Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / AI For Heavy Metal Vocalists Has Arrived With HXVOC - A Vocalist's Perspective With SEANN NICOLS
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, you're here with Heavy today and we've got
- 0:02Speaker 1: a special interview. Normally we interview bands and stuff about
- 0:06Speaker 1: their music, but today we are interviewing a singer from
- 0:09Speaker 1: a band who's got something outside of music that we
- 0:12Speaker 1: want to share with you.
- 0:12Speaker 2: So we're basically here, we're talking with Sean Nichols.
- 0:15Speaker 3: By the way, how about Chris. Hello, Sean, how are
- 0:17Speaker 3: you good man? Good? Great to see it.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Great to see you too, brother.
- 0:21Speaker 1: So we're here to talk about a new innovation called HAVOC,
- 0:25Speaker 1: which is spelled h x voc, which is the first
- 0:28Speaker 1: of its kind AI vocal instrument that gives musicians and
- 0:31Speaker 1: produces unprecedented access to a professional rock metal vocalist without
- 0:37Speaker 1: needing a real singer. So when when you say first
- 0:39Speaker 1: of it's kind brader, that sounds really exciting, but it
- 0:42Speaker 1: can be a little bit more specific because AI in
- 0:44Speaker 1: music has been here for a while.
- 0:47Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's got a lot of moving parts and
- 0:50Speaker 3: I'm new to the space, so I'm by no means
- 0:52Speaker 3: an expert, but uh, you know, I'll give you the
- 0:54Speaker 3: best to my knowledge and let's see how this goes.
- 0:58Speaker 3: Like basically, AI vocal sense have existed for a long time,
- 1:02Speaker 3: and apparently this has been like twenty five years in
- 1:05Speaker 3: the making. I guess it started with a thing called Vocaloid,
- 1:08Speaker 3: which is a company that Yamaha founded, and it started
- 1:13Speaker 3: out as a Japanese based company and they did like
- 1:15Speaker 3: a lot of anime and it went into like pop
- 1:17Speaker 3: and electronic and that's mainly where the AI voices have
- 1:23Speaker 3: found most of their traction. But to get a voice
- 1:27Speaker 3: that worked for rock was really hard and challenging because
- 1:31Speaker 3: they couldn't get the grit, They couldn't get the er,
- 1:34Speaker 3: they couldn't get the aggression to come out of the voice.
- 1:37Speaker 3: It just sounded very robotic and they could produce clean tones,
- 1:41Speaker 3: but they couldn't produce that guttural like raw that you
- 1:45Speaker 3: need for rock. Right. So basically, this is the first
- 1:52Speaker 3: time that we've had those intense techniques captured and reproduced
- 2:00Speaker 3: with an AI and it took us about well two
- 2:04Speaker 3: years in development, and it was actually just a meeting
- 2:08Speaker 3: of technology and the engineering behind it and the team
- 2:12Speaker 3: and the training and special techniques that all had to
- 2:14Speaker 3: go into capturing and being able to create this voice
- 2:18Speaker 3: that people can get like a real rock metal vocalist
- 2:22Speaker 3: right out of the computer with the AI Synthesizer V
- 2:27Speaker 3: Studio two platform.
- 2:30Speaker 1: No, so that's it sort of pretty much, you know,
- 2:32Speaker 1: in a technological description, right, I put it in Layman's
- 2:35Speaker 1: terms of people like myself, that nice stuff. All about
- 2:38Speaker 1: this shit, like in a nutshell, what's the primary goal
- 2:41Speaker 1: of creating heavy?
- 2:43Speaker 3: So it's it's just to give people a professional rock
- 2:47Speaker 3: metal voice that they can access on their computer without
- 2:50Speaker 3: having to work with a singer, without having to go
- 2:53Speaker 3: into a studio, without having to even plug in a microphone.
- 2:56Speaker 3: They can program their vocals on their computer. It's it's
- 3:01Speaker 3: that simple. So they can create, you know, they can
- 3:03Speaker 3: capture their music and then open up their computer and
- 3:07Speaker 3: put the vocals, the notes and the lyrics that they want,
- 3:10Speaker 3: and Havoc will sing it with a convincing rock performance,
- 3:16Speaker 3: just right on our computer.
- 3:17Speaker 1: It's have a bit of software that you buy and
- 3:19Speaker 1: you put on your computer. You don't have to go
- 3:20Speaker 1: to a studia.
- 3:22Speaker 3: No, you just go online and you download it. So
- 3:25Speaker 3: Synthesizer V Studio two will become available on March twentieth,
- 3:31Speaker 3: and it's the revamped platform. And I guess Synthesizer V
- 3:37Speaker 3: the V stands for a voice, right, but it also
- 3:39Speaker 3: stands for five, right, So this is like the fifth
- 3:42Speaker 3: version of Synthesizer that they put out and now it's
- 3:46Speaker 3: Synthesizer V Studio two. This is like the new improved
- 3:51Speaker 3: version that can actually produce the rasp and the screams
- 3:55Speaker 3: and the growls and everything that we need to make
- 3:58Speaker 3: heavy music. So that coming out in like two days
- 4:01Speaker 3: from now, and then on the twenty seventh Havoc the
- 4:05Speaker 3: Voice Bank, which was modeled from my voice and my recordings,
- 4:09Speaker 3: that becomes available through Eclipsed Sounds, and that's gonna be
- 4:12Speaker 3: on their website at eclipsesounds dot com right.
