How does he sing this seamless....

[JackCee]

Hey guys I'm sure you're absolutely sick of hearing this song but even though I have a lot of good exercises and I do my sirens and staccatos still I am nowhere near this seamless. I feel almost ashamed of my less abilities and sometimes believe I will never be able to sing like this. The korean k-pop stars take training very serious and sometimes do not debut their students for many years. How is it possible for him to sing like this seamlessly without barely any audible break? 
 

[Danielformica]

nice auto tuning

[Felipe Carvalho]

Jesus...

[Owen Korzec]

my thoughts:

-He's staying in his full voice or "M1" the entire time and only shifting resonances. So there are no transitions to "seam" at the fold level (which is more difficult to manage and where more drastic breaks happen) it's mostly just keeping the right throat shapes, getting his to resonance to shift seamlessly...and the folds are never letting go into a new mechanism, only "thinning out" or "tilting" maybe. This is the most important point and what anyone can learn

The rest is specific to him:

-He has a naturally high voice so this staying in M1 approach and only shifting resonance is easier and more intuitive to him.

-Korean is a very musical, sing-songy language where specific variations of pitch are required to convey different meaning, so this guy probably developed an auxillary level of "vocal training" very early in life just from learning his language, and then speaking that every day...can you imagine how early on his vocal control develops?

[JackCee]

It could be some help from autotune here is an older clip of him singing. Very soft speaking voice and here also there looks to be some differences in his technique. He has a more obvious falsetto, some flips in his voice, he definitely is not a freak. ​He learned and improved big time.

.

[Robert Lunte]

Ya, it has tuning on it... but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a nice voice. The thing with auto tuning for a singer like this is... just do it over until you don't need it. If your capable, just hack on it until you can clean up the few spots that sound weird.

Also, I have noticed two things when in the studio:

1). Other effects can sometimes be misunderstood to be auto-tuning when its not... such as doubling and other phasing effects.

2). There are times when my producer/engineer from Synergy Studios (this is where Heart records, Candle Box, QR has been there a few times, other Seattle bands...), and I are listening back to my vocal tracks and it has a hint of tuning vibe to it, but it isn't tuned at all. There are certain sound colors that the voice can make in some peoples voices that can create that kind of vibe for a split second. It seems to happen on "oo"ish formants.

On this recent recording at around :50-ish... at "... who would point the finger at us"...  it can pull your ear for a moment... but that is not tuned. It is just weird phenomenon play between the recording technology and the singing formants/vowels. I'll be curious to see if the mastering process that is happening now, will change that. In any case, it doesn't bother me, I couldn't care less... but I thought it was interesting to point out.

Maybe some of you engineer types have experienced this before? My producer/engineer friend who has been mixing professionally for 20 years says he hears this from time to time in certain voices... 

But the fella in the above video is definitely tuning and should probably take another shot at it... clearly he has a nice voice, not sure why he he is using all that sauce if he doesn't need to... Although, this sound is actually trendy and some people WANT that "pitch shifting" vibe... we have all heard a LOT of music on the radio these days that uses this as something that is intentional. I hate it, ... unless Im at some rave dance hall and the music is electronica. 

[Owen Korzec]

My personal opinion on the tuning stuff...I think there are a lot of lies going around. The main one is producers tuning singers at their own discretion or in secret and saying nothing about it or denying it. When I used to go on recording forums I would see them admit this stuff all the time. So a lot of times when singers find themselves having to deny tuning on their track it's not their own fault.

I have heard a lot of my local friends who would never ask for autotune, they release their record, poof it's all tuned and it sounds nothing like them. Producers do it behind singers' backs and I think that's just a reality in this day and age.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who hears it clear as a bell...it's very obvious to my ears even in subtle uses.

Like Rob said there is the possibility for some split moments to sound tuned - I heard a singer sound tuned in an unplugged ustream video once for two notes, and some people develop a style that mimics autotune, but it isn't going to result in a song with every pitch 100% spot on, squashed vibrato, and the robotic formant sound...that is what I always hear first, there is a "sound" and it is different than just a tuned formant. Similar, but different. It's a LOCKED sound that's the best I can describe it and it's consistency through 100% of a song is a big giveaway, another clear giveaway is the sound of locked vibrato where you hear the vibrato fluttering through the pitch correction snapping it to one pitch or a vibrato that sounds mechanically produced, also when you can hear no human wavering of notes anywhere in the song at all...the list goes on and on...the artifacts are obvious folks, trust your ears.

