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Auto-Tune: Why Pop Music Sounds Perfect

75 points by ALee 18y ago

GavinB 18y ago
There's a fantasy out there that auto-tune makes you into a great singer. There's way more too it than that! The difference between great and poor singers is all about tone and emotion. There's way more to making pop music sound perfect than Autotune. Every step of the way is expertly crafted to fit together. No one complains about how much studio editing respected bands like Radiohead do in the studio, so we are we complaining about silly pop acts? And to all the people who say that music is in a "rut" need to get off their butts and actually put some effort in to find the great new music that they'll like. Yes, you have to actually try, not just whine that things aren't the same as they were back when you were coming of age. Mainstream people listen to fun, accessible music. It's always been that way, so get over it! There's great music of every type being made right now, you just have to go look for it.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Music is definitely in a rut and has been for years now. It's just part of the cycle. There is still good stuff being made, just as some companies prosper in a depression, but the overall industry is really stale. It never stays that way for long though.
  - tricky 18y ago
    You are completely wrong. Music isn't in a rut. You are. Find someone who is into new music, ask some questions, borrow some albums, and really give it a chance. You'll be shocked at what you are missing just because you believe there's nothing good out there.
    - wheels 18y ago
      This seems to usually happen when people keep staring at the same place and expecting something interesting to happen there. Historically, if you want to get a good idea of where music is going, see what black americans are producing. Virtually every new genre of western pop music in the last century has come from black americans. (Blues, jazz, soul, rock, funk, disco, house, techno, hip-hop) After new genres emerge then there's usually a couple decades that follow of infusing that with other genres and that's where some really creative stuff starts coming out of the woodwork.
      - unalone 18y ago
        That's not a fair method. Rock began with Elvis. Before then, it was blues. Yeah, Elvis was inspired by black Americans, but his music was all his own. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who both moved music forward, were both white. The indie music scene nowadays comes from Jeff Magnum of Neutral Milk Hotel. He's white. Techno was inspired by minimalist classical music. Steve Reich? Philip Glass? White. I agree with your first point: music changes. I disagree with your last point: genres are interesting from the start. They become interesting for fans of other genres after a few decades, but for people who comprehend the musical theory behind a genre it tends to become interesting from the beginning.
        aston 18y ago
        I was this close to downmodding you for saying Elvis invented rock. Chuck Berry, dude.
        unalone 18y ago
        ...They're both 1955. Neither knew the other when they began. They're completely, utterly different in style. Elvis's Sun sessions invented the basis of what I'd consider rock. Berry is riff-based. He's all about the guitar. He did incredible stuff, but for me rock was about the advent of the larger-than-life music personality, and about the attitude. Elvis had attitude. Berry didn't, not in the same way. Elvis was the first rock heartthrob. My point was that it's not a race game. White people do music too. To add to my above list: punk was Sex Pistols and the Ramones.
        aston 18y ago
        I'll concede those points. If you really want to see where music is going, you should just pay attention to what white people are buying.
        wheels 18y ago
        I didn't say white people haven't innovated in music. I said that virtually all new pop genres have come from black americans. Techno was influenced by 20th century minimalism, but it wasn't inspired by it. Minimalism started becoming a significant influence in the second wave of techno. From your later comment, punk and some other rock sub-genres are good examples of genres that have not stemmed directly from black american culture. Note -- I don't think this is something fundamentally having to do with race, but that there's something within black american culture that has driven a disproportionate amount of innovation in popular music. With the genre-mixing thing, I didn't mean that genres aren't interesting from the start, just that often the phase where they begin to cross-pollinate often produces results that are as if not more interesting than the advent of the genres themselves.
