# Creating "The Chipmunks" Sound **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 7, 2016, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996 "2016-11-07T20:47:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/21 "2016-11-08T04:18:28Z")
There was nothing unusual about this technique even in 1958. The [Alvin and the Chipmunks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_and_the_Chipmunks#Recording_technique) page says: > [@](#): > > The technique was by no means new to the Chipmunks. For example, the high and low pitched characters in _The Wizard of Oz_ were achieved by speeding up and slowing down vocal recordings. Also, Mel Blanc’s voice characterization for Daffy Duck was sped up to some extent. … > > The technique was used extensively in the British puppet show _Pinky and Perky_, which pre-dated the Chipmunks. Another contemporary was [The Purple People Eater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purple_People_Eater), released in mid-1958, whose page says: > [@](#): > > The voice of the purple people eater is a sped-up recording, giving it a voice similar to, but not quite as high-pitched or as fast, as Mike Sammes’s 1957 “Pinky and Perky”, or Ross Bagdasarian’s “Witch Doctor”, another hit from earlier in 1958; and “The Chipmunk Song” which was released late in 1958. And if you check the [Pinky and Perky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinky_and_Perky) page: > [@](#): > > Pinky and Perky spoke and sang in high-pitched voices, created by re-playing original voice recordings at twice the original recorded speed; the vocals were sung by Mike Sammes[1] while the backing track was played at half normal speed (Sammes did the same job for Ken Dodd’s Diddymen, as Ross Bagdasarian did for the original Chipmunks in the early 1960s)—hence the expression “Pinky and Perky speed”, when an LP record is played at 45 rpm or 78 rpm instead of the correct 33⅓ rpm. The Wikipedia page got it right in the first place and supplies all kinds of evidence for the use of the technique other than the Chipmunks. I wonder how all this information got ignored by the OP. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/22 "2016-11-08T04:53:36Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Just a guess, but since each of the individual chipmunks had a slightly different voice pitch, perhaps recording each one required a small speed difference. Either that, or David Seville raised/lowered his voice accordingly. Either one would work. He did. He wrote a three-part harmony and recorded each of the Chipmunk’s voices separately over the very slow orchestra track. Obviously the basic technology for producing the Chipmunk voices existed in 1959; I got their first album for Christmas that year. It was all of the fancy high-tech stuff mentioned above that I was wondering about. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/23 "2016-11-08T13:09:37Z")
While it is possible to alter pitch without speed, or vice versa, with modern equipment, it isn’t lossless like a simple change of tape speed is. That’s why autotuned music never sounds quite right. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/24 "2016-11-10T00:10:30Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > Wikipedia says that Chipmunk sound was created by recording at twice normal speed. However, in film, fast motion is created by recording at a slower speed and playing back at normal speed. So, by that logic, wouldn’t a voice have to be recorded at a slower speed and played back at normal speed to sound like a Chipmunk? Confused. 😕 I don’t think either one is accurate. They don’t exactly record it at \*slower \*speed either. What they do is: 1. Make a normal recording of a song. 2. play the recording back at double speed. 3. re-record the double speed version. I see where they’re going with “recorded at twice normal speed” but it’s misleading. The song itself has to be played at a slow pace, with every note twice normal length. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/25 "2016-11-10T00:32:34Z")
Forget what Wikipedia says, right or wrong. Y’all do know that recordings like the Chipmunks involve multiple recordings, at different speeds and different times, before being combined and transferred to a composite mono or stereo mix, don’t you? The Chipmunks orchestra (rhythm section and whatever sweetening was used) was recorded at normal speed, whatever that was for the recorder used, probably 15ips. David Seville played that back at half, or close-to-half speed, and recorded each chipmunk voice one at a time, probably on separate tracks, at his normal voice register, singing much slower than usual. When played back at 15ips, his voice sounds like a chipmunk. He overdubbed the “Seville” voice, i.e., “Alvin!!” and other normal-sounding voices at normal tape speeds sometime during the process. He then mixed, in real time, at normal speed, the multi tracks, to a mono and/or stereo mix for public release, to an intermediate tape, then typically on 45rpm records or as an album, 33 1/3 rpm records. Is that clear? Cheesh. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/26 "2016-11-14T14:03:13Z")
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Walt Disney’s CINDERELLA, which famously used similar methods for several songs. In fact, it was the first animated film to get an Oscar nomination for Best Sound Recording for that very reason. Sent from my SCH-I435 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![bunworthy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@bunworthy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bunworthy)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/27 "2016-11-14T22:27:31Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Was this the case in 1959, though? :dubious: 😕 I’m pretty sure the technique was pioneered by Les Paul in the 1940s: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les\_Paul#Multitrack-recording\_innovations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Paul#Multitrack-recording_innovations) ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/28 "2016-11-15T17:28:41Z")