- 4:15Speaker 1: Nowice now, before we get into it, if I know
- 4:17Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of people who are
- 4:19Speaker 1: already up and i'ms after short time speaking in the interview,
- 4:22Speaker 1: But isn't designed it's not intended to actually replace a
- 4:26Speaker 1: vitalist in a band setting, is.
- 4:28Speaker 3: It not at all? No, It's it's an instrument. It's
- 4:32Speaker 3: not a replacement. And I realized that's a concern. But
- 4:37Speaker 3: you know, I was twying around with this technology for
- 4:41Speaker 3: a long time. I mean it started with drums and
- 4:43Speaker 3: then it turned out you could do your drums and
- 4:45Speaker 3: program your bass, and then they created guitars and synthesizers,
- 4:49Speaker 3: and there's orchestral libraries and everything, and this is just
- 4:53Speaker 3: an extension of that, but now for the human voice,
- 4:56Speaker 3: you know, and it just expands the creative possibilities that
- 5:00Speaker 3: we have when we're writing music, when we're you know,
- 5:03Speaker 3: putting ideas together or collaborating. You need to get an
- 5:06Speaker 3: idea across to somebody, and it's not always easy to
- 5:10Speaker 3: just record the vocal or it sounds terrible, you know.
- 5:12Speaker 3: I can't tell you. I've worked on so many projects
- 5:15Speaker 3: where I'm working with just a terrible, terrible recording of
- 5:19Speaker 3: somebody's voice and they're they're so embarrassed by it. They're like, dude,
- 5:23Speaker 3: don't judge me. Man, Like, these vocals sound terrible. I'm like,
- 5:26Speaker 3: don't worry. I've heard the worst. I've heard the worst
- 5:28Speaker 3: of the worst. And then as a professional singer, I
- 5:31Speaker 3: take those really bad tracks and I load them into
- 5:33Speaker 3: the computer and then I you know, perform them, and
- 5:36Speaker 3: then I send them back something They're like, this is awesome,
- 5:38Speaker 3: this is great. But you know what if they didn't
- 5:40Speaker 3: have to send me such terrible sounding tracks, you know
- 5:44Speaker 3: what if they could send me something that sounded already polished.
- 5:47Speaker 3: It's just going to make everything come out that much
- 5:49Speaker 3: better because you're working from a higher quality reference point,
- 5:53Speaker 3: you know. So yeah, I don't see this as a
- 5:55Speaker 3: replacement at all. I just see it as like an
- 5:57Speaker 3: enhancement and a benefit and a way to make things
- 6:01Speaker 3: better and more. You know, it's more accessible, and it's
- 6:05Speaker 3: a lot more affordable too, because you don't need like
- 6:07Speaker 3: expensive equipment. You don't need expensive microphones, you know, you
- 6:10Speaker 3: don't even technically a singer, you know. So yeah, just
- 6:13Speaker 3: gets you up and run. And it's just I keep
- 6:16Speaker 3: going about it. But it's kind of like drums, right,
- 6:18Speaker 3: Like it's like programming drums like Steven Slaate. I don't
- 6:21Speaker 3: know if you are familiar with Steven Slay, but he
- 6:23Speaker 3: makes the Steven Slate drums and he became real popular
- 6:27Speaker 3: because he had these great drum samples and they just
- 6:31Speaker 3: started circulating around the industry and everybody started replacing their
- 6:34Speaker 3: natural drum sounds with Steven Slat's drum samples and pretty
- 6:38Speaker 3: much changed the whole industry. And now when we listen
- 6:41Speaker 3: to demos that are made by musicians on their computers,
- 6:45Speaker 3: the drum sound pretty killer. And it's because of guys
- 6:48Speaker 3: like Steven Slay that made the really complicated process of
- 6:52Speaker 3: recording drums in the big studio and you need all
- 6:54Speaker 3: these microphones and these crazy consoles and engineers. I mean,
- 6:58Speaker 3: it's super complicated to get a good drum sound, but
- 7:01Speaker 3: he just made it so it was really easy. So
- 7:04Speaker 3: you could just load it up on your computer, put
- 7:06Speaker 3: your beats in, and voila. It's like sounds like it
- 7:09Speaker 3: was recorded in a million dollar studio. And uh, that's
- 7:12Speaker 3: what we've done essentially with a rock voice now first
- 7:16Speaker 3: of its.
- 7:16Speaker 2: Kind, longwise ones. I like, then again this is back
- 7:20Speaker 2: back to the nice eize.
