After releasing my first single with Natalie Spotify - YouTube as the VDB the online opinions have started flowing after asking for feedback - as an experiment without any prejudicial knowledge of the source. I purposely did not disclose anything about the band/artist/vocalist - just a singular artist name and no face.
TLDR;
A few people think it’s auto-tuned vocals. (maybe my tuning could use refinement and some de-tuning)
A fair number of people like it.
Here’s amusing/interesting sampling of quotes I thought I’d share.(with the subtext question - “Can anyone even really tell It’s a synthesizer voice?” NOT AI) -
heavy use of Autotune on the vocal. It sounds too robotic
A few points during the song, I admit my thought was, “Did I just get tricked into listening to A.I.?” (SAME REVIEWER AS #1 QUOTE)
you’re too strong of a singer! There’s a kind of Broadway/musical theatre element to your voice that is very clean and professional, but also very old-fashioned.
I think you have a very nice dynamic voice, and that the Melodyne used on your voice was done well.
you have a great voice. I’m not sure what genre you consider yourself but that sounds like it could be in a Disney soundtrack.
The vocals don’t seem to vibe with the songwriter/ indie acoustic guitar and it seems heavily processed.
Great vocals, I love your tone and the cool sound,
"The vocals are cool and the backing instrumentals supported well.
“fine sounding vocals and guitars”
Your voice is very pleasing and almost sounds a little like Madonna but better - haha.
I didn’t hear this previously, but my only negative comments are not enough connection between the words, it’s as though you didn’t close the ‘SIL’ prompts so the words are separated rather than smoothly flowing (not all, of course) And sometimes too much ‘presence’ in the strong syllables, like a metal band singer.
But the guitars are lovely, the song resonates. If you can sing the part, try tacking your voice to get the pitch parameters more like a real vocalist (it’s the hardest part for me - and still don’t do it well…)
But overall, very nice.
Your experience tracks very similar to mine. Most people do not realize it is a synthesized vocal! I myself forget many times that I am listening to vocal synthesis. It’s only when you listen to a real live human singing and Synthesizer V vocals back to back that you can tell immediately it’s not a real human singer.
I listened to your track, it’s very well done. My only suggestion is to be careful about the sibilance. It’s an issue I find with pretty much every Synth V voicebank (some a lot worse than others) and I always have trouble taming it.
yes, and sometimes pitch etc correction as a regular vocal might need. for sibilance processing, you can also export the aspirations separately which can provide more control without affecting the main vocal.
i find Natalie’s vocals tend to need less de-essing although sometimes i need to use Melodyne to tweak things.
Yes the de-essing is primarily for sibilance. I had one ballad using Natalie with a lot of unexplainable, really hard T’s that were impossible to touch with de-essing.
I had to bounce to audio and then do all kinds of things to those offensive words in order to tame it. Notch EQ, automated volume, layer another singer on note attacks - etc. It was just one this one song on certain words/notes - never experienced anything like it before or since.