Cher "Believe" sound?

[vocalize]

Hello all,

Does anyone know where I can find the effect that is used on the Cher vocal "Believe"?
Or, how can I generate that sound?

Thanks!

[Vegadark]

It's a vocal vocoded with a synthesizer. you talk into the microphone, while playing the notes you want to "sing" on the synth. It's like peter frampton, but with synths instead of guitar.

[David001]

Post deleted by David001

[-jj-]

Have been told too, that "belive-effect" have been made in autotune...

[JFogarty]

Please, do not do this. For the love of god do not do this.

[vocalize]

Thanks for all the help. I'll give it a try.
Sorry J.Fogarty if you don't think the effect is cool, but that's what makes the creative process fun!
Try to be open- minded. Sometimes the things you don't normally do, turn out to be exactly what the song needed. (Although, in this case it may TOTALLY be the wrong thing..who knows).

Thanks again! images/icons/smile.gif

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm with Fogarty - PLEASE don't do it! That is, unless you're doing a parody like they did in that one episode of South Park...

The producer swears up and down that it was a vocoder. I think he just doesn't want to admit that they used "autotune" on Cher's voice - some people are sensitive about admitting things like that.

[Phil O'Keefe]

It's a cliche. Like gated drums... images/icons/rolleyes.gif

But if you feel it's appropriate, by all means, go for it.

[zedhed]

I saw a show where the producer showed how he had used autotune to get that effect. Use it but don't abuse it, cause it get's annoying very quickly in my opinion although it sounds great in Cher's song.Good luck.

[Stone Knife]

I would have bet on Vocoder... I think the reason it works in her tune is that it is so seemless, sudden, clean, and short images/icons/wink.gif

[Roy Howell]

For Cher, they may have used the Vocorder for that effect, but AutoTune to make her sing on key.
Chances are good that that is the truth.

[Stone Knife]

Now you're makin' me misty-eyed as I think of her farewell tour! images/icons/tongue.gif (there should be a crying Graemlin)

[Roy Howell]

Cher as a blonde...hehehe...

[Bloux]

Vocalize,
being open minded has nothing to do with it. That cute little effect quickly got as old as Cher herself!!

[Datus]

It is definately the auto-tune function. Antares who makes the unit actually advertise it.

[zboy2854]

Yes, I agree with the others to "just say no" to it. This exaggerated Autotune "Cher" effect has already become cliche, and will sound dated 10 years from now like the gated drums of the 80's.

While we're drawing up a list of cliche sounds that need to be retired, can we please add the A.M. radio/Telephone EQ on vocals and the sound of vinyl record player crackling on CD's to pretend that the song is being played on a record player?

[pk_hat]

Keep kids off Cher!

[Roy Howell]

Originally posted by pk_hat:
Keep kids off Cher!<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">images/icons/grin.gif

Zach,
You're exactly right about the sounds you mentioned being passe, although I'm guilty of trying the ol' record crackle. It was kinda fun though, and helped with what I wanted the listener to imagine.

[Mr_Seven]

You're all wrong! images/icons/tongue.gif

It's a Digitech Talker.

Okay, I hesitate to do this but.....

Everything you wanted to know and way more about Cher's I believe song:

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/feb99/ar ticles/tracks661.htm (http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/feb99/articles/tracks661.htm)

You're welcome in advance!

[Stone Knife]

...which is a type of Vocoder. Thanks for the link in non-advance images/icons/wink.gif
--Another interesting thing in that piece is the use of a Mackie console to record the record, and the moving the affected part back in time a little. I just did a doubling and pitch-shift thing to just 4 words and discovered this same thing. With the shifted part back about 20 ms it became clear and effective. Before that, it just sounded out of phase and muddy...

[recordingguy]

I thought they got the effect just by using the mackie board, that is sometimes what stuff sounds like through mackie boards...LOL images/icons/grin.gif

"Just a joke, I am not bashing the mackie lovers"

[ashenvy]

Friends don't let friends share Cher.

images/icons/smile.gif

[Roy Howell]

Originally posted by vocalize:
OK OK!!!JEEZ! I never thought a simple question could cause such a reaction.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">images/icons/grin.gif

[vocalize]

OK OK!!!