- 7:21Speaker 1: But what you were just talking about then with the
- 7:22Speaker 1: drum kid, Like they might make all the songs up
- 7:25Speaker 1: and send to me, not on a computer, generate a
- 7:27Speaker 1: drum kid, but when they play live, they're still gonna
- 7:29Speaker 1: have a real drama.
- 7:31Speaker 2: They live.
- 7:31Speaker 1: So when when people put during the vocals and they
- 7:34Speaker 1: send them three to you, like, is it their voice
- 7:36Speaker 1: that's coming back and going on the recording or is
- 7:38Speaker 1: it someone else's voice generated you're gonna hear yeah.
- 7:43Speaker 3: I mean, look, this is just gonna bring more music
- 7:46Speaker 3: to the live stage. Right, because I mean the hardest
- 7:49Speaker 3: part about music is making it right. It doesn't make itself,
- 7:54Speaker 3: you know. And and the thing to understand about havoc
- 7:56Speaker 3: is is not it doesn't think for you, It doesn't
- 7:59Speaker 3: write for you, it doesn't create the notes for you.
- 8:01Speaker 3: It doesn't do any of that. You still need a
- 8:02Speaker 3: person with a vision to tell it what to do.
- 8:05Speaker 3: So it's really just like an instrument. It's kind of
- 8:08Speaker 3: like a guitar. A guitar isn't going to play itself,
- 8:10Speaker 3: you know, You've got to still play it right. But
- 8:13Speaker 3: what it does do is it gives people access to
- 8:16Speaker 3: the finished result that is otherwise a very complicated, expensive
- 8:22Speaker 3: and difficult process to go through. I mean, recording vocals
- 8:26Speaker 3: is an art and a craft, and it takes years
- 8:29Speaker 3: to know how to do it right, you know, and
- 8:32Speaker 3: you got to mess up a lot before you figure
- 8:34Speaker 3: it out. So yeah, this is just a tool that
- 8:38Speaker 3: gets you from the ideas that are in your head
- 8:41Speaker 3: or you know, the sound that you got and it
- 8:43Speaker 3: just it just materializes instantly so you can hear like
- 8:47Speaker 3: what it sounds like right out the gate without having
- 8:50Speaker 3: to like be stuck, you know, or be thwarted or whatever.
- 8:55Speaker 3: You know, like I don't know who to work with,
- 8:56Speaker 3: Like how many people. I've met so many people as
- 8:59Speaker 3: a sayer. I mean, that's my whole life is meeting
- 9:02Speaker 3: people that have ideas for songs and they need a singer,
- 9:05Speaker 3: you know, and then we try to make it work out,
- 9:07Speaker 3: and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You know, there's attitudes, personality.
- 9:11Speaker 3: So I mean, I joke about it, but this is
- 9:14Speaker 3: kind of the best thing that ever happened for a
- 9:16Speaker 3: lot of bands because they don't have to deal with
- 9:18Speaker 3: me anymore. They can just they just just take my
- 9:22Speaker 3: voice and just make what they want, you know, they
- 9:24Speaker 3: don't have to deal with the guy, the lead singer disease,
- 9:27Speaker 3: the LSD is like cut out of the equation. They
- 9:30Speaker 3: can just get the voice and like leave the rest
- 9:33Speaker 3: and do what they want to do. So I mean,
- 9:35Speaker 3: I see it as a very empowering and freeing thing,
- 9:39Speaker 3: you know, in so many ways. Yeah, I think.
- 9:42Speaker 1: The other important thing to night hear Tree probly like people,
- 9:46Speaker 1: well they not yet because we haven't told him. But
- 9:48Speaker 1: you're actually used to sing with adelas Apertite, You've sung
- 9:51Speaker 1: with Quiet Riot, You've sung with Westfield Massacre and hatesmall.
- 9:54Speaker 1: So you are a seasoned professional musician and vicalist, and
- 9:58Speaker 1: you'll put your self behind this product. So if it
- 10:02Speaker 1: was gonna kind of out work, the.
- 10:03Speaker 2: Thing is, you wouldn't be involved.
- 10:05Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely not. I mean, if it was going
- 10:07Speaker 3: to cut out work for any singer, be cutting out
- 10:10Speaker 3: my work, because I mean, people don't technically need me anymore.
- 10:13Speaker 3: You know, they can just download the software and they're
- 10:18Speaker 3: good to go. They've got everything they need and more
- 10:21Speaker 3: from me. I mean, the software is actually, in some ways,
- 10:24Speaker 3: probably more powerful than me, because it can take the
- 10:29Speaker 3: essence of the performance that I've given it, and it
- 10:32Speaker 3: can then stretch it to other places that I haven't
- 10:37Speaker 3: even thought of, you know, like on the showcase Demos
- 10:41Speaker 3: Eclipse Sounds, they worked with producers and they developed some
- 10:46Speaker 3: incredible showcases for what the voice can do, and they've
- 10:49Speaker 3: got me doing this crazy falsetta thing and I heard it.