    - jfornear 18y ago
      The new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, would be a good place to start.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      No, music is in a rut. I listen to plenty of new (or new to me) stuff via services like Pandora and Rhapsody. Most genres have gone completely stale. Hip hop is pretty much retreading the exact same territory once again. Rock's become largely cliche, with most of the good material being put out by bands that have been popular since I was in middle school. It's just a down cycle. It happens. Recorded sales and concert attendance, as well as just turning on your radio, seem to indicate this. 2008's concert attendance was slightly down, and the top 10 acts were all ancient. In order Bon Jovi, Springsteen, Madonna, The Police, Celine Dion, Kenny Chesney, Neil Diamond, Spice Girls, Eagles, and Rascall Flats. With one exception they're either country (which has been in a rut for 30 years) or older than me. That's a genuine rut my friend. The wheels are spinning but nobody's going anywhere.
      - GavinB 18y ago
        It might be more accurate to describe it as a rut for you. I don't mean that as an insult, it's okay if you just don't like what you hear. If you're looking for "the cool new things" that are happening, I definitely wouldn't look at the Top 10 in concert attendance. Given, we're not going to invent distorted electric guitar or precision audio editing again. But really, do we define great music as having a "sound" that's obviously jarring? Great music has been produced for centuries with the same old orchestral instruments--to the uninitiated, it all sounds pretty much the same.
        mattmaroon 18y ago
        Given record sales and concert attendance, it would be more accurate to say that music isn't in a rut for you.
        GavinB 18y ago
        Since we're talking about a subjective judgment, sure. We're in the midst of a major revolution in music distribution. While revenues are down, people are listening to more music than ever before, and getting more choice in what they can listen to. Thanks to a new generation raised on guitar hero and rock band, I predict that things are going to get even crazier very soon. If you define a rut as "not undergoing mainstream stylistic revolution" then sure, we're in a rut.
  - unalone 18y ago
    I just "discovered" Eminem. I've known he's existed for a long time, but I just realized how incredible his music is. That's 4 years old now, yeah, but it's an example of how you might be missing what's going on right now. This year, for instance, Chumbawamba's The Boy Bands Have Won was an incredible folk tune album. Atmosphere's hip-hop album If Life Gives You Lemons, Paint That Shit Gold. Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping did stuff I've never heard in pop before, even if it was a pretty inconsistent album overall. Fleet Foxes blew my mind last winter. Last year, there was Streetlight Manifesto, half a good album by They Might Be Giants, Radiohead, Freezepop, Flight of the Conchords, Dr. Dog, Burial, Arcade Fire. I can't think of a single year in the last 40 that didn't see major pieces of music come out. Every maligned era has had some incredible gems.
    - shiranaihito 18y ago
      > I just "discovered" Eminem. I've known he's existed for a long time, but I just realized how incredible his music is. Back when he was new, no one could avoid hearing his stuff on the radio or MTV. I always hated it, with a moderately burning passion, I might add, but I don't remember the details anymore. It would be interesting to hear why his music is "incredible". For my definition of "incredible", buy yourself a copy of Prince's "The Hits - The B-Sides". It's got most of his best songs. He hasn't released anything particularly great since 1993, but that doesn't stop many of his older songs from being absolutely mind-blowingly awesome ("When You Were Mine", "Little Red Corvette", "Purple Rain", and so on)
      - unalone 18y ago
        My plan was to listen to Purple Rain tonight, actually. I don't listen to the radio or watch MTV, so I really did miss him entirely. Usually I'd write a long essay on just why I love Eminem, but now noprocrast is set incredibly restrictive, so I'll be fast. The guy has an incredible power behind his voice: he's got an energy that's rare even in rock, and he really channels that energy to create something neat. Lyrically he's impressive. I will never be entirely a fan of rap's lyrical style - I'll always yearn for the incredibly focused and taut language of poetry - but Eminem does it well. He has extremely inventive rhymes, he sets up incredible rhythms, and he manages to be surprisingly funny at times, other times incredibly creepy. I didn't like rap for a long time. Last week something clicked and I finally just understood what I was supposed to be listening for.