JEEZ! I never thought a simple question could cause such a reaction. I had an idea for a backup vocal part on the bridge of a song idea I'm working on and I thought (buried in the mix) it might add some character to the part. That's all.

It's not to be used throughout the whole song. I'm in agreement with you all, that certain things get overused and become way too overdone.
But, that's the great thing about crafting a song. You try it and if it doesn't work, you simply delete it.

I do appreciate the feedback and the opinions.

Thanks again

[mattm]

i'm with everyone on the "don't" team. everytime i walk into a supermarket or shopping mall or elevator, i hear this stupid effect. it even annoys the crap outta my girlfriend and in the world of music, she is 'average-joe-record-buying-punter'.

the only people i respect that use it are daft punk and even then there's only so much i can stand.

sorry!

PS., if you wanna know exactly how it's done, search or post to the Mac TDM forum...

[The Zone]

Allright, PUT THE CHER DOWN AND SLOWLY STEP AWAY!!! DROP IT!! N O W!!!!!!!!

[vocalize]

LMAO Jhon!

Alright I give up! I won't use it!!! images/icons/blush.gif images/icons/frown.gif

[vocalize]

I promise

[Jorge442]

Originally posted by JFogarty:
Please, do not do this. For the love of god do not do this.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">lol

[jeffinmarin]

I Hate Rules.

[gabriel_p]

THEvvsv CHERdmfgnos EFFECTdkfgerg, YOU LIKE ITsdmnvw?, LIKE ITsdnvcowe?, HMMMlwrjwlkn?

[6969]

Hey Peoples

There is alot of good knowledge to be had in here but I get this feeling that there is a little to much "Disco Sucks " attitude.

That vocoder sound was completely new and it was dope. If any single one of you came up with that ORIGINAL sound you would be gloating.

I often wonder how much true originality has occured with the artists in this forum.

As for the interest in understanding how to attain that vocoder sound,I say learn how to do it and make it your own.

Damn there are some seriously negative people in here!

I say this with all due respect. images/icons/grin.gif

DJ DBOY

[VincePro]

Here is EXACTLY how it was done...courtesy of a Sound on Sound interview with the producer....Hope this helps.

"Everyone who hears 'Believe' immediately comments on the vocals, which are unusual, to say the least. Mark says that for him, this was the most nerve-racking part of the project, because he wasn't sure what Cher would say when she heard what he'd done to her voice. For those who've been wondering, yes -- it's basically down to vocoding and filtering (for more on vocoders and the theory behind them, see the Power Vocoding workshop in SOS January '94).

Mark: "It all began with a Korg VC10, which is a very rare, very groovy-looking analogue vocoder from the '70s, with a built-in synth, a little keyboard and a microphone stuck on top", he enthuses. "You must mention this, because SOS readers will love it -- and I know, because I've been reading the mag for years!

"Anyway, the Korg VC10 looks bizarre, but it's great to use if you want to get vocoder effects up and running straight away. You just play the keyboard to provide a vocoder carrier signal, sing into the microphone to produce the modulator signal, and off you go. The only drawback is the synth -- you can't do anything to change the sound, so the effects you can produce are rather limited.

"I played around with the vocals and realised that the vocoder effect could work, but not with the Korg -- the results just weren't clear enough. So instead, I used a Digitech Talker -- a reasonably new piece of kit that looks like an old guitar foot pedal, which I suspect is what it was originally designed for [see review in SOS April '98]. You plug your mic straight into it, and it gives you a vocoder-like effect, but with clarity; it almost sounds like you've got the original voice coming out the other end. I used a tone from the Nord Rack as a carrier signal and sequenced the notes the Nord was playing from Cubase to follow Cher's vocal melody. That gave the vocals that 'stepped' quality that you can hear prominently throughout the track -- but only when I shifted the the Nord's notes back a bit. For some reason, if you track the vocal melody exactly, with the same notes and timing, you hardly get get any audible vocoded effect. But I was messing about with the Nord melody sequence in Cubase and shifted all the notes back a fraction with respect to the vocal. Then you really started to hear it, although even then it was a bit hit-and-miss -- I had to experiment with the timing of each of the notes in the Nord melody sequence to get the best effect. You couldn't hear an effect on all the vocals by any means -- and on others it made the words completely impossible to understand!