[Owen Korzec]

it's funny JackKee, in that second video his pitch is actually pretty bad...incredible performance otherwise though. That's rare for a guy who's missing pitches so i wonder if bad monitoring or acoustics screwed him up on that gig

[Robert Lunte]

... also, people have very different levels of sensitivity in hearing this stuff. Owen, I think your ears are more sensitive to it then average.

[Jens]

He's from Korea, those guys sing from When they where very small entire families go out on karaoke just for fun etc a diffrent culture. Also i belive their language and speech habits line up well for highnotes, heck it's not uncommon in korea youll year tons of ppl singing steelheart and loads of other highpitch stuff

[Robert Lunte]

i belive their language and speech habits line up well for highnotes, heck it's not uncommon in korea youll year tons of ppl singing steelheart and loads of other highpitch stuff

Yes,... Koreans are typically great singers. Their language and culture sets them up nicely for it. 

[D.Starr]

Sing more. I've found more progress from just singing more.

Just because you do your exercises doesn't me you're gonna be able to smash out an A4 seamlessly, it's a different task. Other things get in the weigh, timing, breathing, other vowels and consonants.

 

[Robert Lunte]

Sing more. I've found more progress from just singing more.

Just because you do your exercises doesn't me you're gonna be able to smash out an A4 seamlessly, it's a different task. Other things get in the weigh, timing, breathing, other vowels and consonants.

 

​Yes... Hey Jordan I went out to your soundcloud station... cool music. 

[D.Starr]

Sing more. I've found more progress from just singing more.

Just because you do your exercises doesn't me you're gonna be able to smash out an A4 seamlessly, it's a different task. Other things get in the weigh, timing, breathing, other vowels and consonants.

 

​Yes... Hey Jordan I went out to your soundcloud station... cool music. 

​Thanks Rob

 

I'm hoping to work on more music this year 

[JackCee]

Here is another korean one, with much less special effects. Common thing I hear is a super amount of twang in both. Not sure why it is not embedding but I learned more from listening to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NiKdyv9hAw

 

 

[D.Starr]

Here's another one (inserts imaginary link)

There's a ton of things you don't know about the singer. Remember, we're all individual.

He's from Korea, those guys sing from When they where very small entire families go out on karaoke just for fun etc a diffrent culture. Also i belive their language and speech habits line up well for highnotes, heck it's not uncommon in korea youll year tons of ppl singing steelheart and loads of other highpitch stuff

​Pretty much what Jens said, plus he has a super light voice, that usually helps singing such songs and keeping connected. He could have been training meticulously for hours on end, day after day, month after month. Koreans are very disciplined.

You have to find what works for YOU, don't look at others and how they do it. I stopped doing that and started singing how I sing and what my voice wants to do in certain areas. You could post videos of the song all the live long day and decipher little bits throughout. Until you start singing and messing around with certain bits in your voice, you're still on square one.

Start and sing more, warm up with vocal exercises for an hour and sing all the songs you wish to sing. Go through them a line at a time and iron out the kinks.

 

EDIT:

Something that you also need to take into consideration is that the videos you are watching are not live videos, they're pre recorded vocals that he is miming too most likely. It's easy to mask different takes like that, I know I've definitely dropped in on more than a couple of lines when I've recorded in the studio.

[JackCee]

It is interesting to hear both singers attempt the song, the first singer seems to be in pure m1. Whereas the 2nd singer you can hear he may be in a controlled m2. For me and probably most people it is the A4 in the song where the trouble comes.

[Elvis]

No auto tune here... Listen to this cover.. awesome 

 

 

[D.Starr]

Elvis, how do you know there is no auto tune on his voice? Auto tune can be very subtle.

Again, it's processed vocals then recorded visuals.

Most engineered vocals have a subtle form of auto tune.

[JackCee]

Will Shaw is an absolute beast... no autotune needed at all. This is him singing 7 years ago sitting in a car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3zQz34KOw4. Thanks for sharing Elvis, Will Shaw version is inspiring to say the least. 

[Elvis]

D starr. im very familiar woth will shaw and even if he did tune it there was really no need. check his new sails of charon cover and youll see what i mean

[D.Starr]

His high notes were clear on the Video JackCee posted but his lower notes really weren't.

Many singers don't need auto tune but it's still used even subtly. 

People want a crystal clear experience when they listen to tracks. Live settings are different.

[Rotlung]

I really like Will Shaw. That said, his videos are often of an amateur-ish production. I'm not surprised if he doesn't bother much with things like autotune, not simply because he probably doesn't need it, but because he can't be bothered to.

[Elvis]

I really like Will Shaw. That said, his videos are often of an amateur-ish production. I'm not surprised if he doesn't bother much with things like autotune, not simply because he probably doesn't need it, but because he can't be bothered to.

​agreed