auto-tune

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Baauer of "Harlem Shake" sued over unauthorized samples.

- Surprise hit "Harlem Shake" was a shock for artists heard on it.

- "Sweet Brown" sues Apple and radio stations for unauthorized interview.

- SXSW: Marvel to give away 700 first-issue digital comics.

- Marvel giveaway crashes Comixology's servers.… Read more

Right when you launch AutoRap, you can get started by tapping your screen and speaking. The app immediately records your speech until you tap the screen again to stop it. After a few seconds of "rappification" (AutoRap's proprietary syllable-mapping technology), the app will replay your recording, autotuned, timing-adjusted, and laid over one of its generic rap beats.

Off the bat, you get two free beats to play with: Turkey Burgers and OneOneOne (I've never heard of them either). You can use these as many times and as often as you like. If you want more beats, … Read more

Have you ever really thought about the difference between the way older and present-day recordings affect you? I'm not so much talking about sound quality; older recordings have a very different feel. They have more juice, more soul, more life, and that's why they connect with people in a completely different way than hyperprocessed contemporary music does.

Today, for example, Auto-Tuned vocals are so ubiquitous that my friend, mastering engineer Dave McNair, exclaimed, "The only way to know for sure a vocal hasn't been Auto-Tuned, is an out of tune vocal." So once a new … Read more

Auto-Tune: Love it or hate it, it's certainly made its mark on pop music. And now it's in a guitar: the Peavey AT-200 Guitar Featuring Auto-Tune For Guitar Technology, to give its full longer-than-a-Skynyrd-solo title. We'll just call it the Auto-axe. Rock on!

It looks just like a regular guitar, but push a button on the Auto-axe and you can play with perfect pitch, the adjustments made live in real time. Peavey reckons you'll never stop playing to retune your guitar ever again, and every chord will sound perfect.

The onboard Antares Solid-Tune intonation system monitors the precise pitch of each individual string and electronically corrects pitch to ensure every chord, riff, and lick is in tune. Peavey claims it's even smart enough to know when axemeisters intend to manipulate pitch, so bends and vibrato rock as hard as the plank-spanker intends.

Read more of "Peavey AT-200 is the first Auto-Tune guitar" at Crave UK. … Read more

I get a fair number of promo CDs in the mail, but don't be jealous, most of them are instantly forgettable or just awful, and only a few are worth a second listen. Greg Garing's self-titled CD was an immediate standout, and its rootsy, blues-infected grooves hit me hard. The music has a lot of soul, and sounds like it was made by a group of really talented players who were having a good time together. That happens so rarely nowadays I had to learn about how the record was created.

The Garing CD was produced by Lower East Side Records, … Read more

I know that so many readers are huge fans of reality television, especially reality television in which previously unknown people attempt to sing.

So it pains me to bring news that might dull the world's enthusiasm for such pageants, perhaps permanently.

You see, there is a show called "X-Factor." Currently it runs in the U.K., but it is soon to debut in the U.S. It is one of the several shows which has, at its core, the celebrated critic and music mogul Simon Cowell, formerly of "American Idol."

Last Saturday, "X-Factor" … Read more

There is nothing funny about an intruder entering a woman's bedroom.

But when the story itself has a happy ending and then it falls into the hands of the Gregory Brothers and their Auto-Tune software, then humor miraculously rises out of a local news event.

The Gregory Brothers, who live under the brand name Auto-TuneTheNews, discovered that their own hidden talent lay in taking news clips, finding music that somehow feels appropriate, and then Auto-Tuning the voices in the clips to create something of which Michaelangelo, had he been blessed with a little more technology, would have been proud. … Read more

I attended a fascinating panel discussion, "Behind The Glass: Audio Production in the 21st Century" at the Audio Engineering Society convention in New York City on Sunday.

The panelists were all prominent record producers and engineers: Tony Brown (Elvis Presley, Emmy Lou Harris); Jimmy Douglass (Jay-Z, the Rolling Stones); Dave Hewitt (Simon and Garfunkel, U2); Ryan Hewitt (Avett Brothers, Red Hot Chili Peppers); George Massenburg (Linda Ronstadt, Lyle Lovett); Ann Mincieli (Alicia Keys, Whitney Houston); and Russ Titelman (Stevie Winwood, Eric Clapton). These people know from where they speak!

Moderator Howard Massey led the panel through a discussion of the problems facing the record industry, with a primary focus on sound quality. Massey co-authored (with Geoff Emerick) my favorite Beatles book of all time, "Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles." He also has a new book coming out, "Behind the Glass, Volume II: Top Producers Tell How They Craft the Hits" a collection of interviews with top record producers and audio engineers.

It seems like the main problem comes from record company pressure to make perfect recordings. Vocalists' off-pitch and out-of-time singing is tweaked with Auto-Tune; music-making is largely technology-based. That is, technology has replaced musical talent, and singers like Britney Spears were cited many times as to where it's all headed. Not so musically talented, her music has to be patched together in the studio. There's not a lot of there there.

Jimmy Douglass talked about the overuse of dynamic range compression, admitting that since most music is listened to over crappy computer speakers or cheap earbuds, compression is required to make it sound acceptable. Sad, but true. … Read more

Having spent some time in recording studios, I was aware that automatic pitch-correction software exists and is used by nearly every singer to smooth out the occasional off note. (Neko Case claims she doesn't use it, but she's the rare exception.) But I don't sing, so haven't spent a lot of time with it myself.

So I was fascinated to hear New Yorker music editor Sasha Frere-Jones, who wrote about pitch-correction this week, give an audio demonstration of Antares' AutoTune software in the magazine's Out Loud podcast. He sings a version of Kelly Clarkson's … Read more