I firmly believe that Smooth McGroove is perpetrating a massive, years-long hoax to trick his audience into thinking he is creating the videos he makes of him seeming to sing video game music 'a capella' live, when really he is taking samples of his voice (singing, for example, just the sound 'baah' once, at one pitch, into a sampler, and then mapping it to the synth keys) and then playing back MIDI sequences (which he might well be creating and arranging himself, but he also might not be) using the samples of his voice as instruments. Then, I believe he mimes standing in front of a microphone going 'bah' for each of the parts of his arrangment and uploads the resultant video.
UPDATE: For clarity's sake, what I'm saying is, quite simply, this--I believe that Smooth McGroove never actually even sings the songs he is presenting in his videos. I believe he is using a combination of musical sampling equipment and MIDI sequencers to create the illusion that he is singing these songs a cappela when really he is using a sample of himself singing 'bah' one time (not for a whole song, but just one single note of singing 'bah') and then loading it onto a keyboard where he can either record pieces that sound like he is singing an entire song that way, or even just load somebody else's MIDI file and set his voice (from that one sung note he sampled) to be all the instruments. What I am suggesting is that I believe that there is no point at which Smooth McGroove sings any of the parts in his a capella videos from beginning to end, and that he is using synthesizers and sampling to create what are really no different from MIDI arrangements of video game songs, but with the difference that every instrument is a sample of his voice saying 'buh.' Yet people are paying him $3,000 a month on Patreon for 'singing' all the parts.
He has been accused of this by a number of people, and has always just ignored the question, though he is very interactive with fans ordinarily. Additionally, if this isn't what he is doing in his videos, and he actually does record the song part by part, it would be the easiest thing in the world to prove. He could make one 'making of video' and demonstrate that he does it all himself quite simply. Yet he hasn't done so. A handful of his videos seem like they might actually be made the way he claims, but the vast majority do not.
Why does this matter? In the scheme of things, it doesn't really. He's clearly an accomplished musician either way, with videos of drum performances and things. But there is one small problem: he collects nearly $3,000 a month from Patreon supporters expressly for his a capella video game music videos. If the way he is making these videos is absolutely different from the way he is purporting to do so on his Patreon page, it is a kind of (not very serious, but still unethical) fraud.
Here's an example of what I mean. Here is a Depeche Mode song from 1986. There is a part running through the whole song of a choir going 'Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.' What the band did was record a few individual 'Ohs' from an actual choir: a low male part, a medium male part, a high male part, a low female part, etc. Each recording was just one note by one vocalist. The same as if you started singing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and just sang 'Tween' and never moved on to the '-kle' or beyond. They loaded these recordings into a sampling synthesizer, and mapped them to the keys. This meant they could cover the entire set of notes on a piano keyboard from the lowest to the highest with just about six 'input' recordings. The electronics in the keyboard shift the note up or down depending on what key you map the sounds to. Then, they recorded a MIDI 'sequence,' (a file that tells the synthesizer what note to play on which instrument, how long it lasts, etc.) of their song. The MIDI sequence allows them to move notes around, delete mistakes, add in notes they may have missed, and record passages they were incapable of playing themselves by inputting fast streams of notes at whatever speed they felt like (though bandmember at the time, Alan Wilder, is one of the most bitching keyboardists in history and probably only used this feature for effect). Here's the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLPdFr2yMMs if it doesn't load):
Sound kind of familiar? Here's a typical Smooth McGroove video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qwKCQ4M2Nw if it doesn't load):
I believe he has just sampled himself singing a single 'bah' and put it into a sampling synthesizer. The drum tracks are just him going 'ksshhh' or whatever sound one time, and loading those sounds in the synth as a drum track. Now, he could be making the MIDI sequences himself. As I said before, the fact that he is a competent musician is not in dispute. But he could also simply be loading MIDI files he has obtained elsewhere, such as the one that follows, and mapping his sampled 'bahs' and 'ksshs' to it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_JUxzPA5yk if it doesn't load):
Again, if this is NOT what he is doing, and he actually does record his songs the way he claims, it would be incredibly simple to prove. I know personally that if I were him, and people doubted that I was really making the videos part by part, live, I would make a video showing I could just to shove it in their faces. What would be a sign of incredible skill if he did it the way he is claiming would be a relatively simple matter if he were actually making these videos via sampling as I suspect.
I just wonder what other people think. I know Smooth McGroove isn't as fashionable now as he was a few years back, but he is still raking in almost $3,000 a month on Patreon, not to mention the ad revenue he must make, and he gets a lot of credit for the skill he demonstrates making these videos. If he really is doing it, he should demonstrate it and bask in the appreciation. But he ought to feel like he owes it to the people supporting him and praising him that he at least publically addresses the question that some people have asked him (it's not just been me who has thought this and asked him about it, getting no response).