  - albertcardona 18y ago
    I suggest an on-site visit to the DNA Lounge. Music as lively and as good as ever. [The DNA Lounge also has web audio broadcasting]
  - mynameishere 18y ago
    It's been in a rut since ~1980. Obviously, arguing on the basis of opinion is tricky, unless people are willing to use a common metric, and have common overall tastes. People have a very, very bad habit of preferring music from their own youth. This is similar to the phenomena of almost always preferring the version of a song you hear first, even if there are lots of successful covers. So it's hard to be objective. But let the people downmodding the OP consider some active bands from a year long before my birth, 1969 (off the top of my head): The Beatles The Rolling Stones Led Zeppelin The Doors CCR Hendrix Pink Floyd [Clapton was somewhere between cream and dereck and the dominoes] ...those are the major acts. Leaving out clapton, I would posit that each one of those groups is better than any group from the past 20 years. Disagree, fine, but to say that the overall culture was comparable is to leave yourself open to ridicule. ADDENDUM: Here's a better list. The lineup for woodstock--ONE frickin' concert, which manages to leave out some of the best groups, like Zeppelin and the Doors and Bob Dylan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival#Performing_artists_and_sequence_of_events http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival#Performing_a... It's almost surreal how good that list is.
    - marvin 18y ago
      Music culture in the sixties/seventies isn't comparable to music culture today because the general culture of these two eras isn't comparable. There's a major chicken/egg problem here: society doesn't appreciate music in the same way, there is less openness among the general population, drugs aren't nearly as accepted, not nearly the same number of people go to music festivals etc. etc. etc. It is more of a cultural shift than the decline of music as an isolated phenomenon. If you start dragging out the "everything was better before" argument, remember that you'll get more than the music if you go back to 1970. War, the draft, unemployment, massive amounts of LSD... I haven't seen any commenter in this thread attempt a somewhat scientific assessment of the quality of music then and now. We can probably agree that the general culture is less friendly to good music today, but if you want to go deeper than that there is really no way to reach a consensus. I'm of the belief that you can find just as novel, inspired, creative and emotional music today as 30 years ago. There might be a bit less and it will certainly be more obscure, but artists still create. As a case in point, both Marilyn Manson, Dream Theater and The Cardigans have created large amounts of novel music the last 10 years. Even though these musicians aren't among the most obscure, I still think you're doomed to fail if you search the pop charts for good art.
biohacker42 18y ago
I like The White Stripes a lot, but I've heard a few live performances, and... is it just me or is Jack not able to hit the right pitch to save his life?
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- coglethorpe 18y ago
  There's a lot more to The White Stripes than singing in tune. :-) Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin said it pretty well on his "60 Minutes" interview. He said that enthusiasm counted for a lot, more than in his singing, which was decidedly off in the clips of him playing live that ran during the interview. The Stripes have a whole package, from their brother/sister husband/wife pairing, to the goth vibe, to the artsy videos. Somehow they hit on something that people like, even if it's out of tune.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    Holy crap, I think we just found a way to link Chris Martin (Coldplay) and Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror)!
pxlpshr 18y ago
Auto-tune has been in use for a long time, I guess America is finally waking up to its pop-u-liciuos facade? Lets hope so. MTV ruined music when they made presentation more important than sound. Music was great in the past-time because radio was the mass-medium and sound doesn't discriminate against physical characteristics that would otherwise make one unattractive for marketing.
- dag 18y ago
  Remember that The Monkees predated MTV.
  - pxlpshr 18y ago
    How many years has it been since there was a blind or deaf musician on top charts? :)
    - inglorian 18y ago
      A deaf musician? I can think of several blind musicians off the top of my head, but barring Beethoven (and only at the end of his life) I can think of no deaf ones, ever. Seems entirely contradictory, no?
      - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
        http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051013/REVIEWS/51011001/1023 http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20... This is Ebert's review of Touch the Sound, which is a documentary about a deaf percussionist.
Dilpil 18y ago
I'm not sure it makes sense to be concerned with whether or not a song was made by a singer or an engineer, or about anything besides the song itself for that matter.