- 10:52Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, I've never heard my voice sound like
- 10:55Speaker 3: that before, you know. And I'm starting to hear tones
- 10:59Speaker 3: and liveries of my own voice that I've never even
- 11:02Speaker 3: dreamed of doing. So and this is just the beginning.
- 11:05Speaker 3: I mean, it's gonna be insane to hear what people
- 11:07Speaker 3: do with this thing, because it's it's really powerful, like.
- 11:12Speaker 1: The cave right through with this We've said it before,
- 11:14Speaker 1: but the cave rite through is that how it can
- 11:16Speaker 1: accurately perform aggressive brooke and metal vifal techniques like you
- 11:19Speaker 1: said before with the screams and stuff like that. But
- 11:22Speaker 1: they've never been done at this level in a vital
- 11:24Speaker 1: since before. So why why haven't they been done? Like
- 11:27Speaker 1: what's so hot about it? And then why we'll have
- 11:30Speaker 1: it succeed? I guess where others put.
- 11:32Speaker 3: An Yeah, okay, so the real issue here is just
- 11:37Speaker 3: getting the grid okay, because and and it kind of
- 11:42Speaker 3: goes to like studio production, but rock and metal it's
- 11:45Speaker 3: one of the hardest vocal styles to act to like
- 11:48Speaker 3: record and make it sound good in the studio. And
- 11:51Speaker 3: part of it is because of the rasp. Okay, if
- 11:54Speaker 3: you're just singing like a regular tone like da da
- 11:56Speaker 3: da da da, there's like a nice clear note and
- 12:01Speaker 3: the tuning software, even like auto tune or whatever, it
- 12:04Speaker 3: can track that note very clearly and then it can
- 12:07Speaker 3: correct it and it can put it in tune and
- 12:09Speaker 3: make you sound good. But the minute you start giving
- 12:12Speaker 3: it some rasp like some yeah, it freaks it out.
- 12:16Speaker 3: It doesn't know what part of the voice to follow
- 12:18Speaker 3: because the voice splits from this single note and it
- 12:23Speaker 3: splits into like all these different you know, sounds happening
- 12:27Speaker 3: all at once. And so it's being able to track
- 12:29Speaker 3: all that grit and distortion and know which part of
- 12:33Speaker 3: it to hold onto and how to guide the voice.
- 12:36Speaker 3: So we needed a more sophisticated way to capture all
- 12:41Speaker 3: of the grit and the distortion that happens when you
- 12:44Speaker 3: distort the human voice. And that's where the new AI
- 12:48Speaker 3: platform comes in because it's actually capable of tracking all
- 12:52Speaker 3: that extra information that was getting lost before. So that's
- 12:57Speaker 3: why we have this now. It's a it's kind of
- 12:59Speaker 3: a merging of technology and also you know, the skill.
- 13:04Speaker 3: I mean to be able to deliver those those tracks,
- 13:07Speaker 3: and I've been doing it for a long time, so
- 13:08Speaker 3: I know how to you know, I've more or less
- 13:11Speaker 3: mastered those techniques. So I was able to just deliver
- 13:14Speaker 3: hundreds of tracks of every different nuance and range of
- 13:19Speaker 3: you know, from deep guttural you know to you know,
- 13:24Speaker 3: behind that you know, and everything in between, with belting
- 13:28Speaker 3: clear voice you know, slightly just slightly rasky gritty, you know,
- 13:33Speaker 3: like all these different textures and just get it all
- 13:36Speaker 3: into the system and U and then eclipsed. They then
- 13:41Speaker 3: took my tracks and they cut them up and they
- 13:44Speaker 3: organized them, and they they processed them and then they
- 13:47Speaker 3: fed them into the AI learning model and they created
- 13:53Speaker 3: a virtual singer that can now figure out what I
- 13:59Speaker 3: would see based on the notes and the words that
- 14:03Speaker 3: the user puts into the to the program. So it's
- 14:07Speaker 3: it's a really cool technology. It's it's actually pretty simple.
- 14:09Speaker 3: It's kind of like triangulation, right, you give it the
- 14:13Speaker 3: note and the word, and then it reverse engineers my performance.
- 14:19Speaker 3: It's pretty cool. It is.
- 14:21Speaker 1: This might be a pretty stupid question, probably, but I
- 14:23Speaker 1: don't know not much about these stuff. So does that mean
- 14:27Speaker 1: that there's going to be albums put out now with
- 14:29Speaker 1: your voice on it? Or is it still going to
- 14:30Speaker 1: sound like then that?
- 14:33Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is the thing, like, yeah, my
- 14:36Speaker 3: voice is available now. Anybody who wants to make a
- 14:38Speaker 3: record with with my voice, they can just download it.
- 14:41Speaker 3: They download a synthesizer V Studio two and then they
- 14:46Speaker 3: download HAVOC and I think the Synthesizer V program is
- 14:50Speaker 3: like eighty nine dollars or ninety nine dollars, and then
- 14:53Speaker 3: Havoc is like eighty nine dollars or ninety nine dollars.
