Alvin and the Chipmunks XMAS song reproduction

[Baderup99]

I have a client that wants to do a parody of one of the Alvin and the Chipmunk's Xmas songs, yet to their own words.

To produce this...

Is it merely just, a pitch changer, or is there more to it, to get that high pitched sound?

[markus enochson]

there is a behind the scenes done on it. pretty sure u can google it. but in short no, its not just a pitcher... the sing it very slowly to to get the crazy timing

[song-writer]

I actually did a parody on that very song back about 7 or 8 years ago. It was a lot of work to get the timing down right. I did it for work using various coworkers names and humorous lines about what they would want for Christmas (e.g. Andy wants a case of brew, etc.). Then I redid the lyrics and vocal track, making a separate version for my extended family using their names and what they would want for Christmas. It sounded pretty good and everyone liked it. However, I really couldn't get the accurate chipmunks sound, but did the best I could singing a crazy type of falsetto and using the pitch control. I did the recording on a Tascam 4 track cassette recorder. About a year ago I was doing some stuff on a digital Tascam 788 eight track and noticed they had some effects, one of which was entitled "chipmunks". As best as I recollect, it did produce a more authentic type chipmunks voicing, which I could employ if I ever decided to mess with it again - but been there, done that. I would guess the Tascam 2488 has the same effect, as well. I remember the end of the song being pretty difficult to get down timing wise, where David Seville and the 3 chipmunks are heavily bantering back and forth - but I got it down and it sounded real good. At least the drum track was about the simplest thing I have ever done.

[DesertDawg]

Originally Posted by Baderup99

Is it merely just, a pitch changer, or is there more to it, to get that high pitched sound?

I don't know if the voices are a full octave higher, but if they are, what you'd have to do in a DAW, essentially, is to record the instruments at 88.2k (or 96k), then playback at 44.1k (or 48k if you recorded at 96k, above), then record the vocal tracks at the lower samplerate/speed, then play back everything at the higher speed to mix. Again, not sure if it's a full octave difference on the Chipmunks stuff, so you might have to test it out first. If it's NOT a full octave difference, then you'd need tape for the right degree of varispeed to attain the same effect.

[tINY]

There is a vintage chipmunks sound from the 60's era chipmunks that is simply recording a vocal at a slower speed and then speeding up the tape decks for mixdown.

That sounds a lot different from the movie chipmunks of recent years. It sounds like a pitch shift/vocorder with some resonators and EQ.



-tINY

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by tINY

There is a vintage chipmunks sound from the 60's era chipmunks that is simply recording a vocal at a slower speed and then speeding up the tape decks for mixdown.

That sounds a lot different from the movie chipmunks of recent years. It sounds like a pitch shift/vocorder with some resonators and EQ.



-tINY

[doncaparker]

The original was definitely done by recording the accompaniment at one tape speed (like 30 ips), playing it back at a much lower tape speed (like 15 ips), and overdubbing the vocals during the slower playback. When the whole thing was played back at normal speed again, the voices were chipmunkized. Lots of novelty songs were done this way.

If you want to do it old school, find an old Teac quarter inch 4 track with 2 tape speeds. You can still do all the instruments on a DAW, then transfer them to a single mono track on the 4 track, overdub the vocals on the other 3 tracks on the 4 track (one each for Alvin, Simon and Theodore), then bounce them back over to the DAW at normal speed when you are done. The "human" voice can stay on the DAW the whole time.

Sounds like fun, actually.