Lots of misconceptions here. Your voice doesn't change this much from smoking.
If you have experience with the entertainment industry, you know that this is commonplace damage caused by doing a show while having a sore throat for extended periods of time and not resting. It would be unthinkable for an opera singer to perform with any sort of throat infection due to the (subtle) impact it could/would have on pitch. "Lesser" singers can afford to do gigs with infections since they're able to rest their voice later and recuperate but Nick has been casting every day for extended periods of time with colds, never allowing his [vocal] system to recover.
Obviously, if you combine this with an active nightlife where you shout at the top of your lunges to make yourself heard in a club with loud music, you've got a recipe for a "smokey" voice. Smoking itself doesn't help of course but it's hardly the main cause of the changes.
I think both his tones are great for casting and he's completely done away with his slight lisp. He really was the ultimate shoutcaster and could be once more if he decided to follow the development of code S level builds a bit closer (although i hardly blame him for not doing so given the fickle nature of SC2, the constant patches and the apparent success of simply brute forcing in so many cases).
I've been smoking for a couple years and there are days where my voice does get a little raspy. I would assume tasteless smokes a decent amount because he does cough a lot during casts.
I believe he's also mentioned that he got some coaching from professional broadcasters about changing your voice slightly to decrease the strain, so that could be another factor.
Also, most peoples' voices still change until they're like 30ish- just nowhere near as quickly as through puberty- and then again later in life due (although pretty sure that one is just due to muscle deterioration)
Its like this video has the exact moment of his voice change. It changes at about 3 min. Although in the beginning its already quite different from the voice in the OP.
In some bits of the WCG 2005 footage, Tasteless sounds like the way he does now, especially at the part where he says that he's going to talk to the guy about going to Singapore to cast the grand finals. Maybe he just got done doing some casting and it strained his voice?
On April 01 2011 06:28 Thrill wrote: Lots of misconceptions here. Your voice doesn't change this much from smoking.
If you have experience with the entertainment industry, you know that this is commonplace damage caused by doing a show while having a sore throat for extended periods of time and not resting. It would be unthinkable for an opera singer to perform with any sort of throat infection due to the (subtle) impact it could/would have on pitch. "Lesser" singers can afford to do gigs with infections since they're able to rest their voice later and recuperate but Nick has been casting every day for extended periods of time with colds, never allowing his [vocal] system to recover.
Obviously, if you combine this with an active nightlife where you shout at the top of your lunges to make yourself heard in a club with loud music, you've got a recipe for a "smokey" voice. Smoking itself doesn't help of course but it's hardly the main cause of the changes.
So do you know whether the damage to his voice/throat would be permanent? Or would it be able to recover given an extended resting period? Just wondering.
On April 01 2011 06:28 Thrill wrote: Lots of misconceptions here. Your voice doesn't change this much from smoking.
If you have experience with the entertainment industry, you know that this is commonplace damage caused by doing a show while having a sore throat for extended periods of time and not resting. It would be unthinkable for an opera singer to perform with any sort of throat infection due to the (subtle) impact it could/would have on pitch. "Lesser" singers can afford to do gigs with infections since they're able to rest their voice later and recuperate but Nick has been casting every day for extended periods of time with colds, never allowing his [vocal] system to recover.
Obviously, if you combine this with an active nightlife where you shout at the top of your lunges to make yourself heard in a club with loud music, you've got a recipe for a "smokey" voice. Smoking itself doesn't help of course but it's hardly the main cause of the changes.
So do you know whether the damage to his voice/throat would be permanent? Or would it be able to recover given an extended resting period? Just wondering.
Voices are complicated; overuse can often cause permenant damage. I suspect he'll never sound like he once did, even with a great deal of rest.
This nails it. No way smoking or aging or partying or anything explains that big a difference over just 1 month and 11 days. He just started making a conscious effort to deepen his voice because it sounds more attractive to people. Simple as that.
Although I found his current voice a bit 'americanesque' over the top at first, I actually really like his voice now. He has a lot of power in it, which really comes to use when casting epic matches.
Much of voice development is practise. I don't think smoking or drinking has made that much of a difference... I'd say it's practise indeed.
Wow... smoking..... uh no. This is not the result of smoking and ppl posting that as an explanation are just making themselves look foolish. Talk a lot and uh it wears on your vocal chords. Tons of casting=raspy voice.... not smoking.
Smoking shouldn't affect it that much, at least not from what I have seen. He kind of reminds me of death metal singers who didn't quite have the right technique at first, gets the throat quite a bit. I imagine casting could have the same effect, especially during prolonged periods.
Here's a pretty exaggerated example. Obviously much, much worse but you can hear the similarities.
EPT
