What did Prince use to get that Low Voice in beginning of 1999 and in the Rainbow Children album, etc.?

It's just slowed down. If you speed it up, his voice will sound normal. He also used a slowed down voice in All My Dreams and Le Grind.

nosajd said:

Here’s a story about it from Morris Hayes. Specifically, TRC not 1999. https://youtu.be/UChKXJc0O5E [Edited 4/15/22 4:44am]

that is a totally diffrent effect.

As someone interested in sound design and a fan of Prince's use of creative pitch manipulation (on both guitar and vocals), I've always been fascinated by this subject. Much of it was achieved by manual tape manipulation (recording/playing back at various speeds in order to alter pitch), but Susan Rogers has mentioned that Prince also used early DSP based units capable of shifting pitch in real-time (can’t recall the exact unit, but it was probably an Eventide Harmonizer). The problem with real-time DSP techniques is that digital processing introduces latency and often "spectral smearing", so the really tight musical applications that we hear on records like Erotic City were probably just creative use of tape. The Eventide Model H910 came out around the mid-70s though, so digital units were available surprisingly early.

Here's a demo of the Eventide H910:

https://www.youtube.com/w...MCMjcI1hS5

[Edited 4/15/22 14:10pm]

OnlyNDaUsa said:

nosajd said:

Here’s a story about it from Morris Hayes. Specifically, TRC not 1999. https://youtu.be/UChKXJc0O5E [Edited 4/15/22 4:44am]

that is a totally diffrent effect.

Prince getting his mind blown by text-to-speech in the early 2000s . I had that on my Amiga as a kid in the early-90s.

fen said:

OnlyNDaUsa said:

that is a totally diffrent effect.

Prince getting his mind blown by text-to-speech in the early 2000s . I had that on my Amiga as a kid in the early-90s.

oh I had a speech syntasir in 85 or 86. It was an attachment for our TI 994A?

We had fun with it... used it to make prank calls (it was not real time we had to just record a message and then play it over the phone)

but yeah that was used in some songs on Rainbow Children (such as family name) but the deep voice *the intro to "The Rainbow Children" is totally different thing.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

fen said:

Prince getting his mind blown by text-to-speech in the early 2000s . I had that on my Amiga as a kid in the early-90s.

oh I had a speech syntasir in 85 or 86. It was an attachment for our TI 994A?

We had fun with it... used it to make prank calls (it was not real time we had to just record a message and then play it over the phone)

but yeah that was used in some songs on Rainbow Children (such as family name) but the deep voice *the intro to "The Rainbow Children" is totally different thing.

Exactly. The effect in "Rainbow Children" (the song, not the ablum as a whole) is different than the effect on "Family Name". In the "Rainbow Children" his voice is simply slowed down, which makes it sound low. But in "Family Name" he uses a voice synthesizer which makes it sounds like Stephan Hawking.

The intro to 1999 was a piece of outboard gear called the Publison Infernal Machine. He used it a lot, not just vocals. That's 100% certain. What he used on TRC I couldn't say. It doesn't sound like the Publison to me. There are about one million ways to achieve that sound using guitar pedals, computer software, etc, so TRC could be anything. Here's on for sale: https://reverb.com/item/4...achine-90

He mainly (maybe exclusively), used the sampling function. He didn't really use the reverbs or delays.

[Edited 4/18/22 13:53pm]

[Edited 4/18/22 14:04pm]

rockford said:

The intro to 1999 was a piece of outboard gear called the Publison Infernal Machine. He used it a lot, not just vocals. That's 100% certain. What he used on TRC I couldn't say. It doesn't sound like the Publison to me. There are about one million ways to achieve that sound using guitar pedals, computer software, etc, so TRC could be anything. Here's on for sale: https://reverb.com/item/4...achine-90

He mainly (maybe exclusively), used the sampling function. He didn't really use the reverbs or delays.

[Edited 4/18/22 13:53pm]

[Edited 4/18/22 14:04pm]

"Bob George" and "Work that Fat" too!

OnlyNDaUsa said:

rockford said:

The intro to 1999 was a piece of outboard gear called the Publison Infernal Machine. He used it a lot, not just vocals. That's 100% certain. What he used on TRC I couldn't say. It doesn't sound like the Publison to me. There are about one million ways to achieve that sound using guitar pedals, computer software, etc, so TRC could be anything. Here's on for sale: https://reverb.com/item/4...achine-90

He mainly (maybe exclusively), used the sampling function. He didn't really use the reverbs or delays.

[Edited 4/18/22 13:53pm]

[Edited 4/18/22 14:04pm]

"Bob George" and "Work that Fat" too!

100%

lurker316 said:

It's just slowed down. If you speed it up, his voice will sound normal. He also used a slowed down voice in All My Dreams and Le Grind.

Correct. Played back at slower speed. The "1999" intro, Tora Tora, bob George, etc. effect was all done on harmonizers, specifically the Publison Inferno Machine or Eventide H90.

lurker316 said:

It's just slowed down. If you speed it up, his voice will sound normal. He also used a slowed down voice in All My Dreams and Le Grind.

Thanks Lurker for giving a real explanation!

jazzz said:

. In case of TRC, the voice might also be treated electronically, i.e. Digital pitch shifter or analog octaver. .

Cool!