Randy Travis's New Song Recreates His Voice with AI Technology
rollingstone.com> Lehning confirmed that another singer performed the initial vocals before overlaying the raw performance with Travis’s voice clone. As of this story’s publication, it’s unclear who the other singer is.
CBS covered the story as well and revealed the surrogate voice to be James DuPre's[0].
Given most country songs are "covers" - someone else wrote and produced it, the singer just provides the voice (a few even still play an instrument for what it's worth) - I don't see anything particularly different here.
I guess I do see diminishing returns in Randy Travis' voice particularly. I can already have "his voice" and anyone else's "cover" any song.
If you replaced the famous name with someone with a (subjectively) equal or better voice, then what?
It feels like a rabbit hole of disintermediation between the song and vocal qualities and a real life person.
If it's a a distinction without a difference, when did it ever matter that it was Randy Travis?
Motion capture and autotune have been a huge part of entertainment for years. Josh Brolin isn't 8 feet tall and purple, and Travis Scott doesn't sound like a high robot in real life.
So long as there's consent and some contribution to the creative process, this feels like the evolution of that.