- 14:57Speaker 3: So for under two hundred bucks, you're got your computer
- 15:01Speaker 3: setup and now you've got a professional vocalist and you
- 15:03Speaker 3: can do your whole record like that, and there are
- 15:06Speaker 3: no restrictions for how many songs you can put out.
- 15:10Speaker 3: You can release the songs. There's no royalty, you don't
- 15:13Speaker 3: have to pay anything extra, Like once you buy the software,
- 15:16Speaker 3: it's yours and you can use it to do basically
- 15:19Speaker 3: whatever you want with it, you know. I think there
- 15:23Speaker 3: are some restricts or not restrictions, but I think you
- 15:26Speaker 3: have you know, it's I think they say, hey, you
- 15:27Speaker 3: should give credit to Havoc if you use it. There's
- 15:30Speaker 3: there's a license agreement. I'm not totally up to speed
- 15:33Speaker 3: on all the details, but it's a very loose arrangement.
- 15:36Speaker 3: I mean, basically, once you buy it and start working
- 15:38Speaker 3: with it, it becomes a voice an instrument that you
- 15:41Speaker 3: can use for whatever you want to do with it,
- 15:45Speaker 3: you know. But what's also really cool about it is
- 15:48Speaker 3: that the software itself gives you all kinds of like
- 15:51Speaker 3: power to change the voice, so it's not just my voice.
- 15:55Speaker 3: Like you can actually make it sound deeper and make
- 15:58Speaker 3: it sound meaner, or you can make it sound higher
- 16:02Speaker 3: and make it sound you know, like, you know, go
- 16:05Speaker 3: more like in the Robert Plant direction, you know, or
- 16:08Speaker 3: you can go more in the you know, five finger
- 16:11Speaker 3: death punch direction. You know. You can really kind of
- 16:14Speaker 3: you can use it's a synthesizer, you know. So it's
- 16:17Speaker 3: my voice is the core, but you can tweak it
- 16:20Speaker 3: and change it and make it exactly what you want
- 16:24Speaker 3: it to be. And it's it's just a really good
- 16:26Speaker 3: bass to get you where you want to go with
- 16:29Speaker 3: your particular style of music, you know, any It will
- 16:33Speaker 3: work for basically any type of rock music, any type
- 16:35Speaker 3: of metal music, and it'll even work for other genres,
- 16:39Speaker 3: you know, cinematic material, e d M, electronic music. I
- 16:44Speaker 3: could hear it working for you know, some styles of
- 16:47Speaker 3: pop or alternative. I mean, it's really just kind of limitless.
- 16:52Speaker 3: It's really just up to whoever wants to use it.
- 16:55Speaker 3: This voice bank gives people textures that have never been
- 17:00Speaker 3: available before in a vocal synth or an ai voice.
- 17:04Speaker 3: It's got the rasp, the grit, and that like real
- 17:08Speaker 3: the nuance and the soul of the the energy and
- 17:10Speaker 3: the power behind a real rock performance. And this is
- 17:13Speaker 3: a first in the vocal synthesis industry.
- 17:18Speaker 2: Hy pathetically, So someone's used the program to create an
- 17:23Speaker 2: album using the voices on there with the vital programs.
- 17:26Speaker 1: Somebody loves that album. Then they go to watch the
- 17:28Speaker 1: band live and they say, I'm nothing like that.
- 17:30Speaker 2: Is that? Is that possible?
- 17:33Speaker 1: Uh?
- 17:33Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, anything's possible. But once again, like there's
- 17:38Speaker 3: a lot of technology going on right now, like in music,
- 17:41Speaker 3: you know, like I'm kind of confused whenever I go
- 17:44Speaker 3: to a live concert, I'm not sure what I'm hearing
- 17:47Speaker 3: a lot of times, you know, I mean I'm listening
- 17:49Speaker 3: to that, I'm like, God, that sounds like really good,
- 17:52Speaker 3: Like are they really doing that? And they don't seem
- 17:55Speaker 3: to be working so hard, you know, Like I know
- 17:58Speaker 3: how hard it is to see some of these parts
- 18:00Speaker 3: I'm watching live, and like they seem to be just
- 18:02Speaker 3: handling it like it's nothing, And it makes me wonder
- 18:06Speaker 3: are they being reinforced? Are there some backing tracks?
- 18:08Speaker 2: There?
