Respeecher Helps Aloe Blacc Pay Tribute to Avicii and Sing ‘Wake Me Up’ in Five Languages

The year was 2018 when famous Swedish DJ, remixer, record producer, musician, and songwriter Tim Bergling, known professionally as Avicii, died at age 28. His death was a real shock for the global dance scene, his millions of fans and colleagues, and the entire music industry.

This year, on the fourth anniversary of Avicii’s death, one of his best-known collaborators, Aloe Blacc, has paid tribute to the artist. He performed and recorded Avicii’s hit “Wake Me Up” in the English, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and French languages. In doing so, his aim was to allow more people all around the world to appreciate Avicii’s talent in a deeper way.

Since Aloe planned to sing flawlessly, not only in English but also in Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and French, he was going to need some technological help. And Respeecher was ready to assist.

Some Numbers

3 weeks

to deliver the project

5 languages

the project consists of five different languages

4 sources

four source singers of different native languages

The Challenge and Solution

Aloe Blacc is a famous American musician, singer, and songwriter, who was the vocalist and one of the writers of the original “Wake Me Up” song.

Blacc said that since the release of the song in 2013, “everywhere I’ve been, no matter the country, music lovers and fans sing the lyrics with me in English.”

In honor of Avicii, Blacc decided to create an international version of the song to help more people appreciate the real meaning behind its words.

In order to facilitate the accuracy of the lyrics while also sounding correct by following the natural beat of the song, Aloe Blacc turned to Respeecher and Metaphysic.ai.

Firstly, Aloe Blacc recorded a video of himself singing “Wake Me Up” in English. In order to make him also sing in the Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and French languages, the Respeecher team took recordings of other singers performing the song in these languages and applied them to Blacc’s voice.

Then, Metaphysic.ai was tasked with lip-syncing Blacc’s vocal movements, making his mouth appear natural when singing in Mandarin or Spanish.

“In honor of Avicii and with the help of Metaphysic.ai and Respeecher.com,” Blacc said, “I am presenting a very special international version of ‘Wake Me Up’ in multiple languages.”

Thanks to Respeecher, Aloe appeared to sing Mandarin and Spanish languages flawlessly, presenting a beautiful and touching version of “Wake me up” capable of reaching many more millions of music lovers.

Italian and French versions were not included in the public release, but you can listen to them here: Aloe Blacc Singing in Multi-languages

See what people who watched the Aloe’s tribute had to say about the piece:

Respeecher’s AI-powered voice cloning allows you to synthesize anyone’s voice to produce a sound that matches someone else’s voice. You can transform a voice while retaining all the emotional accents of the speech that was originally recorded. Voice actors and singers can “speak” and “sing” in as many languages as they need. AI speech-to-speech technology clones an actor’s voice and reproduces it in such a way that the same material is performed in a foreign language using the same voice. All you need is a minimum of one native speaker for the language you intend to reproduce your content for.

Other organizations that have leveraged Respeecher’s AI-powered voice cloning technology include:

• Giving voice to Michael York after amyloidosis
• Recreating Manuel Rivera Morales’ voice for the Olympic games
• Synthesizing a younger Luke Skywalker’s voice in The Mandalorian
• Reviving Richard Nixon’s moon landing disaster speech

Companies turn to voice cloning because of its extensive list of benefits:

• Facilitating actors’ work as brand voices
• Replicating anybody’s voice to create a perfect match in film and TV
• Accelerating and easing the dubbing process
• Recording any voice in any language
• Fostering the development of a working alliance with clients

In addition, Respeecher is committed to ensuring that our groundbreaking technology is only used for ethical purposes — and doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

We do not provide any public API for creating new voices and only work directly with clients we trust. We require written consent from voice owners and only approve projects that meet our strict standards.

Respeecher is here to help you replicate voices for any media project — from a Hollywood movie to an engaging video game. We go to great lengths to ensure that the content we produce is truly meaningful and useful to those it touches.

This article was initially published on the Respeecher case studies page.