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posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...VEP7eqEeMeK6&index=2

to manipulate/enhance their vocal abilities.





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Posts: 54500 | Location: Henry County , Il | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
No Compromise
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quote:
Originally posted by bendable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...VEP7eqEeMeK6&index=2

to manipulate/enhance their vocal abilities.


There is some mixing going on there, if you listen to how the sound changes from one side of the stereo to the other.

I vote a little Manipulation, 'n' stuff.

H&K-Guy
 
Posts: 3720 | Registered: April 08, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Very little. My daughter (who is a research geek and is going to college on a partial scholarship for vocals) looked into this awhile back. She's a big Pentatonix fan, and I was skeptical that they could sound like that without a lot of computer assist. They do.
 
Posts: 1700 | Registered: November 07, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Now in Florida
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I've done a lot of music production, and it's my opinion that the sounds have been processed by the usual mixing techniques that any record undergoes. Tuning, reverb, EQ, compression etc. I can hear it all on this song. Doesn't take away from their talent. It's just how modern records are made. Acapella means that all of the sounds you hear are created by the human voice without instruments. It does not mean that there is no further processing.
 
Posts: 6061 | Location: FL | Registered: March 09, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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So in an intimate 90 person venue for a live show ,
can they reproduce what went on in the studio, so it seems some amount of similar ?





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Posts: 54500 | Location: Henry County , Il | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Completely agree with ChicagoSigMan.

I doubt they're using anything like an Autotuner (basically, you program the music into the Autotuner, and it automatically shifts the pitch of the voice to fit the programmed music), but it's definitely pretty heavily processed.

I went to a college with a pretty significant acapella scene, and had friends in some of the campus acapella groups, and went to a lot of acapella performances. The provided link is not what great vocalists, singing acapella live without any electronics, sound like. (I'm not saying Pentatonix aren't great vocalists - just that the audio in the clip is processed.)

quote:
Originally posted by bendable:
So in an intimate 90 person venue for a live show ,
can they reproduce what went on in the studio, so it seems some amount of similar ?


If the main source of the sound that the audience hears is from speakers, absolutely.

The modern way to do it is to run all the microphones to a digital audio interface connected to a computer, do all the processing live in the computer, and send the processed audio to the speakers.

The traditional way to do it is with a big rack of equipment, with each piece doing one specific thing and all the pieces connected with a bird's nest of cables. You might have microphone preamps, equalizers, mixers, tape echo machines, reverb machines, etc.

That said, a 90 person venue is small enough that an acapella group can get by without speakers.

A normal band almost always performs with speakers because the natural volumes of the different instruments and vocalists have a lot of variation. E.g., a little group with a drummer, acoustic guitarist, and vocalist are performing. The drummer drowns out the guitarist and vocalist, so the guitarist hooks his guitar up to an amp. Now no one can hear the vocalist at all.

It's easier to just put a microphone on everything and use the individual volume controls on the mixing board to make sure you can hear everyone over the speakers.

As long as an acapella group has spent enough time performing together to actually perform together (people with quieter voices working to project a little more, people with louder voices working to sing as part of the group rather than trying to take over vocally, basically everyone trying to sing together and having practiced enough to be able to do it), that isn't much of an issue.
 
Posts: 6319 | Location: CA | Registered: January 24, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Conductor in Residence
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While there is some electronic enhancement, they have the ability to create the majority of those sounds and almost perfect pitch tuning accuracy with their voices alone.
 
Posts: 3674 | Location: Tampa Bay, FL | Registered: July 23, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I kinda wonder if it would sound better on an analog L.P.





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Posts: 54500 | Location: Henry County , Il | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Do No Harm,
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I have followed them from their beginning. I've seen them in concert, too. I've sang in a capella groups from church choir to Barbershop through the years. Pentatonix has been my favorite group to listen/watch ever.

They are amazingly capable without any enhancements. Truly unbelievable.

I do expect that for their published pieces they are tweaked for perfection, as any other artist would. But the sounds are real, and human.




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Posts: 11444 | Location: NC | Registered: August 16, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by chongosuerte:They are amazingly capable without any enhancements. Truly unbelievable.


That's what I've heard from others as well. They are among a very small group of incredibly talented individuals that defy the norms and seem unreal to us. No different than some top tier athletes.
 
Posts: 8944 | Location: The Red part of Minnesota | Registered: October 06, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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