- 18:09Speaker 3: Is there like some auto tune on the back up,
- 18:12Speaker 3: you know, on the console at the front of house, Like,
- 18:16Speaker 3: I don't know what's going on, but I think it's
- 18:18Speaker 3: pretty clear that there is a lot of technology making
- 18:23Speaker 3: things sound better behind the scenes that we're not always
- 18:26Speaker 3: aware of. And you know, even being a pro in
- 18:28Speaker 3: the business, I mean, it's hard for me to tell
- 18:30Speaker 3: what I'm listening to anymore. So I suppose, yeah, you know,
- 18:35Speaker 3: someone could make a record, they use my voice or
- 18:39Speaker 3: another voice to you know, make their sound on the
- 18:42Speaker 3: on the recording, and then they go out and how
- 18:44Speaker 3: they perform it live. I mean, I don't know. They
- 18:47Speaker 3: have to figure it out. You got to be invented, right,
- 18:50Speaker 3: But uh, I mean people are using all kinds of
- 18:52Speaker 3: crazy stuff in the studio, you know, like orchestras and
- 18:55Speaker 3: strings and synthesizers and all that stuff. And I mean
- 18:58Speaker 3: sometimes you can take it all out on the road,
- 19:00Speaker 3: but sometimes you can't. So maybe there's tracks, you know,
- 19:03Speaker 3: maybe they have tracks to help them out, or maybe
- 19:06Speaker 3: they do it some other way. It's it's really just
- 19:10Speaker 3: kind of anybody's choice right of how they're going to
- 19:14Speaker 3: convey their recorded material when they play it live.
- 19:17Speaker 1: It's actually a really good point, mate, because we're speaking
- 19:19Speaker 1: about the AI vocals for the Metal and hard rock
- 19:22Speaker 1: industry now, so we're actually just focusing on that aspect
- 19:25Speaker 1: of it.
- 19:26Speaker 2: But this technology is right through the music world.
- 19:28Speaker 1: Like you say, you go to a concert now and
- 19:30Speaker 1: the sound desk has got some sort of technology that's
- 19:33Speaker 1: making them sound different from there to there.
- 19:35Speaker 2: Like every part of the industry is operating on something
- 19:38Speaker 2: like this at the moment.
- 19:39Speaker 1: So it's not capeople can't just sort of go they're
- 19:42Speaker 1: bringing this technology in.
- 19:43Speaker 2: This thing is not going to sound the same.
- 19:44Speaker 1: It's like pretty much nothing new here is exactly human
- 19:48Speaker 1: or is it exactly the way it came out?
- 19:50Speaker 2: Is it?
- 19:51Speaker 3: I mean yeah, I mean we're living in a very
- 19:53Speaker 3: technologically enhanced world, right, I mean it's everywhere. I mean,
- 20:00Speaker 3: it kind of freaks me out, honestly, and I don't
- 20:02Speaker 3: know if it's a good thing or a bad thing,
- 20:04Speaker 3: but it's just reality at this point. I mean, we're
- 20:06Speaker 3: not going to escape it, you know. It's it's only
- 20:09Speaker 3: going to keep pushing more and more into our lives.
- 20:12Speaker 3: So the way I look at it personally is just
- 20:14Speaker 3: like we might as well embrace it and find out
- 20:16Speaker 3: how to work with it and live with it and
- 20:18Speaker 3: make the best of it, you know. So I just
- 20:21Speaker 3: tend to be a I embrace technology, especially in a studio,
- 20:25Speaker 3: like I love all my gear and my equipment and
- 20:28Speaker 3: a lot of my stuff runs through a computer now
- 20:31Speaker 3: as to where it used to be all hardware, now
- 20:32Speaker 3: there's like a computer component. So i'd say about fifty
- 20:35Speaker 3: to fifty. I definitely work with pro tools and all
- 20:38Speaker 3: kinds of like synthesizer plug ins, and even like my
- 20:42Speaker 3: monitoring section that controls my speakers and stuff, it's all
- 20:45Speaker 3: run through a computer. And my patch bay is it
- 20:49Speaker 3: runs through a computer. That's kind of a really crazy
- 20:51Speaker 3: one there because patch bay, you know, it used to
- 20:53Speaker 3: be the cords. You know, you'd plug, you'd see all
- 20:55Speaker 3: the wires hanging around. So I got rid of all
- 20:58Speaker 3: those wires and now I just have a patch bait
- 21:00Speaker 3: and it's got a it's it's totally analog, but all
- 21:04Speaker 3: the patches are done on the computer screen. So there
- 21:08Speaker 3: is this kind of hybridization between analog and digital, and
- 21:12Speaker 3: a lot more of our stuff is being run through
- 21:14Speaker 3: computers and so h you know, it's kind of cool
- 21:17Speaker 3: though that they can do this with a with a
- 21:19Speaker 3: human voice. Now, I didn't really think that I would
- 21:22Speaker 3: ever see this but here it is, and it's it's
- 21:25Speaker 3: really convincing. It's it's cool. I mean, I'm I'm excited
- 21:28Speaker 3: about it. Honestly. It makes things easier, it makes it
- 21:31Speaker 3: gives you more possibility. So I don't see any point
- 21:34Speaker 3: in fighting it. It's here, you know, we might as
- 21:36Speaker 3: well make the best of it.
- 21:37Speaker 1: Yeah, that's advice with It's like, you've been programming your
- 21:40Speaker 1: voice into this for a while and ally has it's
- 21:42Speaker 1: about anything back at you?
- 21:44Speaker 3: Is it?
- 21:45Speaker 2: Is it teaching you more about yourself? Vically here and
- 21:48Speaker 2: what can be done in this technology?
