Burial Typical voices

[azarab]

what's up guys?! i would like to know how the typical burial's and troy gunner's acapellas and voices are produced.

what processes they have on?

vocoder? or just pitch work?

thanks a lot

bless!

[wub]

Burial vocals are sampled, then pitched up/down, then chopped up and dropped into the track. It's more of a mindset than a technique, so a lot of it is down to trial and error. If it helps, try listening to the original source material and see how he takes the samples and uses them;

sampled from

sampled from

sampled from

Those should give you a good starting block. Wikipedia has a section on Burial where it lists the samples used for the different tracks, if that helps - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untrue

Also, there is a Facebook group that is dedicated to finding samples from Burial tunes that will give you more video links - http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=1 ... topic=4729

In terms of workflow, try getting hold of a freeware editing program like Audacity, and just play around with vocals. Sample something, anything it really doesn't matter. Raid CD collections, use a YouTube ripping website, DVD speeches etc etc. Load the sample into your editor, pitch it down 100%, then 75%, then 50%. Bounce out the results. Load them into your DAW and chop them up as you would with a breakbeat. Make crazy patterns. Bounce them out. Add effects, reverb, distortion, sweeping filters whatever. Go mad with what you're doing. Save EVERYTHING.

Repeat until you get something you like the sound of, then try and build a track around it. When processing in this way, it's important (IMO, vital) that you let the vocal dictate the beat, not the beat dictate the vocal.

If you want to do any further reading;

How to make melodies with a vocal sample (Burial style) - http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=273580
burial - "etched headplate" - appreciation thread - http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.ph ... did=554401
Burial's Vocal samples? - http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=100844
Interview with Burial from The Wire magazine - http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/347/

Hope that helps a bit

[RandoRando]

qualitypost wub, how did you know where all those samples came from?

[zerbaman]

Listen to a variety of music?

But just work on elements like pitch and speed, cutting lines up, shuffling them, creating melodies with the samples

[paravrais]

This is something I've wanted to be able to do for ages but find really hard :\ I think not having a sampler with a pitch wheel on it apart from alchemy doesn't help. Obviously alchemy is boss but when I've already got so many instances of it running...

Gotta keep at it though, I'll get there!

[zerbaman]

This is something I've wanted to be able to do for ages but find really hard :\ I think not having a sampler with a pitch wheel on it apart from alchemy doesn't help. Obviously alchemy is boss but when I've already got so many instances of it running...

Gotta keep at it though, I'll get there!

What DAW are you using?

And can't you use the samples in midi? Just play them on lower notes?

[Cubicle]

qualitypost wub, how did you know where all those samples came from?

It's on the wikipedia link of Burial.