Using Vegas to create "cheat" harmonies

PeterWright wrote on 6/22/2007, 10:26 PM
Just recorded some schoolkids singing "Wimoweh" and their music teacher isn't familiar with harmony (!), so just to give her a taste, I copied and pitch shifted the melody track to create a basic harmony.

It wasn't straight forward, as pitch shifting the whole event by the same amount would have created organum rather than harmony. (Organum is literally singing "paralell" in a different key, generally a fourth below, and is I believe African in origin, which may have suited Wimoweh, but would have clashed with the pre-recorded backing) - so I had to split the harmony event at strategic spots and vary the pitch shift - sometimes -4, sometimes -5, -3,-7 or -8. It's nice to play with some Vegas features!

A short excerpt can be found http://members.iinet.net.au/~ariad/Excerpthere[/link]

Comments

ushere wrote on 6/22/2007, 10:50 PM
nice.....

leslie
farss wrote on 6/22/2007, 10:58 PM
Hi Peter,
sound great to me, but then I'm a musical black hole :)

You might be interested in this:

http://www.celemony.com/cms/

Not exactly cheap at USD 299 but a fraction of the price of an Eventide Hamoniser. On the down side doesn't work with Vegas as we still don't seem to have real VST support in Vegas. However Cubase LE is just about a freebie.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 6/23/2007, 12:23 AM
Very enjoyable Pete. A music teacher isn't familiar with harmony? Eh? OK . . .

Not quite the same tack as you, but I have taken a really "bored" sounding and detached Interviewee's chat and given it the ole Speed treatment and KEPT the same pitch. THAT kinda woke him up!! Changed that part of the video and gave the "urgency" I was originally wanting from him.

Who said this craft was about reality anyway?

Regards,

Grazie
PeterWright wrote on 6/23/2007, 1:45 AM
Yes, that Celemony's an interesting tool, Bob - obviously does a lot more than just change pitch to maintain note quality.

Still, I like to do as much as poss in Vegas - I downloaded a demo chant from the Celemony site and played around with it in Vegas - it starts and ends with the original, then the five variations in between are "Vegasian Chants" (apologies to Gregory)

http://members.iinet.net.au/~ariad/VegasPitchhere[/link]
PeterWright wrote on 6/23/2007, 2:21 AM
Grazie - well done. I must admit I never had to speed up an interview to make it more interesting, but I have slowed down a few nervous on-camera performers who spoke too fast!
I didn't have the heart to tell them what I'd done, but I got secret pleasure at the video launch watching them think how cool and calm they were!!