"In the end, we only used vocoded sections where they had the most striking effect, but didn't make the lyrics unintelligible. To do that, I had to keep the vocoded bits very short. So for example, when Cher sang 'Do you believe in life after love?', I think I only cut the processed vocals into the phrase on just the syllables 'belie-' from 'believe' and 'lo-' from 'love' -- but that was enough to make the whole phrase sound really arresting. I made sure throughout that the last word of each vocal phrase was unprocessed, because again, I found it sounded too bubbly and hard to understand when it was vocoded."

Mark spent time alone in the studio painstakingly processing Cher's vocals in this way, and by the following morning, he was convinced he didn't have the nerve to play her what he'd done. "It was a bit radical," he laughs. "Basically, it was the destruction of her voice, so I was really nervous about playing it to her! In the end, I just thought it sounded so good, I had to at least let her hear it -- so I hit Play. She was fantastic -- she just said 'it sounds great!', so the effect stayed. I was amazed by her reaction, and so excited, because I knew it was good."

Although the vocoder effect was Mark's idea, the other obvious vocal effect in 'Believe' is the 'telephoney' quality of Cher's vocal throughout. This idea came from the lady herself -- she'd identified something similar on a Roachford record and asked Mark if he could reproduce it.

He explains, "Roachford uses a restricted bandwidth, and filters the vocals heavily so that the top and bottom ends are wound off and the whole vocal is slightly distorted. It took a while to work out exactly what it was that Cher liked about this particular Roachford song, but in the end we realised it was the 'telephoney' sound. I used the filter section on my Drawmer DS404 gate on the vocal before it went into the Talker to get that effect."

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/search/

[Mr_Seven]

Thank Mr. Repost of my link from 2 days ago! images/icons/grin.gif

[zboy2854]

Regardless of how it was actually done, it can be done as easily using Autotune (I have been asked to give that effect for clients and have done it fine with Autotune). And as far as the guy talking about the negativity, for my part I have none. I just think that there are some sounds that are cool when they first come out, but then everyone jumps on it and it quickly becomes tired and cliche. Was the "Cher" effect "dope" when it hit? Sure, it was. But after every boy and girl band, R&B guy, and Lenny Kravitz jumped all over it and quickly played it out, it's gotten a little tiresome.

[JFogarty]

The same thing happened to the drum into from When the Leeve Breaks. This part is sampled so many times its ridiculous. Its in commercials all the time, movies, you name it. And thats not even counting people like Lenny Kravitz who just use the same delay on they're own stuff. Its pretty sweet though.

[Bloux]

DJ BOY,

Take it easy there sport. Your getting a little ahead of yourself.

No one is critisizing the producers choice for using that effect or its creation, it sounds great. But I'll bet you even he wont use it again .

Its like a "one hit wonder" of studio effects. for anyone else to try and use it, will draw much to obvious comparisons to the "Cher Tune" Is that very original? You said it yourself, "The vocorder sound WAS completly new" WAS being the keyword. Thats all "peoples" are saying here.

Vocalize asked for opinions and he got em. thats what we do here. I bet he tried it anyway, no big deal!

For you to spout off about this forum having no "TRUE ORGINALITY" as you put it, Well DJ BOY, why dont you take the time to listen to all the great material in the "Lets Hear Your Latest Stuff" thread. You'll find out just how rediculous your statment was.

Dont be so uptight, its quite clear to see the humerous side of these replies not the negative. (then again your position really doesn't surprise me), anyone still using the term "DOPE" must have plenty of originallity issues anyway.

