A musician with MND returned to the stage after AI recreated his singing voice.
As reported by the BBC, Patrick Darling, 32, from Bristol, has been a singer and composer since the age of 14 but was diagnosed with the degenerative condition at 29.
He described losing the ability to sing and play instruments as “deeply profound and devastating”, stripping him of his “biggest love.”
Using software from ElevenLabs, he recreated his singing voice from recordings of past performances.
Before his diagnosis, Darling was the singer in Irish folk group The Ceili House Band.
Predominantly self-taught, he learnt bass guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, melodica, mandolin and tenor banjo.
He said: “Singing has always been my biggest love and I’ve spent most of my musical life performing live in various bands.
“The ElevenLabs singing voice that we’ve created is wonderful and definitely sounds like me.”
The technology uses previous recordings of natural speech or sound from any audio source to generate digital replicas.
At an event on Wednesday, Darling performed with former guitarist Nick Cocking and violinist Hari Ma, debuting Ghost Of A Man I Never Met.
Darling composed the music using ElevenLabs and combined the score with original lyrics he wrote himself.
His family, who had not heard him sing since the effects of his MND diagnosis, were in the audience for his return to the stage.
Darling said: “It provides hope, support and meaning to people in ways that you can’t fully appreciate unless you’ve lived it yourself.”
Speech therapist Richard Cave, who worked with Darling to design his AI voice, said: “Working with Patrick to give him back his singing voice after a lifetime making music has been an absolute privilege.”
“Watching the song performed on stage with a live band is a moment I’ll never forget.”