- Jebdm 18y ago
  Well, it does make live shows more difficult.
  - tricky 18y ago
    A lot of performers run auto-tune real time when they play live. I got to sit behind the board when a friend of mine ran sound for nsync. He let me hear the signal before it went thru the autotune box. hi-larious.
    - electromagnetic 18y ago
      The thing is, when you pay $50+ for a ticket you're paying for talented artist... I suppose the engineer should be considered the artist not the 'singer'.
      - tricky 18y ago
        I saw a band called "Metrostation" a few months ago. The place was sold out with tweens who were having the time of their life loving this amazing band. Funny thing was, the band was not playing. Everything was tracked on 2 macs run by a chubby guy in a phillies hat on the side of the stage. I'd argue the majority of people who go to these shows have no clue and will gladly pay their $50 just to see famous people and tell their friends.
    - Radix 18y ago
      I would pay money to hear that against the tuned version... did he make any recordings?
      - tricky 18y ago
musiq 18y ago
We used to do "comping" of vocals back in the 80's, and afaik it's been done since the early 70's. We did this on the 2" 24 track tape recorder by copying/re-recording bits of multiple takes onto a single track. Then came Auto-Tune. That meant that less perfect singers no longer would have to strain themselves by performing a dozen tracks, we could do with three or four, focusing on performance and feel. AT would assist with the pitch. Sessions actually became more creative, since the tools were better than before. So "perfect vocals" have been around way longer than Auto-Tune. We just did it in a more tedious way, and wore out the singers vocal cords in the process. Pop is just pop. Other genres will always cater for those who want to listen to more "real music".
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  That last part was my first thought. Everything else about pop music is highly synthesized and scientifically produced. Why not the vocals?
  - axod 18y ago
    "Everything else about pop music is highly synthesized and scientifically produced. Why not the vocals?" I sense you think this is a bad thing... Are cars made by hand any more? Does being made by robots make a car any less fantastic?
    - brk 18y ago
      Most of the cars that would be considered "the best" are still hand-made, at least to a large degree. The difference though is that a car is a physical object produced by a persons talent. A vocal track is (in spirit at least) something produced directly, or a direct output of the vocalist. Part of the mystique is supposed to be the fact that not everyone can carry a perfect tune. Except than when you apply too much technology post-processing, you eliminate the exclusivity (and garbage up the track at the same time).
    - nfg 18y ago
      Is the robot praised for its creative brilliance and held up as an 'artist' also?
tlrobinson 18y ago
Auto-Tune being abused: Why every Kanye West and T-Pain song sounds completely ridiculous. It was kind of neat the first few times, now it's just annoying.
- thomaspaine 18y ago
  I'm pretty sure you're thinking of a vocoder, not auto-tune.
  - thomasswift 18y ago
    No he's thinking right. Vocoders usually sound a lot different. Kanye and T-Pain are using Auto-Tune.
    - Erf 18y ago
      To be fair, Kanye has also employed vocoders. See: "The New Workout Plan"
      - mjgoins 18y ago
        I could be wrong, but I believe that was a talkbox, not a vocoder. In the style of Zapp & Roger.
- pkaler 18y ago
  When referring to Kanye West, I'm assuming you mean 808s and Heartbreaks. Auto-Tune was used as an instrument on that album. That's what the original article alludes too. The vocals are supposed to contrast with the super, lofi, YouTubeyness of the background music. This completely the opposite of Kanye West's past work all the way back to Jay-Z's Blueprint album. One big critique of Auto-Tune is that it kills emotion by making pitch too perfect. You can't say this about 808s and Heartbreaks. The album sounds like nails on a chalkboard. And it's supposed to. The album was created in the context of him breaking up with his fiance and his mother dying. You can call Kanye West a lot of things, but disingenuous is not one of them. The use of Auto-Tune wasn't meant to be disingenuous in this one particular case. (I can't believe I just deconstructed a Kanye West album on Hacker News.)