I say this with all due respect.

[The Zone]

Man, we just got insulted by someone using the word "dope" to describe an idea. He wondered aloud if any of us ever had an original idea.

Perhaps if we all used brainless, meaningless, trend-chasing, fashion-victimized street slang in our technical discussions, we could one day aquire enough intelligence to come up with an original idea.

Go outside and "kick it wit the "homies" . . . we're trying to share information here.

Jhon

[The Zone]

And I say that with NO RESPECT. You're a clown.

[Ke productions]

Originally posted by Jhon Ackerman:

Go outside and "kick it wit the "homies" . . . we're trying to share information here.

Jhon[/QB]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I hope that statement wasn't fueled with a "RACIAL" undercurrent. images/icons/mad.gif
I like to give people the benefit of the doubt before I get insulted and think they were saying that people that use "Slang" language aren't intelligent. Eventhough I agree with your statement, I just hope I misunderstood your feelings. DID I? images/icons/confused.gif

[FrankLP]

This may be a stupid question, but does Auto Tune (or Auto Tune 3) work with Windows 98 running Pro Tools LE??

[Roy Howell]

Yes, it does.

[Bloux]

Hey Ke Productions,

I certainly cant speak for Jhon, but it appears at least to me that he wasnt coming across with any racial undercurrent.

As I see it, DJ Boy came off insulting the origiality of this forum and that seemed to upset some of us, thats all. We just challenged his originality in return... "he who lives in glass houses".. you know what I mean.

We all use slang , its part of our pop culture these days. even street recognizes its own outdated terms. I just rank the use of "dope", and "the bomb", right up there with "Killer", "Jive Turkey", and "Bitchen". images/icons/smile.gif

Bloux

[Travis Mitchell]

Now children, Play nicely.

-Travis

[6969]

Hey Peoples

Some of you people in here must have forgotten what the original question was. The dude just wanted to know how to get that "Cher" vocoder sound. He didn't ask any of you your opinion on how old or how used it is.

This is a new age of electronic creativity. He or she could use that knowledge to CREATE regardless. So I repeat,since some of you didn't get it,please keep the negative opinions to yourself.

I'm about to go listen to some DOPE house classics I just downloaded images/icons/grin.gif

I still say this with all due respect.

DJ DBOY

[The Zone]

Wow.

In my mind, I was thinking of one of those baggy pants, mall-wandering white kids that speaks ebonics as a way of MTV-ing his way into some form of relevance, but just to be sure, why don't we ask my foster son? (He's african-american, and I am caucasian)

I find it so amazing when black entertainers in our culture poke fun at white America with absolutely no concern of backlash, yet I make a silly comment about some schmuck using "ebonics" in a technical forum and all of a sudden somebody wants to call up Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson so that they can run to the scene and blather their nonsense AGAIN.

Get a grip people. If I was any closer to the black community, I'd BE black.

[Roy Howell]

Jhon,
I agree with you. Language belongs to no race anyway. To even derive what you wrote as rascist, and to point it out in a public forum, does nothing but divide the races.

[BigRedButton]

Wasssap and word to your motha!

You go Jhon! I thought yo post was funky fresh. You got da 411 and da skills so all those sucka MCs just better step off! Me and all my dope homies are just chillin at my crib watchin reruns of The Grind on Mtv, and I just wanted to give you a shout out. WooooHoooo!

Peace G, we out!

PS: Asumming that when someone is making fun of ignorant, overused slang, that they are making a "racial" comment, is racist!

Don't let the bastards get you down Jhon!!!
images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif

[The Zone]

Thanks. I can't believe it was even a question.

-Jhon

[Bloux]

HEY VOCALIZE,

WE SHOULD END THIS WITH YOU, SEEMS FITTING.

