on "illusion coma pimp and circumstance", "housequake" and countless others, prince alters his voice so that it goes higher or lower.

does anyone know what gear he uses to do this?
i was thinking maybe a Boss VT-1.

he doesn't pitch shift on illusion, coma....

i believe he probably does it the easiest way:

record at a slower speed, play it back at regular speed and wammo, pitch shifted "camille" vocals.

mrdespues said:

that would be fairly trial and error though. if not, it would require a decent ammoutn of maths, which is hardly rock 'n' roll is it?
also, that or even timestretching would end up leading to a chipmunk effect, or an i'm-playing-a-7"-at-33 1/3rpm-effect., to some extent.

hotcoals said:

The VT-1 is ok when you have spoken parts, but once you start to sing at a certain volume, you'll hear it's mechanic. I've tried many things, I own a lot of gear including the VT-1 and some good software, but the only thing that makes it sound like Camille's voice is slowing the tape down when recording and then speed it back up again.

David1974 said:

you sound like you know what you're talking about man. thus, i'll accept that i'm wrong.
on your vocoding journey, what did you find to be the best software? i've tried a couple of different vocoder programs, but they were awful.
can you reccommend anything for me to download? given that i don't have cubase or proTools and thus can't get plug-ins for them. (can you reccommend a free VSTI host?)

thanks very much

hotcoals said:

I use my zoom fx unit and my Roland SH-101. And a mic. of course.

Adore is a better example towards the end...

There are countless others, but I've been on valium all day...

I belive I read an interview with Susan Rogers once wheer she said (referring 2 the Bob George and Camille vox) that they cam about quite by accident, and there was something different about them compared 2 the (then) usual way of obtaining such an effect. By all accounts, it was like KFC's 'secret recipe' - he wouldn;t tell anyone exactly how the end result was obtained.

Not far wrong I would imagine - if the 'interviews' he's given 2 esteemed mags like Guitar Player, Bass Player and Keyboard Player magazines over the past few years are anythign 2 go by.

bananacologne said:

dude, you people are reading way too much into this. The initial person was correct, you slow the tape down with the "varispeed" on the 2" 24 track machine, they all have "varispeed" You record, and when you play it back, instant camille vox. do the opposite for bob george, speed the tape up and record your vox. They didn't have digital editors back then, 2 analog 2" machines (48 tracks total) was the standard that everyone, including P, used.

LAProducer said:

this is the definitive answer for this thread.




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[This message was edited Sat Jun 12 19:25:50 2004 by mrdespues]