tricky 18y ago
If you want to play with this, fire up GarageBand and check out the AUPitch effect. (make a real music track, then look in the track info, go to Vocal effects and try "Male Basic with pitch")
- tricky 18y ago
  wait, no, it isn't AUPitch... There's a slider there that says, "enhance tuning" that is similar to auto-tune. sars.
michaelneale 18y ago
Yes - I used AutoTune in recordings back in 1999/2000 - it was available as a DirectX plugin even then (I was one of the rebels who used Ensoniq paris for its superior musical instrament like qualities, unlike the now dominant thug "pro tools") - even on low end processors then it was practical to do it almost real time (and in any case, often I would just draw the graph of where the notes were meant to be). Once you did that a bit, you started to hear it everywhere. So I would put it at about 2000/1999 when I stopped hearing bum notes in pop songs on the radio. As a fond example, listen to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers "under the bridge" - a MASSIVE hit in the early 90s, most of the notes are flat. Can you imagine that song being a hit like that now in that form?
pjf 18y ago
BTW, Melodyne [1] does this plus some more jaw-dropping tricks. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFCjv4_jqAY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFCjv4_jqAY
- likpok 18y ago
  Melodyne is pretty crazy. Some of the changes lead to weird results (if you jump to far with vocals), but still pretty cool.
  - ssharp 18y ago
    I think the latest version Melodyne is absolutely amazing. A lot of amateur composing/producing on computers is heavily restricted by a relatively basic set of tools. While the tools may have deeper option sets, hobbyists may take years to discover them. It's rare that a program comes along which allows you to have in infinite amount of sounds to choose from and allows anyone to think of creative ways to recycle existing recordings. When the program is as easy to use as Melodyne, it gives a lot of power to the amateur.
aston 18y ago
Autotune is just another tool in the producer's toolkit. And by tool, I really mean instrument. Like any instrument, you can't just use it and automatically make a blockbuster hit. People have tried... Good music is good music, no matter how it's made, and I have a lot of respect for someone like T-Pain who's basically single-handedly proved that Autotune can provide powerful emotional effect in songs. I also have no problem with helping pop stars sing better, on albums and in live performances. I prefer the best product for my bucks, if at all possible. I trust a producer like Rick Rubin to know when to employ what techniques to a record to maximize my enjoyment.
- coglethorpe 18y ago
  What I found interesting is that it was the way the tool was used differently than the investor's intention that made it so popular.
  - parenthesis 18y ago
    That is not uncommon in the history of music technology. For example, the Roland TB-303 "was originally marketed to guitarists for bass accompaniment while practicing alone" [Wikipedia]. But what we got from it — in the end — was acid house. The vocoder was originally developed with telecommunications applications in mind, not Kraftwerk.
mynameishere 18y ago
That was embarrassing to read. Auto-tune is obvious and atrocious. The journalist in question has got to be tone deaf.
- gabrielroth 18y ago
  It sounds obvious when the settings are turned up really high and it's used as a pronounced, deliberately artificial effect, as in T-Pain and Kanye West and that one Cher song. Used at gentler settings, it can be almost completely transparent. I'm willing to bet you've heard it used both ways, and on the first ones you've thought 'obvious and atrocious,' and on the others you haven't noticed it at all.
  - mynameishere 18y ago
    I notice it on almost every top 40 song. It's absolutely shameful that a professional would need it as a crutch.
    - parenthesis 18y ago
      But almost every top 40 song isn't music by a musician, but entertainment (of which music is only one component) by an industry (of which the "artist" is but one small, though highly visible, part).
- nandemo 18y ago
  I don't understand why this comment and mattmaroon's are being downmodded. Perhaps music is one of the topics with which people identify too much? Like religion and politics.
DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Extremely cool stuff. So -- looking at this and Melodyne (see other comment) let's extrapolate to see where the technology is heading. It's Guitar Hero, except for real guitars. You and your friends play (hack) as best you can hit songs, along with vocals. The computer "adjusts" both the instrument and vocal performances to put you on-time and on-key. Heck, I'd pay money for that. It'd be awesome.
