Strongly recommend this plugin. The formant pitch shifting is pretty much the only way I can get a good femme vocal recording from my testosterone laden cig-y vocal chords. The rest of the Soundtoys collection is pretty fantastic, but replacable. Alterboy is the only plugin I know of that lets you pitch shift the way it does.
There's actually a few formant shifting plugins but little alterboy is really nice and simple and highly recommended
My copy is torrented, which is why I can recommend it so freely.
Speaking of that, Izotope has a lot of plugins that can help with trans voices. Those are WAY more complicated than alterboy though so they're loaded suggestions
Reaper's built in ReaPitch will do formant shifting
And there's Auburn Sounds Graillon, which will do pitch/formant shifting and a lot more besides and has a free version!
I didn't know this, thank you for telling us! Last time I went really researching plug ins was quite a few years ago, so the landscape was a lot different. Graillon sounds pretty damn good, although I could never really get behind Reaper enough to use it :/
I pirate all my plugins so that's why I didn't consider pricing lol
Well if you're pirating them anyway -
I didn't recommend Waves Vocal Bender because their licensing model sucks and they're Israeli; it's the same thing as Alterboy but zero-latency so you can track with it. I actually like it better than Alterboy for that reason
Alterboy will do this yeah! Or as other commenters have mentioned, there are other formant shifting plugins, Alterboy is just the one I've been using for 4+ years. When I do vocal mixing, I often add it in small doses to already masc voices to add more grit. You also hear it a lot on Brent Faiyaz's vocals, his engineer LOVES formant shifting. You just pull the knobs down instead of up.
Basics of formant pitching so it makes sense why it's a big deal for trans people. Normal pitching is just slowing or speeding up a sound. I think this is why we see so many trans people in PC music and Hyperpop, the speed change pitching done out of necessity (aka dysphoria) from older musicians just became a defining part of the sound. Formant shifting takes the peak frequencies of the sound, the formant, and will adjust those to change the pitch instead. It can be used for a variety of different sound effects. The best example I can give for the masc-ification of Alterboy is Story of OJ by Jay Z where the formant shifting is used on the vocal sample to both raise and lower the pitch. The part where the sample says "black... is yellow" is a great use of making a femme performance more masc.
Switched to a Mac recently and I cannot find a working crack of the Soundtoys suite for it, I am devastated. Decapitator was one of my most used plugins...
Decapitator and Radiator are impossible to overrate. I torrent plugins, so this isn't an ad. Any recommendations I make, I just assume whoever I'm talking to will pirate it. Unless you're actually making money off your music, I feel like most audio companies would probably support piracy. Carnage pirated Sylenth, but there's a giant bump in searches for Sylenth after Carnage's video. Even though Carnage is a massive producer, his pirated copy still provided Decapitator has such a defined sound for a distortion plugin.
I can think of two pretty big songs where Decapitator and the Soundtoys suite define the entire sound of the track. These are two extremely controversial artists, but the instrumental is fucking insane. Piss On Your Grave by Travis Scott and Kanye West makes HEAVY use of the Soundtoys suite. The 808 is completely a Decapitator tone. The guitar was ran through Crystalizer for the lead sound when the hip-hop section starts. Radiator decays the guitar and drum intro. Also the ever classic izotope vinyl on the track, that's a completely free plugin at this point though. Another example like this is Heaven on Earth by Kid Cudi. The 808 is a defined Decapitator tone, while the sample is ran through Radiator.
I think I might have a magnet link for a MacOS torrent for it on a private tracker. Lemme check, if it's there I can send you an invite.
Awesome writeup. I knew the whole ST suite is used in loads of mainstream tracks, but I didn't know those specific examples. I've long had the feeling that 10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄ by Bon Iver also uses it for the fucked up drums, although don't quote me on it.
And yeah, Decapitator specifically has a character to its sound that I just haven't found in any other plugin. In techno I would throw it on almost any channel on a low setting just to add a little bite to stuff. It also sounds good at almost any setting, from barely noticeable warmth to completely mangling sounds. I really like others in the suite too, for specific needs, but that one is the only really unreplaceable one.
If you could help me get my hands on a good crack I'd be eternally grateful, but otherwise no stress.
PM'ing you
But just to say it, Bon Iver LOVED Soundtoys on 22, A Million. You hear a lot of Alterboy on the harmonies, especially the artifacting. You also hear Crystalizer a couple times too. Devil loc as well. Probably used Decapitator, people in his circle have talked about loving the plugin, Mike Dean being the biggest fan of Soundtoys in the pubic eye. I can hear it on the album very clearly, but have no proof. His mix engineer at that point was bigger on analogue equipment, so I could be wrong and he could just be using analogue equipment I haven't heard of. Devil Loc is modeled after the old Shure Level Loc, so it's entirely possible. But ST can still get many of those sounds
https://youtu.be/HwToLeEEeWI?feature=shared
I dont know what I'm talking about but this was also in the recommendeds on that video and might be relevant
Alterboy does introduce phase issues. They're easy to work around though, even desirable on certain songs. My favorite use of Alterboy on a mainstream track is Story of OJ by Jay-Z, where it's used on the sample. The artifacting from Alterboy works in that context really well.
This is sick as hell, not just for trans purposes. I might have to play around with it