I’m confused. Does that mean that the vocalists have to force themselves to sing excruciatingly slowly so the meter (or whatever word you need to use here) will be whatever it needs to be when sped up? ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/29 "2016-11-15T17:41:20Z")
^Yep. But it makes for great diction when sped up. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/30 "2016-11-15T18:21:20Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > I’m confused. Does that mean that the vocalists have to force themselves to sing excruciatingly slowly so the meter (or whatever word you need to use here) will be whatever it needs to be when sped up? Yup. A similar thing happens in reverse for the production of some music videos: the music on the set is played at X times normal speed (where X\>1, e.g. playing a 33 RPM record at 45 RPM) while the movements of the video actor(s) are recorded, and then during playback the video and audio both get slowed down so the music is heard at its original tempo, and the movements of the actors have thus been unnaturally slowed down. It lends an otherworldly grace to their motion, e.g. hair or dresses moving in the wind. Since the music is sped up while the video is being recorded, it means that anyone who is supposed to be singing in the video has to move their lips fast to keep up with the music; if the original music is fast-tempoed, then it can be hard to do this well. [Here’s a tutorial on the technique,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTDHcv8qD0U&t=2m45s) cued to the final result; the performer seems to have pretty bad timing, but if you back the video up to 1:27, you can see how fast she has to move her body/lips to keep up with the sped-up song; it’s quite a challenge. ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/31 "2016-11-16T11:40:07Z")
> [@Doug\_Bowe](#): > > The professional machine would have had a fixed speed switch at 7 1/2, 15 and 30 inches per second. Record at 15 and play back at 30. That was extremely common, if not standard. Same principle as the different tape speeds on VHS VCRs – record at a high tape speed for better quality, low tape speed to get more on a standard-length reel of tape but at reduced quality. (Also, it occurs to me, pretty much the same as having different bitrates for mp3s back in the Napster days – 96kbps was good enough for most people taking hours to pirate a song on a dialup connection to put on their player that had a capacity of tens of megabytes, but if you were _fancy_ and could afford the wait/faster connection and storage space, you’d encode at 328kbps. And also the lossy encoding required to pirate a DVD onto a video CD to sell to your classmates. There just wasn’t a physical switch on the player for the digital formats.) ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/32 "2016-11-16T14:09:05Z")
Not many know this but in Hitchcock’s [_Rear Window_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/combined) “Songwriter,” one of Jefferies’ neighbors across the way\* is played by Ross Bagdasarian, David Seville’s non-Chipmunk name. He has nineteen other acting credits as well as 63 soundtrack credits (natch). \*Hitch makes his appearance winding his clock in the guy’s apartment. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/33 "2016-11-16T14:54:05Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Not many know this but in Hitchcock’s [_Rear Window_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/combined) “Songwriter,” one of Jefferies’ neighbors across the way\* is played by Ross Bagdasarian, David Seville’s non-Chipmunk name. I knew that! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Fenshaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Fenshaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenshaw)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/34 "2016-11-16T17:53:54Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > It wouldn’t have difficult in 1959 to record slower or play back faster. I was doing a lot of recording in those days. Almost all of the reel to reel recorders had two speeds, 7.5 inches per second (IPS) and 3.25 IPS. If you were recording voice, or something low fidelity you would use 3.25 to save expensive tape. If you wanted higher quality you used 7.5. There were even machines in the high end with a 15 IPS setting when price was no object. I had a court reporter’s recorder that had a 1.75 IPS so the reporter wouldn’t have to change tape during a long session. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/35 "2016-11-16T20:10:08Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > The voice of the purple people eater is a sped-up recording, giving it a voice similar to, but not quite as high-pitched or as fast, as Mike Sammes’s 1957 “Pinky and Perky”, or Ross Bagdasarian’s “Witch Doctor”, another hit from earlier in 1958; and “The Chipmunk Song” which was released late in 1958. And you do realize that Ross Bagdasarian is David Seville right? Witch Doctor was his own inspiration for The Chipmunks. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996/36 "2016-11-17T13:20:55Z")
> [@Fenshaw](#): > > I was doing a lot of recording in those days. Almost all of the reel to reel recorders had two speeds, 7.5 inches per second (IPS) and 3.25 IPS. If you were recording voice, or something low fidelity you would use 3.25 to save expensive tape. If you wanted higher quality you used 7.5. There were even machines in the high end with a 15 IPS setting when price was no object. I had a court reporter’s recorder that had a 1.75 IPS so the reporter wouldn’t have to change tape during a long session. Nitpick: Your speeds are a little off. Here are the common tape speeds; each is half of the previous: 30 IPS 15 7.5 (7 1/2) 3.75 (3 3/4) 1.875 (1 7/8) Note that professional recorders had an adjustable speed feature (VSO) and were not limited to these fixed speeds. I think (but I’m not sure) at least one Ampex had a way to speed up or slow down by musical half-steps so the engineer didn’t have to guess or calibrate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-chipmunks-sound/770996.md?page=1)