- kirse 18y ago
  http://guitarrising.com/ http://guitarrising.com/
wave 18y ago
You can hear it on the following video how Auto-Tune can make anyone sign like a pop star: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpu6C70WROM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpu6C70WROM
froo 18y ago
Oh great, yet another reason to hate the Oil Industry. Without Autocorrelation there would be no Auto Tune. Without Auto Tune we wouldn't have to suffer the music of Britney Spears. Andy Hildebrand.. you've just made my list sir.
c00p3r 18y ago
Does anyone developing a plug-in for the asterisk or other PBX or something? =)

75 points by ALee 18y ago

There's a fantasy out there that auto-tune makes you into a great singer. There's way more too it than that! The difference between great and poor singers is all about tone and emotion. There's way more to making pop music sound perfect than Autotune. Every step of the way is expertly crafted to fit together. No one complains about how much studio editing respected bands like Radiohead do in the studio, so we are we complaining about silly pop acts? And to all the people who say that music is in a "rut" need to get off their butts and actually put some effort in to find the great new music that they'll like. Yes, you have to actually try, not just whine that things aren't the same as they were back when you were coming of age. Mainstream people listen to fun, accessible music. It's always been that way, so get over it! There's great music of every type being made right now, you just have to go look for it.

mattmaroon 18y ago
Music is definitely in a rut and has been for years now. It's just part of the cycle. There is still good stuff being made, just as some companies prosper in a depression, but the overall industry is really stale. It never stays that way for long though.
- tricky 18y ago
  You are completely wrong. Music isn't in a rut. You are. Find someone who is into new music, ask some questions, borrow some albums, and really give it a chance. You'll be shocked at what you are missing just because you believe there's nothing good out there.
  - wheels 18y ago
    This seems to usually happen when people keep staring at the same place and expecting something interesting to happen there. Historically, if you want to get a good idea of where music is going, see what black americans are producing. Virtually every new genre of western pop music in the last century has come from black americans. (Blues, jazz, soul, rock, funk, disco, house, techno, hip-hop) After new genres emerge then there's usually a couple decades that follow of infusing that with other genres and that's where some really creative stuff starts coming out of the woodwork.
    - unalone 18y ago
      That's not a fair method. Rock began with Elvis. Before then, it was blues. Yeah, Elvis was inspired by black Americans, but his music was all his own. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who both moved music forward, were both white. The indie music scene nowadays comes from Jeff Magnum of Neutral Milk Hotel. He's white. Techno was inspired by minimalist classical music. Steve Reich? Philip Glass? White. I agree with your first point: music changes. I disagree with your last point: genres are interesting from the start. They become interesting for fans of other genres after a few decades, but for people who comprehend the musical theory behind a genre it tends to become interesting from the beginning.
      - aston 18y ago
        I was this close to downmodding you for saying Elvis invented rock. Chuck Berry, dude.
        unalone 18y ago
        ...They're both 1955. Neither knew the other when they began. They're completely, utterly different in style. Elvis's Sun sessions invented the basis of what I'd consider rock. Berry is riff-based. He's all about the guitar. He did incredible stuff, but for me rock was about the advent of the larger-than-life music personality, and about the attitude. Elvis had attitude. Berry didn't, not in the same way. Elvis was the first rock heartthrob. My point was that it's not a race game. White people do music too. To add to my above list: punk was Sex Pistols and the Ramones.
        aston 18y ago
        I'll concede those points. If you really want to see where music is going, you should just pay attention to what white people are buying.
      - wheels 18y ago
        I didn't say white people haven't innovated in music. I said that virtually all new pop genres have come from black americans. Techno was influenced by 20th century minimalism, but it wasn't inspired by it. Minimalism started becoming a significant influence in the second wave of techno. From your later comment, punk and some other rock sub-genres are good examples of genres that have not stemmed directly from black american culture. Note -- I don't think this is something fundamentally having to do with race, but that there's something within black american culture that has driven a disproportionate amount of innovation in popular music. With the genre-mixing thing, I didn't mean that genres aren't interesting from the start, just that often the phase where they begin to cross-pollinate often produces results that are as if not more interesting than the advent of the genres themselves.
