New Vocal Effect in Sing! Karaoke on iOS!
Photo by David Wakely.
Weโve been working with the San Francisco Opera over the last two years to bring songs from their productions like The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville to the Smule Songbook and SF Opera artist performances to the Smule platform (user โsfoperaโ). Now, weโd like to give you a taste of what it feels like to sing on stage at the San Francisco Operaโs War Memorial Opera House with the introduction of the โSF Operaโ vocal effect in Sing! Karaoke on iOS.
The โSF Operaโ effect adds reverb to your voice using a process called โconvolutionโ where carefully recorded sounds in the War Memorial Opera House (called impulse responses) are blended together with the sound of your voice in real time using the power of math and a little magic, to place your voice acoustically center stage in the Opera House!
Photo by David Wakely.
Some of the folks from Smule had the pleasure this summer to go on a field trip to the War Memorial Opera House where we recorded hundreds of balloon pops and sine sweeps made on the stage with microphones placed all over the opera house, from the Orchestra level all the way to the far reaches of the upper Balcony. Each one of these recordings captures the way that the War Memorial Opera House reverberates at different sound frequencies from a sound source on stage to listenersโ ears at the locations in the opera house where we recorded. Every hall sounds different and we spent hours combing through and editing these recordings to give the โSF Operaโ effect just the right sound to place you on stage with the San Francisco Opera!
You may have already heard the effect in action since we used it when creating the backing tracks to our most recent batch of songs from the San Francisco Operaโs productions of The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville. You will also have heard it in the SF Operaโs artist performances of the โPapageno-Papagena Duet” from The Magic Flute by W. A. Mozart, featuring featuring Efraรญn Solรญsas Papageno, and Maria Valdez as Papagena.
You can join Efraรญnย here, and Maria here, and put your opera chops to the test! Youโll can find the โSF Operaโ effect nestled snugly between โIndieโ and โDouble Youโ on the Vocal Effects pane at the bottom of the singing screen in the newest version of Sing! Karaoke on iOS.
The โReverbโ slider controls how much of the opera hallโs unique acoustics you want to color the sound of your voice, and the โRoom Sizeโ slider controls the general spaciousness of the reverb.
Weโd recommend setting both to around 60% to start off and then play around with it from there to get the sound you like. Give it a try! The stage awaits!!!
Photo by David Wakely.