http://twistedsifter.com/videos/adobe-photoshop-for-audio-and-speech-demo/

This is so crazy... I remember when Photoshop was coming out people thought that it would completely destroy the idea of photographic evidence. And yet now there are experts who can tell with almost certain accuracy that an image has been photoshopped. Hopefully the same will happen with this! If nothing else it'll be great for pranking your friends

Very impressive indeed.

That was fun.

I'm glad they have "audio watermarking" technology built in, especially with this election season where so many candidates said, "I never said that". As was said, this could be scary in the wrong hands.

But as was also said, twenty minutes of recorded audio would allow anyone's voice to be be the reader of an audio book.

My previous Kindle Paperwhite had text to speech built in (so I could plug in headphones and "listen" to my book). It was very robotic sounding (which was jarring until your brain got used to it), but this type of technology could potentially let "me" read books aloud with just 20 minutes of recorded content as the basis.

Alas, my next Paperwhite removed the headphone jack and text to speech (so I can't "read" my book while driving anymore).

Pretty cool stuff, though.

SO....

I'm thinking..... there's law suits coming from this technology down the road.

He's my reasoning: So I could write a song, and get ...oh, lets say, a sample of Celine Dion's voice and using this technology, have her voice singing it. Or, for that matter, any other singer in the world. I'm thinking their lawyers would be in touch pretty quickly on that matter.

Really, it's almost kinda here anyway. There's already the vocaloid series of vocal synths..... this is just taking it to the next level.

However, the possibilities are really endless with this. Now, not only do you not have to be able to play an instrument to have a top quality back up band.... (Band in a Box).... but now, you don't even have to be able to carry a tune in a bucket to be able to sing with the superstars.

Isn't technology GREAT!!!!

"...but now, you don't even have to be able to carry a tune in a bucket to be able to sing with the superstars."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s28oq4W2PPk

Always a classic Bob.... never fails to bring a smile....:-)

Do you (or anybody else) remember the Fairlight CMI? It was THE thing back in the 80s. At the time they started at $25,000 so not many of us had one, but inside that Computerized Musical Instrument (CMI) you had the ability to do exactly that. You could sample a voice and it was able to take that voice sample and make it become a synthesized voice that would sing anything you could play into it, AND it had the ability to read what you typed it. I think they were Australian and the cost hurt them, but I know Peter Gabriel did one whole album with a Fairlight and a Linn drum machine. There was a studio in Cleveland that had one and I booked an hour of time just to get a demo of the Fairlight. And the guy who owned the place, Bill Cavanaugh, ended up showing it to me for almost 3 hours and didn't charge me at all.

So this is not new technology. That doesn't exclude the lawsuit angle, as I assume the estate of Elvis Presley would probably sue the pants off anybody who released a new Elvis album with synthesized vocals....

The real problem is will they sell this program outright or only have you rent it like they do with Photoshop?

Very cool!

Wow! That is pretty wild. The future should hold some interesting options!




That REALLY funny!

I'm also picturing BIAB doing something along these lines...vocals "in the style of Saleen Deeyon."



The sad thing about this is, that's what most people already think it is. And I'm sure some will comment here that that is how it is.

I still feel it is SO flippin' hard to get a really great vocal even WITH all of the technology we have.

If I understood the limited demo, it required having twenty minutes of the voice already recorded so that, like BIAB, the appropriate snippet can be chosen under command (in this case, a spelled word). So if you can get Celine Dion to record twenty minutes of the right spoken words for you, you can have her speak the song lyrics. Then we're into vocoders or Melodyne or ?

Still, quite fascinating.

Hahaha!!!



Kate Bush also did some phenomenal stuff with the Fairlight.

I think you're both right, though -- if imitating a specific voice becomes easy, copyrighting the sound of specific voices will also become easy

Related, but if it is derailing the thread, I can remove...

Fairlight...interesting.

My favorite Fairlight guy:



http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/songs-of-fire-and-vice-jan-hammer-on-the-music-of-miami-vice-20141008



Regards,

Bob

It'll be interesting to see it working with sung words and phrases. I can't wait to do videos of my dogs talking or singing to each other!

I guess this is a Fairlight thread now! I'm not complaining!

Awesome article -- 30 MINUTES OF NEW MUSIC PER WEEK?!? That's insane, I had no idea. I know what I'm binge-watching this weekend...



That's awesome, reminds me of this:

Herbie Hancock demonstrating the Fairlight on Sesame Street!