Comments on: mermaid and prince, simultaneously

mermaid and prince, simultaneously

nickyskye — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:25:27 -0800

Part of your world, the Little Mermaid's song, sung amazingly by a man.

goonieman86 sings both boy and girl parts as well in his version of A Whole New World from Disney's Aladdin. The boy's part up till 1 minute and then shifting into falsetto and doing the girl's part. Nick Pitera's blog. Seems he's a talented cartoonist as well.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:31:23 -0800

Click here, in case you want to vote for him in the contest ending tomorrow; the prize.

By: rbs

rbs — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:33:49 -0800

pro tools?

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:34:57 -0800

Protools? I could do it in cooledit.

By: bz

bz — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:39:42 -0800

No workstation tools needed. After all, it's just a straight recording.

By: itchylick

itchylick — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:41:31 -0800

pro tools? Do you have a point to make?

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:42:17 -0800

Damn. Just damn. Wow. Your post title references Prince, who of course has a killing falsetto, but what strikes me about this fellow is not simply the falsetto but the very feminine quality his voice has. He really does sound like a woman. Uncanny. It's a bit hard to believe, actually, and my first impression was that this is a lip-sync, but there are those men out there with a truly "womanly" voice, and this guy appears to be one of them.

By: bz

bz — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:44:37 -0800

If this is lip sync it is the best, most perfect lip sync I've ever seen. Period.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:46:00 -0800

Just clicked on his blog page that you linked to, though, which features "in progress Lip Sync stills", so... hmmm...

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:47:22 -0800

I'm with you on that, bz. That would, for me as well, constitute the BEST LIP-SYNC EVARRRR, if it's in fact a lip-sync.

By: Pants!

Pants! — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:47:46 -0800

I love countertenors.

By: cogneuro

cogneuro — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:47:58 -0800

countertenor. This one was better (previously).

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:51:39 -0800

er... related.

By: HotPatatta

HotPatatta — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:53:14 -0800

His "manly" singing voice is just as good. He sings the male and female parts of another song here.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:53:42 -0800

pff, this guy and Nomi aren't even in the same universe. But yeah, I think his overdone delivery is pretty annoying.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:56:12 -0800

But yeah, I think his overdone delivery is pretty annoying. But AV, that's what the American Idol generation needs!

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:59:41 -0800

flapjax, I don't think it is a lip sync for a few reasons: He's posted his Youtube video to a BroadwayWorld.com contest, "Give Us Your Voice" There's the additional video of him singing A Whole New World on his Youtube page (my second link) and another video of him with just sound, singing harmony with himself, Someday. His animations would need lip syncing but that doesn't mean his singing is lip syncing. And lastly, he names himself before he sings, Nick Pitera. Doesn't seem like something a hoaxer would do. But who knows? I think it's legit.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:01:28 -0800

I think it's legit.

By: i less than three nsima

i less than three nsima — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:05:38 -0800

I'll give it to the guy that he certainly can sing, but I was thrown off by his random transitions between soft, whispery falsetto voice and the belting it on broadway voice. That is a nice transition on the ears when it makes sense emotionally or musically in the piece. With this guy, more often than not it seems like he just can't hold one voice, and so slips into the other, sometimes halfway through a word.

By: pokermonk

pokermonk — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:10:04 -0800

He's a human lyre bird.

By: empyrean

empyrean — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:11:39 -0800

Nice. He should try out This Woman's Work a la Maxwell, via Kate Bush.

By: Memo

Memo — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:18:32 -0800

In the A Whole New World song his female voice seems to crack a little, adding to the veracity of his abilities.

By: cogneuro

cogneuro — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:32:59 -0800

That bird was lip syncing.

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:33:10 -0800

Somewhat related to mer-people and high voices, check out Vitas, mentioned here - Voice of Vitas - a few months ago in a similar thread.

By: cmgonzalez

cmgonzalez — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:36:39 -0800

I almost posted this this afternoon, then thought it wouldn't be interesting enough for a FPP. Heh. That said, this guy has talent. An unusual talent, but talent. I prefer his masculine singing voice though, not because it's more expected, but because it just sounds nice.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:38:48 -0800

That bird was ~~lip~~ beak syncing.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:41:17 -0800

beak syncing. ha!

