Are vocoders (or similar devices) being used to approximate eastern styles of singing?

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I heard some sort of dance-hall song, on a mainstream R&B/hip-hop station, which included some eastern style (I'm not even sure if I'd say it sounded more Indian or more Arabic or what) singing. It was obvious a vocoder or something like that was being used, but I was wondering if it was being used to modify a "regular" voice so that it would sound eastern.

Does anyone have any idea about this?

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 27 April 2004 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

machines can do anything nowdays.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 27 April 2004 20:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I know the song you mean, and I'd say that they probably are using Autotune, an effect that has been around for a few years (five? six?) that automatically corrects the pitch of anything that you run through it.It is used loads these days, most of the time more or less transparently, to fix up the odd bum note and generally tidy up a vocal. If you turn up one of the sliders on it all the way, though, you get the sound that was first popularised on cher's "believe", where the voice jumps really quickly, in a cool robot-y way, between two notes. The fact that "eastern" styles of music tend to use more vibrato than western stuff (massive, crass generalisation, sorry) means that heavily autotuned stuff does have a kind of robo-arabic sound to it...

― Conor (Conor), Tuesday, 27 April 2004 21:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Could have been that, though it definitely didn't sound like the effect in that Cher song.

I was kind of ambivalent about the sound (in the song I'm talking about).

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 27 April 2004 21:24 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah and HEAPS of recent (last year or so) uses this. TOK spring to mind...

― OCP (OCP), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 12:52 (twenty-two years ago)

What it probably is is that engineer/producery people have forked out however much it is for autotune and in tinkering with it have found all the non-standard scales you can put it in. Probably.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 13:31 (twenty-two years ago)

You might be talking about the undertone bass style of Tuvan throat-singing called kargyraa. The method is basically like speaking through a static, rustic bass drone, so you could say that some sort of modern technological equivalent could be singing through a vocoder with a bass drone input.

― Rob McD, Wednesday, 28 April 2004 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

talking about the undertone bass style of Tuvan throat-singing called kargyraa.

I don't think so.

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 28 April 2004 14:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it odd that autotune software would produce eastern styles of singing, considering many of those styles use quarter-tones, which autotune programs are, er, programmed to leave out.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 14:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Erm . . . no they're not - you can choose your scale including everything from Ling Lun, Scholars Lute, Arabic 1, Arabic 2 . . . all you can think of basically.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 15:09 (twenty-two years ago)

T/S - Arabic 1 vs. Arabic 2

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 15:10 (twenty-two years ago)

ha ha that's what I get for using cheap-as-fuck bottom-of-the-line autotune software

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 18:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Arabic one just feels more Arabic to me, Arabic 2 is for MORANS.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 12:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Rockist, is the song you're referring to "Dude" by Beenie Man f/ Ms. Thing?

― Al (sitcom), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 14:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I think they're being used to approximate Sparky's Magic Piano styles of singing.

― coco, Tuesday, 4 May 2004 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Al, I think it might have been Beenie Man, as a matter of fact. (I thought I heard his name announced. I don't know what he sounds like.) I will try to find that song. (At work now. . .)

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 4 May 2004 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I like talkboxes better than vocoders. I like the element of danger.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 16:41 (twenty-two years ago)

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