A Virtual Castrato (!?)

Philippe Depalle (1) , Guillermo Garcia (1) , Xavier Rodet (1)

1 Analyse et synthèse sonores [Paris]

In this paper we present an original research work culminating in the high quality production of thirty-nine minutes of castrato voice, by the means of sound analysis, processing and synthesis. The goal of the project is the creation of a soundtrack for a film about a famous eighteenth century castrato. Two complementary voices - a coloratura-soprano and a counter-tenor - are used to cover the entire range and compensate for technical difficulties. Then their timbres are homogenised by using combined techniques such as phase-vocoding, additive analysis/synthesis and spectral envelope and pitch estimation.

Mots clés: analyse et synthèse sonores; castrato voice; phase-vocoding; pitch estimation; spectral envelope

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]; Neurosciences

Philippe Depalle, Guillermo Garcia, Xavier Rodet. A Virtual Castrato (!?). ICMC: International Computer Music Conference, 1994, Aarhus, Denmark. pp.357-360. ⟨hal-01105432⟩