By: phaedon

phaedon — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:56:10 -0800

What an amazing talent. I mean, don't get me wrong, maybe if he picked another song, I'd feel different. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much football I watch, how much beer I drink, or how loud I fart in public - I'll always have a soft spot for The Little Mermaid. (If you're in your late twenties, you know what the fuck I'm talking about.)

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:00:47 -0800

Did anybody else detect a relentless, and hilarious, note of satire in this? Not only did he perfectly impersonate every saccharine, cloying turn of phrase favored by contemporary singing, but he took them to school. When he dropped into his nature pleasing voice for the spoken word parts, it killed.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:03:35 -0800

AZ nails it!

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:07:22 -0800

phaedon, man, I love your cojones for saying that. And AZ, I totally agree with you about the satirical mischief. I was wondering if Disney or Broadway picked this guy up how the hell are they going to put his talent to use? Like maybe the multiple personality disordered Genie in Aladdin, played by Robin Williams? Somebody would have to create a role for this guy. But what role? ps pants, thanks for the new vocab. Never heard of the word countertenor before and have been enjoying listening to Russell Oberlin's Bach Cantata No. 54 on YouTube. Bliss. The YT vid of Flammende Rose by Handel sung by countertenor Ian Howell is so beautiful it made me cry.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:08:51 -0800

beak syncing. ha! Yeah, I thought I'd actually come up with something original there with that quip, but of course a quick googling disavowed me of such illusions.

By: Rubbstone

Rubbstone — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:09:53 -0800

This version of Ursula is pretty damn cool.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:10:15 -0800

isn't this great? a perfect say to be at sea. the salt sea air, the wind blowing in your face? a perfect day to be at se. ah yes, delightful. a fine stong wind and a following sea - king triton must be in a friendly type mood! king triton? ruler of the merfolk young lad, thought every good sailor knew about him. eric, pay no attention to this nautical nonsense. taint nonsense, it's the truth! i'm tellin ya down in the depths of the ocean they live alone! Yeah more than a soft spot, I have the whole thing committed to memory. My rendtion of the scene where Triton smashed up her grotto is wrenching.

By: argybarg

argybarg — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:15:14 -0800

My favorite version of this song comes from Negativland by way of a mole Disney animator.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:16:52 -0800

It's like the evil-universe Nancy Cartwright.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:27:36 -0800

nature pleasing voice What the fuck did I just say? Of course, I meant "natural speaking" voice. But now I desperately want to hear a nature pleasing voice.

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:28:10 -0800

Oh, and there's this one, which has also been here before.

By: sdrawkcab

sdrawkcab — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:28:28 -0800

Am I the only one reminded of This American Life's Greatest Phone Message of All Time?

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:29:38 -0800

He's bloody good.. but he's no Joey Arias.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:41:53 -0800

He simply has a voice with an incredible range of octaves. He hits those notes naturally without going into a falsetto. He has natural talent but the vocal cords are muscles and he could very well have simply worked hard and practiced enough to expand his range and overcome notes his voice might've broken on before. I have a wide range, but I know that when I'm singing and practicing a lot, I am able to hit things easily that I may have struggle through before. The muscles get stronger and the voice expands. It looks like a girl from Irvine is currently beating him. She has over 13,000 votes. It's a tough call because his voice is clearly more trained and he sustains the notes much, much better than she does. She doesn't use her breath enough, she lets all of her notes drop away far too soon for a Broadway tune. But she is better at the conversational aspects of the song. And she's not singing in a studio, she's just webcamming it. And she's cute. He's awfully talented though. So I hope someone important notices him and he gets something out of this if he doesn't win.

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:05:38 -0800

There's different amounts of reverb on the "female" singing voice and his spoken word parts. If it's his voice at all, he's lip syncing to himself in the vocal booth. Fake.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:09:25 -0800

I find that hard to believe. Frankly, when you're paying for studio time and an engineer cueing up backing tracks, you don't lip sync. To lip sync he could've just done a web cam like everyone else.

