User Manual

51
13: ASPIRE Evo
ASPIRATION NOISE PROCESSOR
ASPIRE Evo is the world’s first tool for
modifying a voice’s breathiness independent
of its harmonic content. Whether reducing a
bit of vocal rasp or adding a bit of smokiness,
ASPIRE Evo lets you modify the amount and
quality of a voice’s aspiration noise without
otherwise aecting the vocal’s harmonic
characteristics.
What’s aspiration noise?
As we mentioned back in the chapter on
THROAT Evo, when you speak or sing, air from
your lungs is forced through your vocal chords,
causing them to vibrate. The contour of this
vibration is the glottal waveform. The actual
shape of the waveform is aected by each
individual’s anatomy as well as the pressure
applied to the vocal chords. From there, the
voice is propagated through the throat, the
mouth and out through the lips. It is the shape
of these structures, both their length and
width, that create the resonant characteristics
that combine with the glottal waveform to
define a unique vocal identity.
But going into a bit more detail, we find that
the vocal waveform is actually a combination
of two dierent components. One, the one
we usually think of as the primary element
of vocal timbre, is the harmonic content
generated by the process described above.
However, there is a second component that is
generated by the turbulence of the air rushing
past the vocal chords. This component,
aspiration noise, does not have harmonic
content and can roughly be thought of as
“breathiness.”
Aspiration noise presents itself in a variety of
ways, from a subtle bit of breathiness to a full-
blown rasp. Of course, whether it’s a problem
or not depends on the amount of noise and
the style of a performance. A whole lot of
roughness that would work well for screaming
punk or roots blues might well be a problem
for mainstream pop or a smooth ballad (of
course, it also might not). Up to now, there
wasn’t much you could do about it. Now, with
ASPIRE Evo, there is.