WEBVTT

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I'd like you all

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to ask yourselves a question

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which you may never have
asked yourselves before:

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What is possible with the human voice?

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What is possible with the human voice?

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(Beatboxing)

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♪ Ooh baby ♪

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♪ baby ♪

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♪ baby ♪

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♪ baby ♪ (Baby crying)

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♪ baby ♪ (Baby crying)

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♪ baby ♪ (Cat meowing)

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(Dog barking)

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Yeah.

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(Applause)

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(Boomerang noises)

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It was coming straight for me.
I had to. It was, yeah.

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As you can probably well imagine,

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I was a strange child.

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(Laughter)

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Because the thing is,
I was constantly trying

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to extend my repertoire of noises to be

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the very maximum that it could be.

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I was constantly experimenting
with these noises.

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And I'm still on that mission.

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I'm still trying to find every noise

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that I can possibly make.

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And the thing is, I'm a bit
older and wiser now,

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and I know that there's some noises

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I'll never be able to make
because I'm hemmed in

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by my physical body,
and there's things it can't do.

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And there's things that no
one's voice can do.

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For example, no one can do
two notes at the same time.

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You can do two-tone singing,

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which monks can do, which is like...

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(Two-tone singing)

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But that's cheating.

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And it hurts your throat.

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So there's things you can't
do, and these limitations

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on the human voice have
always really annoyed me,

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because beatbox is the best way of getting

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musical ideas out of your head
and into the world,

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but they're sketches at best,

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which is what's annoyed me.

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If only, if only there was a way

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for these ideas to come out unimpeded

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by the restrictions
which my body gives it.

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So I've been working with these guys,

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and we've made a machine.

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We've made a system which is basically

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a live production machine,

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a real-time music production machine,

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and it enables me to, using
nothing but my voice,

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create music in real time
as I hear it in my head

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unimpeded by any physical restrictions

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that my body might place on me.

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And I'm going to show you what it can do.

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And before I start making noises with it,

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and using it to manipulate my voice,

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I want to reiterate that everything
that you're about to hear

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is being made by my voice.

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This system has --

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thank you, beautiful assistant --

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this system has no sounds in it itself

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until I start putting sounds in it,

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so there's no prerecorded
samples of any kind.

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So once this thing really gets going,

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and it really starts to mangle
the audio I'm putting into it,

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it becomes not obvious
that it is the human voice,

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but it is, so I'm going to take
you through it bit by bit

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and start nice and simple.

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So the polyphony problem:
I've only got one voice.

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How do I get around the problem

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of really wanting to have
as many different voices

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going on at the same time.

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The simplest way to do it
is something like this.

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(Beatboxing)

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By dancing. It's like this.

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(Music)

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Thanks.

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(Applause)

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So that's probably the easiest way.

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But if you want to do something
a little bit more immediate,

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something that you can't
achieve with live looping,

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there's other ways to layer your voice up.

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There's things like pitch-shifting,

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which are awesome,

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and I'm going to show you
now what that sounds like.

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So I'm going to start
another beat for you, like this.

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(Beatboxing)

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There's always got to be a bit
of a dance at the start,

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because it's just fun, so

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you can clap along if you want.

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You don't have to. It's fine.
Check it out.

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I'm going to lay down a bass sound now.

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(Music)

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And now, a rockabilly guitar.

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Which is nice. But what if I want
to make, say, a -- (Applause) --

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Thanks. What if I want
to make, say, a rock organ?

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Is that possible? Yes, it is,

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by recording myself like this.

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(Organ sound)

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And now I have that, I have that recorded.

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Assign it to a keyboard.

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(Music)

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So that's cool.

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(Applause)

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But what if I wanted to sound
like the whole of Pink Floyd?

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Impossible, you say. No.

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It is possible, and you
can do it very simply

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using this machine. It's really fantastic.
Check it out.

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(Music)

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So every noise you can
hear there is my voice.

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I didn't just trigger something
which sounds like that.

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There's no samples.
There's no synthesizers.

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That is literally all my voice
being manipulated,

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and when you get to that point,
you have to ask, don't you,

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what's the point?

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Why do this? (Laughter)

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Because it's cheaper than hiring
the whole of Pink Floyd,

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I suppose, is the easy answer.

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But in actual fact,
I haven't made this machine

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so that I can emulate
things that already exist.

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I've made this so that I can make

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any noise that I can imagine.

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So with your permission, I'm going to do

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some things that are in my mind,

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and I hope you enjoy them,

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because they're rather unusual,

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especially when you're
doing things which are

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as unusual as this, it
can be hard to believe

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that it is all my voice, you see.

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(Voice effects)

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(Music)

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Like this.

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(Music)

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So, loosely defined,

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that is what's possible
with the human voice.

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Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

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(Applause)