- 21:51Speaker 3: Yeah? So just to be clear, I haven't actually used
- 21:54Speaker 3: the software yet. It's it's super it's like top secret,
- 21:58Speaker 3: like uh there there was a this period where when
- 22:01Speaker 3: they were developing it, like I wasn't even allowed to
- 22:03Speaker 3: be involved because this stuff was like so top secret
- 22:06Speaker 3: and it was so cutting edge, like they couldn't tell
- 22:09Speaker 3: anybody about it. And for a minute there I was like, man,
- 22:13Speaker 3: is this gonna happen? And then you know, luckily they
- 22:16Speaker 3: were like, hey, we got good news. It works. I
- 22:18Speaker 3: was like, oh. It was like a big celebration. So
- 22:21Speaker 3: we hooked up at NAM this last uh ma'am at
- 22:24Speaker 3: twenty twenty five and Anaheim here at the Anaheim Convention
- 22:27Speaker 3: Center and I met up with the Clips Sounds and
- 22:30Speaker 3: the team and that's when they played it for me
- 22:33Speaker 3: for the first time. And I have to tell you, man,
- 22:36Speaker 3: it was surreal hearing my voice come back at me,
- 22:41Speaker 3: to hear myself singing a song that I never heard before,
- 22:44Speaker 3: and it just sounded so lifelike and so like. It
- 22:49Speaker 3: just I had a million emotions running through my body because,
- 22:52Speaker 3: you know, part of me was like I was thinking
- 22:54Speaker 3: about how much work it would be to create that
- 22:57Speaker 3: voice that I was hearing back. I'm like, man, that
- 22:59Speaker 3: would have taken like days in the studio and editing
- 23:02Speaker 3: and the processing and the mixing and everything. And they
- 23:05Speaker 3: just they literally it just comes right out of the
- 23:08Speaker 3: computer and it just sounds like I don't want to
- 23:10Speaker 3: say perfect, but it sounds damn good. I mean, it
- 23:13Speaker 3: sounds amazing, you know. And then that's with no processing
- 23:17Speaker 3: on top of it. You take that voice and then
- 23:21Speaker 3: put it through your regular paces, like once you get
- 23:23Speaker 3: it into pro tools, and then you do your add
- 23:25Speaker 3: your effects and your layers and your doubles and your
- 23:28Speaker 3: harmony stacks and your multiple layers of screams to make
- 23:31Speaker 3: it huge. I mean, oh my god, it's it's insane
- 23:34Speaker 3: what you can do with this thing. It's it's incredible
- 23:38Speaker 3: right not.
- 23:38Speaker 1: Now, but paper like me again, that died really nice.
- 23:41Speaker 1: You much about this, mate. There's a couple of videos
- 23:44Speaker 1: out there that people can watch on there. I'll publish
- 23:46Speaker 1: them with this articles so people can get hold of them.
- 23:48Speaker 1: But there's there are a couple of videos out there
- 23:50Speaker 1: on you Tube.
- 23:52Speaker 3: Yeah. So they put out the first showcase video I
- 23:55Speaker 3: think about I don't know, three weeks ago, and then
- 23:57Speaker 3: they just put one out about a week or so.
- 24:00Speaker 3: The first one's called Before the Quiet, and that one
- 24:03Speaker 3: was done by Unit zero. He's awesome. He did such
- 24:06Speaker 3: a great job. I love that song. I've listened to
- 24:08Speaker 3: it like NonStop, and that's the very first song that
- 24:12Speaker 3: I heard with my voice on it. And then the
- 24:14Speaker 3: second one they put out it's called No Reason and
- 24:18Speaker 3: a producer by the name of Benji I'm not sure
- 24:21Speaker 3: if his last name, but super talented guy, and he
- 24:24Speaker 3: made a really cool modern rock track and I love
- 24:27Speaker 3: that song too. And then they did like a fifteen
- 24:31Speaker 3: minute in depth demonstration where they actually open up the
- 24:35Speaker 3: software and they go through and they just play it
- 24:39Speaker 3: raw right out of the software, so you can kind
- 24:42Speaker 3: of you can hear all of the defects. Like I mean,
- 24:45Speaker 3: this thing isn't perfect. It's like it's a you have
- 24:49Speaker 3: to work with it to get it to do what
- 24:51Speaker 3: you want. But in its deep out setting, it just
- 24:53Speaker 3: sounds like me. It's like if you asked me to
- 24:56Speaker 3: come in the studio and say, hey, Sean, can you
- 24:58Speaker 3: like lay a vocal track on this? And I just
- 25:00Speaker 3: started singing in my default voice. That's what this thing does.
- 25:03Speaker 3: But you can take all the parameters and just tweak
- 25:07Speaker 3: them way this way or way that way and get
- 25:10Speaker 3: it to do like crazy things, like things that I've
- 25:13Speaker 3: never even tried to do with my own voice, you know.
- 25:15Speaker 3: So it really is just it's a vast instrument and
- 25:20Speaker 3: it's super like yeah, powerful and variable, and you can
- 25:26Speaker 3: tweak it to make it sound exactly like what you
- 25:28Speaker 3: want it to do for whatever it is that you're
- 25:30Speaker 3: working on.