HEY BY THE WAY, ANYBODY KNOW WHEN XP WILL BE HERE?...........
......JUST KIDDING!!!!!!! images/icons/smile.gif

[JFogarty]

If we should end it with Vocalized, why did you post images/icons/smile.gif images/icons/smile.gif

I didn't see anyone being angry at eachother. I saw a bunch of nice people on computers trying not to insult each other too much images/icons/smile.gif

Either way, its a good question. I think everyone wondered that the first time they heard it. It just got over used in the long run. But hey, every sound has its use.

[Roy Howell]

vocalize,
Hi...You seem like a very nice guy, and I just wanted to say that when you start a topic, you need never feel responsible for any change of direction it may take by others. As you know, this being a huge forum composed of mostly creative people, the original question often gets lost in other discussions, and sometimes they get too political or philosophical.
Now your question has been answered, and I don't know if you know this, but you CAN delete any topic you start. In the original question box, you just click on the 'pad and pencil' icon to edit, click the 'Delete post' box, and it's gone.

Thanks for your question and all your input....

~Roy Howell

[jeffinmarin]

Racist? I don't think so. What's racist about the word"homies"? Does a certain group own the term? If so,THAT would be racist.

[vocalize]

Thanks Roy! I really appreciate that.

Being one of the newer guys on this forum, I certainly wouldn't want to delete the topic. Who knows? Someone else may have this very same question and It might save them from all the "extra inputs" we got on this thread. images/icons/rolleyes.gif
Thanks to all who did help out with the question.

Funny thing is, I did end up trying the effect with Autotune and it wasn't what I was looking for.
..Oh well..Back to the old drawing board! images/icons/confused.gif

[Stone Knife]

Get one of those Digitech "Talker" boxes and you'll be... -leavin'

HAR -OH jeez I kill me sometimes.
I was wondering why this thing was still going on days after the question was answered!

Now if we could just give the 1989 backwards baseball cap back to the time-machine, we'd be getting somewhere. images/icons/wink.gif

[vocalize]

Again,

I never thought a simple technical question could get so out of hand!

We are all artists in this forum (I HOPE). In one way or another, whether we do this as a career or hobby, we should all learn to respect each other. Not disrespect people who are doing a certain type of music they don't like or think is "Un Hip" at the moment.

I posted the darn question in the first place and I admit I found some of the postings rather funny, but now it's getting out of hand.

Lighten up and be nice guys!

[Ke productions]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jhon Ackerman:
[QB]Wow.

I find it so amazing when black entertainers in our culture poke fun at white America with absolutely no concern of backlash, yet I make a silly comment about some schmuck using "ebonics" in a technical forum and all of a sudden somebody wants to call up Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson so that they can run to the scene and blather their nonsense AGAIN. [QUOTE]

John, seems to me that the question was simple. All you had to do was say "NO I didn't mean it in a racial way". Instead you go off talking about Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and all that stuff. I was very polite in my question (I thought).
BLOUX seemed to answer the question much more professional than you eventhough it was posted to you. Maybe you need to get a grip and calm down yourself. I enjoy this DUC just like everybody else. I like the fact that everybody gets along. MUSIC is MUSIC no matter who produces it. So maybe next time you could try to be more civil in your answers and you probably won't create somethin' crazy. By the way, some of my best friends are white, too.

Ernie
P.S. I didn't steal your job... (affirmative action) images/icons/tongue.gif images/icons/wink.gif images/icons/cool.gif

It's all good though!

[go i huvet]

is Cher black...?? I don´t get it...?!
images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif

[Ke productions]

Originally posted by go i huvet:
is Cher black...?? I don´t get it...?!
images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I'm sorry the topic just started to go crazy. We're cool though. I'm cool I just was hoping that Jhon's comments weren't meant to be cruel.

Personally, I like the Cher sound. I've used it on alot of hip hop and R&B tracks (although very tastefully, I must admit). I love a good fight and I guess one temper tantrum deserves another. I just don't like when guns, knives, and sharp tongues get involved. Let's keep the discussions civil. images/icons/wink.gif images/icons/grin.gif

Thanks,

Ernie

Don't want to offend nobody.