The recreation of a castrato voice, Farinelli's voice

Abstract

We present an original research work culminating in the high quality production of thirty-nine minutes of castrato voice, by the means of sound analysis, processing and synthesis. The goal of the project is the creation of a soundtrack for a film about a famous eighteenth century castrato. Two complementary voices-a coloratura-soprano and a counter-tenor-are used to cover the entire range and compensate for technical difficulties. Then their timbres are homogenised by using combined techniques such as phase-vocoding, additive analysis/synthesis as well as spectral envelope and pitch estimation. Thirty-nine minutes of high quality processed singing have been created for a CD of the soundtrack.