- 25:31Speaker 2: What was that website again? If PEP want to go
- 25:33Speaker 2: and check it.
- 25:33Speaker 3: Out, Yeah, so eclipsed sounds dot com. That's where you
- 25:40Speaker 3: find havoc and you can get all the information on
- 25:43Speaker 3: not just Havoc, but all their other voices as well.
- 25:45Speaker 3: They've got a selection of other voices that they've done.
- 25:48Speaker 3: And then Synthesizer V Studio two is at Dreamtonics dot
- 25:54Speaker 3: com and dream Tonics has their own store. They've got
- 25:57Speaker 3: all their own voices as well. And yeah, it's all
- 26:02Speaker 3: very exciting stuff. It's a little overwhelming at first because
- 26:05Speaker 3: you're like, wait, what is this? But I mean for me,
- 26:08Speaker 3: it was really easy. Like I just downloaded Synthesizer V,
- 26:12Speaker 3: installed it into my computer and then it installs as
- 26:15Speaker 3: a plug in and I use pro Tools, so I
- 26:17Speaker 3: just open it up right in Pro Tools and once
- 26:19Speaker 3: it opens up, you just load the voice bank and boom,
- 26:22Speaker 3: that's it. You just start playing your notes in typing
- 26:26Speaker 3: in your lyrics and it starts singing for you. It's
- 26:28Speaker 3: really that easy. And if you don't have Pro Tools
- 26:32Speaker 3: and you just want to use Synthesizer V, it's also
- 26:35Speaker 3: a standalone program. So let's just say that, like you're
- 26:39Speaker 3: an instrumentalist and you recorded yourself playing some music, you
- 26:44Speaker 3: just could load your music into Synthesizer V and then
- 26:47Speaker 3: program vocals right over that in Synthesizer V and all
- 26:52Speaker 3: the information is available on their website. It clips Sounds
- 26:56Speaker 3: is one of the leading voice developers for Synthesizer V,
- 27:01Speaker 3: and there are others as well. It's it's it's a
- 27:04Speaker 3: very robust, uh little ecosphere of developers and creators and yeah,
- 27:10Speaker 3: I'm just I'm really excited and proud to be a
- 27:13Speaker 3: part of it. It's it's a really neat world to
- 27:16Speaker 3: be learning about.
- 27:18Speaker 2: Fantastic rob Thanks for you talking about right, it does
- 27:21Speaker 2: say like a bloody good thing.
- 27:22Speaker 1: Like I say, I initially had to be a skepticism,
- 27:24Speaker 1: but you pretty much laid all of my feast. I
- 27:27Speaker 1: best of luck with it. It is cold and hopefully
- 27:31Speaker 1: we'll be here in your voice a lot more in
- 27:33Speaker 1: the future of guessing.
- 27:34Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate that, man, And I want to say
- 27:37Speaker 3: one more thing. You know that this this thing, it
- 27:40Speaker 3: really comes to life with the people who use it.
- 27:42Speaker 3: You know. It's like it's a weird situation for me
- 27:45Speaker 3: because it's like I'm putting my voice out into the
- 27:48Speaker 3: world for other people to use it and see what
- 27:52Speaker 3: they will do with it, you know. So I hope
- 27:56Speaker 3: that it gives people, you know, a way to find
- 27:59Speaker 3: their voice my voice, if that makes sense. It's it's
- 28:02Speaker 3: kind of like a whole nother layer of sharing, you know.
- 28:05Speaker 3: It's like and there's a whole community that gets built
- 28:08Speaker 3: around it. And then all of the voice, all of
- 28:10Speaker 3: the songs that are made with the voice, you know,
- 28:12Speaker 3: there are people out there that that seek it out
- 28:14Speaker 3: and they want to hear like I want, I want
- 28:16Speaker 3: to hear like what you know, what's happening with with havoc.
- 28:20Speaker 3: You know, So if somebody goes out and downloads it
- 28:22Speaker 3: and makes a song with it, there's an audience out
- 28:24Speaker 3: there that they want to hear what you did with it.
- 28:26Speaker 3: So that's another cool element to it. And I guess
- 28:30Speaker 3: the last thing is that it also does six languages.
- 28:34Speaker 3: So we're saving the zinger for the end of the
- 28:38Speaker 3: interview here, but I mean, it's it's pretty crazy, uh
- 28:43Speaker 3: to hear my voice and it has me singing in Spanish,
- 28:46Speaker 3: and it's also capable of doing Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, and
- 28:54Speaker 3: there's another one in there too, Mandarin. Yeah, so Japanese, Spanish, Cantonese,
- 28:59Speaker 3: Mandarin and Korean. So it's it's like cross cultural. You know,
- 29:05Speaker 3: it's going to break language barriers and it's just it's
- 29:08Speaker 3: gonna be really interesting to see what happens here because
- 29:11Speaker 3: it's it's like nothing we've ever seen before.