Formant character · v1.1.6
THROAT GOAT
Reshape any voice. Move the formants, the gender, the tilt and the resonance.
Formant shaper
Open →$39 →
Lane · Formant character
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How do I make a voice deeper, or lighter?
Pitch and timbre are separate things, and most tools that promise to change a voice change both. Formants are the resonances of the vocal tract, the physical size and shape of the throat and mouth of the person singing, and they are what makes a voice read as large or small, close or distant, one person or another. The notes they sang are a different parameter entirely.
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1 plug-in in this lane · $39 each
The problem
Move the formants and you change the apparent size of the singer. The notes they sang are a separate parameter, and a formant tool should leave them where they were sung. Move the pitch instead and you have changed the performance, which is almost never what the session needed.
The reason this matters practically is that a lot of vocal problems are character problems. A take that sits too small in a big arrangement, a backing stack that sounds like one person six times, a voice that needs to move a little further from the listener. None of those are tuning problems, and reaching for a tuner to solve them makes the take worse in a new way.
The question worth asking is what the pitch does when you push the formants hard. At each extreme of SHIFT and GENDER on THROAT GOAT 1.1.6, the median pitch moved 1.4 cents or less.
The check is a null test with the controls at neutral, and then a listen at the extremes. At neutral, a formant tool should be bit-exact or near it. If it is already colouring the take before you have asked for anything, you are paying for that on every insert. At the extremes, listen to the pitch and the timing specifically, not the character: if either drifts when you push the formants hard, the separation is a tuning, not a guarantee.
What we ship for it
Formant character at RTM.
Every RTM plug-in runs a full 14-day trial with every feature unlocked and no card. An RTM account is required to activate; the trial needs no card. One-time purchase, 2 machines, no subscription. Updates are free for as long as we sell the plug-in.