By: empath

empath — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:19:55 -0800

If it was done in a soundproofed studio, there shouldn't be reverb at all. That's known as a 'dry' vocal. If it has reverb at all, it had to have been added at post.

By: kdern

kdern — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:28:19 -0800

I believe it's real... and cheesy. But he's definitely VERY talented.

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:33:08 -0800

Hard to believe? There is most definitely reverb on the female vocal track, and his spoken intro (and also the spoken line in the song, although it's harder to tell there because of the music surrounding it) is dry. I could be wrong, but I still think that if that's his voice doing the female singing, the video clip shows him lip syncing to a recording of himself singing.

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:37:53 -0800

Where's Clay Aiken's version?

By: empath

empath — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:41:59 -0800

wierd. he had 3,000 more votes an hour or so ago, when the link hit digg.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:54:27 -0800

Yeah, he had like 13k votes when I voted. Weird.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:09:09 -0800

If it was done in a soundproofed studio, there shouldn't be reverb at all. That's known as a 'dry' vocal. If it has reverb at all, it had to have been added at post. That is correct. Actually, if you just used the video camera's sound feed, there would've been no music since that's what the headset is for. So what I believe is that he recorded it in one take (I have done this many times, so don't tell me it can't be done. He's clearly trained well enough to knock out one good take.) and then had the final song put into the track for the video. Just like a regular music video. This is not uncommon. If I was going to make a video of myself singing jazz while recording in studio, that's exactly what I'd do too... if a nice studio version of the take was available of course I'd want that to be what people heard with the video instead of tinny in-studio acapella. The guy did a professional job is all, he's obviously coming from a different place musically than the girls who are singing into webcams in their bedrooms. Does that mean his singing is fake? Of course not.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:12:32 -0800

Actually, one thing would make what I just said different. If they were shooting the video from the engineer's sound booth. You can hear everything in there, and they can add reverb on the spot.

By: Brainy

Brainy — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:27:19 -0800

There would be ways to have the live feed from the mixing booth back into the camera's microphone feed so I really don't think reverb is proof of lip synching. Quite a talent, this guy. I love is whole new world duet.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:36:45 -0800

Mannered, and the pitch is not always quite certain, but a damn good set of pipes.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:38:14 -0800

the reverb is only changing in ways that could be followed by the sound engineers, right? then nbd, they're pulling takes.

By: mexican

mexican — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:32:57 -0800

Seems real enough to me, but I thought it was a little strange that his girl voice was in much better tune than his man voice range. His timing was also different between the two voices for the Aladdin song. He was way behind the beat for the boy part while his girl part was a little in front. Maybe he just doesn't practice singing in a normal range?

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:00:16 -0800

If it was done in a soundproofed studio, there shouldn't be reverb at all. I don't understand this. You can run a mic into a reverb unit and have it go out into another track so that you can have a dry and wet vocal. Or, as it seems here, you can run it out as wet and have reverbed vocals, even in a soundproof vocal booth. You can also, on a lot of digital reverb units, use a gate to deaden it. I'm not picking on empath, since there are several others who have brought it up, I'm just wondering why it would have to be done in post. And if it was done in post production, does that make it less real? From what I've heard, he goes off pitch enough times that if they were pulling in different takes, wouldn't they have fixed that as well? Thanks for posting this, nickyskye. I don't know that I've ever actually seen The Little Mermaid, but that's a pretty great vocal track.

By: empath

empath — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:05:24 -0800

yeah, i didn't mean post-production really, just the reverb had to have come from an effect, not the room itself.

By: pokermonk

pokermonk — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:22:46 -0800

I will bet you thirty dollars that the reverb doesn't change between the singing and speaking.

By: pokermonk

pokermonk — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:25:57 -0800

(that is, the setting has not been altered.)

