I know that Prince sped up the whole "U Got The Look" song, including his voice, but what about the other songs: did Prince slow down the intsrumentation in order to sing it normally then sped up only the voice track?

If so, it's amazing that he can keep a level of emotional interpretation over a slowed down (therefore, i guess, weird) instrumentation

databank said:

Either that or he may have run his voice thru an SPX device, which is basically an audio console u connect 2 a soundboard, at least back in those days.

They 'sped up' the voice. Not slowed down the music.

The tracks were played at half speed. The tape recording Prince's vocal would be running at normal speed. Prince would then record his vocal . When the two tracks (the song and the vocals) were put back to "normal" speed, the vocal track was, in effect, going double speed, ergo the "sped up" sound, giving Camille his voice.

HamsterHuey said:

Not totally true.

ernestsewell said:

Just kinda. Hence the "..."

I thought they changed the pitch of his voice by 15% or so, not sped it up. If they sped it up double speed he'd sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks, right?

Wildboy said:

Read above.

ernestsewell said:

Thanks Ernest. So that's what i thought: it's quite amazing that Prince could maitnain an emotional interpretation over slowed down music, i used to be a singer and i probably wouldn't have been able to do so
[Edited 4/30/10 7:01am]

ernestsewell said:

I read something by Susan Rogers (music engineer) that it all came about accidentally. She recorded Prince's vocals at the wrong speed and was worried that Prince would be angry but he loved the sound and thus the "Camille" voice was born.

wishuhvn said:

always thought that story was a little bit untrue. he'd already done this sort of thing with Erotic City and Love or Money before "Camille" was ever born.

wishuhvn said:

Are you sure you're not thinking about the mistake on "Forever In My Life"? I need to reference DMSR and find out ...just to satisfy my PrinceOCD.

ernestsewell said:

I think this is a urban legend made out of the "If I Was Your Girlfriend" story.

2 tracks came out of mistakes during the 1986 sessions:
"Forever In My Life" had the background vocals and the lead vocals as they are (background before lead) and instead of correcting it, Prince liked it and lept it this way.
Susan indeed made a false move when recording vocals for "If I Was Your Girlfriend" and the sound was fucked-up. She thought Prince would be mad at her because he put a lot of emotions in recording them, but Prince thought the distortion made it even better and kept it this way.

If you add the fact that "U Got The Look" was supposed to be a downtempo song and that Prince, unsatisfied with the result, sped-up not only the vocals but the whole thing (before asking Sheila and Sheena to add their contributions), it means that 3 songs were born of hazardous means and mistakes on what's now considered by many as being Prince's best album. This is quite funny.

This is what I found. Hope it helps.

In DMSR Per says,"Three tracks feature Prince's voice speeded up, making it sound very high and thin: "If I Was Your Girlfriend", "Housequake",and " Strange Relationship", a legacy from the cancelled Camille album..His vocal on "U Got The Look" is also slightly speeded-up, but this was because the entire song was originally recorded at a slower tempo."

In Slave To The Rhythm Liz Jones wrote: ""if I Was Your Girlfriend" was an accident on my part, says Susan Rogers. "Prince wanted to do his vocals alone as usual, so I set him up with his mic and left the room, and I just inadvertantantly had something switched the wrong way that day and when I came back in and heard the finished vocal, I thought, oh no! It was so distorted. I thought, he's going to kill me. He never said a word. He had the attitude,well, maybe that was meant to be. He was good about those things."

databank said:

"Forever In My Life" story is true. There was another mistake with "Dorothy Parker"'s lack of treble.

ernestsewell said:

The 3 stories are from Per Nielsen's DMSR.
I had no clue about Dorothy

I imagine there was manipulation of speed for reasons other than the voice. There are slowed down drum sounds, and sped up guitar lines, along with the sped up voice. It could be that he sped up a track for the overall feel and left the higher pitch vocal because he thought it sounded cool.

databank said:

I think the Dorothy thing was that part of the console had broken down, and no one realized it until it was too late, but Prince loved it.

The stories are well known, way before Nielson's book. It's fun to hear about things like that though. Mistakes become the norm.