the earth's orbit around the Sun and all that). So it seems he never had to make the choice after all. I bet he's kicking himself now." - clotty
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AlexS Offline




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Posted: May 21 2007, 05:44

It's just Mike's voice treated by the wonders of technology.

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http://thelightdreams.bandcamp.com/
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Delfín Offline




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Posted: Aug. 05 2007, 22:38

Yeah, I'm sure it's Mike with Sally his sister.

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The most precious thing I possess, is knowing the answer's yes
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ImAFoolAndImLaughing Offline




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Posted: Aug. 06 2007, 11:11

I'm disappointed to see there's not a poll option for:

Quote
Sally + Sally with a low-pitched voice



And anyone who's still unconvinced that a woman can sound like that, wants to try living where I do... :/


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"I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach."
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