By: Ljubljana

Ljubljana — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:35:55 -0800

By: grouse

grouse — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 02:10:35 -0800

See also: Castrati. DO NOT WANT

By: ArmyOfKittens

ArmyOfKittens — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 02:46:51 -0800

This was really good, thanks. Put me in the "I believe" camp. When I was training my voice* there was a time when I had access to a similar range without falsetto (although not with his skill; years of smoking and neglect stuffed up my original classical training); these days the lower range has atrophied because I don't use it any more. *I promise that I will one day post in a thread without making my comment somehow related to trans crap :p Regarding reverb/notreverb, couldn't he just have asked the mixdesk gnome to fade in a bit of processing for whichever range he thought was his weaker? (IANAMDG)

By: ludwig_van

ludwig_van — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:54:54 -0800

yeah, i didn't mean post-production really, just the reverb had to have come from an effect, not the room itself. Why would you think this needed pointing out? Obviously the sound we're hearing in the video is not being captured inside the vocal booth, considering it has a backing track in it. There's nothing about this that seems fake. Anyway, his singing is good, but as mentioned above his dynamics are problematic. More compression might've helped, but his tone changes a lot along with his volume.

By: schroedinger

schroedinger — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:00:49 -0800

Am I the only one who freaked the fuck out on closing their browser as soon as they figured out that was him singing?

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:09:51 -0800

dobbs, Thanks for pointing out the weirdness of the points thing. when I voted it was above 11,000 and then dropped suddenly to 9000 something. Huh. Wonder if they took their cue from the Presidential election voting system Hanging chads notwithstanding, I really wish Nick a lot of success. His singing is surreal. I love the way his flexible voice goes from whispery to opening up into Broadway depth and bigness. Unlike all the other singers mentioned in this thread, most of whom have a sort of trick pony style, Nick's changes into the higher or lower range are very versatile and don't sound strained at all. Like Pants! said, I think this guy is a true countertenor. He's handsome too. *sigh

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:11:13 -0800

*one trick pony style

By: LMGM

LMGM — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:01:53 -0800

I knew a guy when I was in undergrad at IU that had a non-falsetto range that was close to a female alto's (along with a very long falsetto range). However, his voice was reedy and glassy, whereas this guy's sound is very realistically "female." I'm particularly impressed with how he occasionally breaks into what sounds like a female "belt" stage style. I've done lots of countertenor stuff in my time, and I can assure you that that sound is nearly impossible to do for a (normal) guy.

By: LMGM

LMGM — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:02:15 -0800

(...to the extent that I could be considered normal.) not much

By: empath

empath — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:35:33 -0800

There's nothing about this that seems fake. I didn't say it was. Someone said the reverb changed, and I just pointed out, that if there is reverb, it had to have been added afterwards, regardless, so it doesn't matter.

By: ludwig_van

ludwig_van — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:47:22 -0800

I'm just saying that pointing out that the reverb wasn't an acoustical property of the vocal booth is like saying that the actor playing Superman can't actually fly. The audio was obviously coming from the mixing desk and not from the vocal booth. And no, it doesn't have to be added afterwards. It could've been recorded with reverb in real time.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:32:56 -0800

A CD for this guy, one man a capella group?

By: bove

bove — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:40:19 -0800

empyrean: "Nice. He should try out This Woman's Work a la Maxwell , via Kate Bush." empyrean, I just wanted to thank you for posting this. I hadn't thought of this song for a long time and Maxwell's version is awesome.

By: rossination

rossination — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:20:32 -0800

This seems entirely legit. I'm not a good singer by any means, but I sang quite a bit when I was a boy alto, and by now I'm a baritone with a very well-developed falsetto. My "chest voice" range is extremely limited (probably from about G at the bottom of the bass clef staff to G or A above it), but my falsetto -- which sounds like a weak little boy -- goes up almost two octaves higher. When this guy sings the girl parts, it's breathy in spots, which I think is a tell-tale sign of the falsetto. When he "sweetens" the ends of the girl phrases with a little Shania Twain-esque vibrato, this breathiness goes away since he's using more of a "mixed" chest-head voice. At any rate, it's really cool. The guy's got chops.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:12:15 -0800

it's breathy in spots, which I think is a tell-tale sign of the falsetto. When he "sweetens" the ends of the girl phrases with a little Shania Twain-esque vibrato, this breathiness goes away since he's using more of a "mixed" chest-head voice. Sounds like a reasonable description. As of this morning: Nick P - Sarasota, FL Votes: 15924 Jennifer C Irvine, CA - Part of Your World Votes: 14711