DJ Name Drop

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

DJ Name Drop

so nearly every time i go to a decent rap showcase or other hip-hop function (and even at electronica/mashup/etc. concerts) the DJ has a sweet sample (in a rather enthusiastic but deep booming voice) of his own name that he’ll drop once in a while, e.g. “DJ TECHNOLOGY!” or whatever

it almost always sounds like the same voice, and if you listen to hip hop mixtapes at all you know what i mean, usually cuz its really annoying to hear “MIXTRAP.COM!” or “THE EMPIRE!!!” every two seconds.

But i’m wondering if there’s a certain way to get a custom drop made well, or what the best way is to do it myself. So if you actually know what I’m talking about, lemme know if you have any ideas

2

its all about the FX for these, any voice can be made into just about any sound or tone, post a sample of the voice sound you want and I’ll see about how to make it.

3

there’s a lot of custom drop services out there. from there you can tweak them. but i made mine that i used in my hip hop mixes that i made on my mic, turned the key down, and added a nice delay and it worked pretty well.

4

Granular synthesis with vocals is a hell of a lot of fun, but i doubt that’s the sound your after :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: well maybe some pitch shifting which is very frequently used which is technically granular synthesis.

I don’t listen to much of this music at all(and nor do quite a few other people here) if you could post an audio example that would help alot with us helping you to achieve that sound :slight_smile:

5

try radiodaddy.com - Its a free forum that allows you to request voice actors to drop samples for you. People are pretty nice over there, just make sure you read the rules about about posting.

6

Just record your voice, drop the pitch, throw a touch of reverb on it and effect to taste. You can do this all in Traktor.

Hell, I’ll copy my own voice, run one through a BP filter, one through a HP filter, reverb one and pitch shift another, play with the pan, and just play them all out of sync while beatmashing on one. Heh

It’s kinda fun.

7

Wow that actually looks like a pretty good site. I’m almost scared to make a thread tho… too many rules! :eek:

Otherwise you can go on google and search for companies that will do vocal drops for you (for money, of course).

8

does anyone use an intro or outro with a voice talking? basicly to introduce yourself? i am thinking about making something like the intro of pendulum’s blood sugar for my own purpose and drop that at the start of the show.

anyone already made one on his own or uses a real cool sample that he can show, let me know!

9

Sorry to double post, but I registered with radiodaddy.com about an hour and a half ago, posted a request, and someone already did the vocal drop for me!

Highly recommended!

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here you go, this is the name guy that is used for dj name drops. $50.00 to make you own custom drop. I’ve been thinking about it for sometime now being that Im starting to play at clubs more, I want people to know who is in the mix…(sounds cheesy I know)

http://www.asoundimage.com/dj_drops.cfm

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http://barefiles.com/?id=3295

At the beginning of this set Excision has a wicked name drop.
I do believe he did this all on his own.
However for recording he does have access to a full sized professional studio as well some friends who work at the local radio station.

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@JeRK & Lambox-- yeah i came across radiodaddy yesterday on my travels through the interwebs, and it looked pretty solid. they seemed to be pushing donations/upgrading to paid memberships pretty hard, but i guess i might as well.

Lambox: what specific forum did you post in over there? im terrified of posting in the wrong one lest i get banhammered

13

If you’re really desperate, you could use microsoft sam. Obviously you can only do this on Windows machines though.

You can get him to say anything you want and is easily recordable with audacity. He sounds very “roboty” too.

You can access him, in the control panel, then accessabilty options I think. Just type in what you want him to say, and he’ll do so in a sort of weird jerky way.

14

You could also use (for the windows fellows) Fl.Studio which comes with a speech synthesizer. Loaded with various different voices, ability to set tempo and key, as well have the voice sing, whisper or speak whatever you type.

deadmau5 has used this to great effect in a few of his tracks.

For the mac users, I do not know if its still available, but does the text editor not have a Text to Speech option?

I do not use my Mac (my wife is on it more) as I have been a PC guy for sometime now and have not made any attempt to switch.

15

+1 @ FL Studio speech synthesiser & vocoder

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Another sweet effect to do is rather simple and I love it.

Take and make your phrase or whatever in the synthesizer, and set it to Giant male, monophonic, set the tempo and key to whatever you like.

then make the same phrase again using the female voice, monophonic as well, tempo and key the same.

Since FL slices this up for you into a Fl.Slicer, delete the Midi out of the sequencer and copy the midi in from the other so the words from both voices are speaking at the same time.

next set both voices to separate mixer channels but do not route them to the master.

instead with each voice set a chain up like this…

Male Voice
chan1 (voice in) → chan2 (panned hard right) + chan3 (panned hard left) → chan4 (voice bus)

Lower the volume of Chan2 to 50%

Female Voice
Chan5 (voice in) → chan6 (panned hard right) + chan7 (panned hard left) →
chan8 (voice bus)

lower the volume of chan7 to 50%

this will now give you two distinct voices but not make the mix sound lopsided by terminating either voice completely in either ear. (I monitor this effect using headphones)

if you plan on doing any effects on the voices (individual), do so in the “Voice in” channels) and any voice specific eq in the voice bus channels. This will help in the overall mix

then route chan 4 and 8 to Chan 9 (master bus) where you will do the over all effects and eqing to help what you just made sit into your mix.

if anyone has heard deadmau5’s Essential Mix from a bit back, you will hear this effect in his intro “welcome radio1 listeners where are here to talk about the cow. The cow has four sides..” as well another song of his with the vocal “Sometimes things get complicated”.

As well this can be applied to a recording of yourself and your sister, girlfriend, f__k buddy, or that sweet as chick you want from next door.

a little bit trickier since its a real recording, but then that’s why we made metronomes, have pitch and tempo correction software etc…

quick tip on recording voice at home… do so in a closet full of clothes if you do not have access to a sound damped booth, the bathroom if you want some real live reverb.

I would post a vid for this, but I have not found a good screen capture program as of yet, if you know of one, let me know and I will display the goods for all to enjoy

17

PS In the spirit of Midi control and the last comment. Since the Voice Synthesizer essentially becomes a Fl.Slicer, you can then use your Midi Keyboard, Trigger Finger or whatever you have to make up vocal chops.

Lets here what everyone has made! so post away!

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I appreciate you sharing that with us :slight_smile: Nice find !

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I posted in Non-Commercial Liners, Sweepers, and Intros. And actually since I posted my request this morning at about noon local time I’ve gotten three different drops from different people. Not a bad turn out for a half day, not to mention for free. I’m ecstatic!

20

feel like i’ll have to bump my question.