  - jfornear 18y ago
    The new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, would be a good place to start.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    No, music is in a rut. I listen to plenty of new (or new to me) stuff via services like Pandora and Rhapsody. Most genres have gone completely stale. Hip hop is pretty much retreading the exact same territory once again. Rock's become largely cliche, with most of the good material being put out by bands that have been popular since I was in middle school. It's just a down cycle. It happens. Recorded sales and concert attendance, as well as just turning on your radio, seem to indicate this. 2008's concert attendance was slightly down, and the top 10 acts were all ancient. In order Bon Jovi, Springsteen, Madonna, The Police, Celine Dion, Kenny Chesney, Neil Diamond, Spice Girls, Eagles, and Rascall Flats. With one exception they're either country (which has been in a rut for 30 years) or older than me. That's a genuine rut my friend. The wheels are spinning but nobody's going anywhere.
    - GavinB 18y ago
      It might be more accurate to describe it as a rut for you. I don't mean that as an insult, it's okay if you just don't like what you hear. If you're looking for "the cool new things" that are happening, I definitely wouldn't look at the Top 10 in concert attendance. Given, we're not going to invent distorted electric guitar or precision audio editing again. But really, do we define great music as having a "sound" that's obviously jarring? Great music has been produced for centuries with the same old orchestral instruments--to the uninitiated, it all sounds pretty much the same.
      - mattmaroon 18y ago
        Given record sales and concert attendance, it would be more accurate to say that music isn't in a rut for you.
        GavinB 18y ago
        Since we're talking about a subjective judgment, sure. We're in the midst of a major revolution in music distribution. While revenues are down, people are listening to more music than ever before, and getting more choice in what they can listen to. Thanks to a new generation raised on guitar hero and rock band, I predict that things are going to get even crazier very soon. If you define a rut as "not undergoing mainstream stylistic revolution" then sure, we're in a rut.
- unalone 18y ago
  I just "discovered" Eminem. I've known he's existed for a long time, but I just realized how incredible his music is. That's 4 years old now, yeah, but it's an example of how you might be missing what's going on right now. This year, for instance, Chumbawamba's The Boy Bands Have Won was an incredible folk tune album. Atmosphere's hip-hop album If Life Gives You Lemons, Paint That Shit Gold. Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping did stuff I've never heard in pop before, even if it was a pretty inconsistent album overall. Fleet Foxes blew my mind last winter. Last year, there was Streetlight Manifesto, half a good album by They Might Be Giants, Radiohead, Freezepop, Flight of the Conchords, Dr. Dog, Burial, Arcade Fire. I can't think of a single year in the last 40 that didn't see major pieces of music come out. Every maligned era has had some incredible gems.
  - shiranaihito 18y ago
    > I just "discovered" Eminem. I've known he's existed for a long time, but I just realized how incredible his music is. Back when he was new, no one could avoid hearing his stuff on the radio or MTV. I always hated it, with a moderately burning passion, I might add, but I don't remember the details anymore. It would be interesting to hear why his music is "incredible". For my definition of "incredible", buy yourself a copy of Prince's "The Hits - The B-Sides". It's got most of his best songs. He hasn't released anything particularly great since 1993, but that doesn't stop many of his older songs from being absolutely mind-blowingly awesome ("When You Were Mine", "Little Red Corvette", "Purple Rain", and so on)
    - unalone 18y ago
      My plan was to listen to Purple Rain tonight, actually. I don't listen to the radio or watch MTV, so I really did miss him entirely. Usually I'd write a long essay on just why I love Eminem, but now noprocrast is set incredibly restrictive, so I'll be fast. The guy has an incredible power behind his voice: he's got an energy that's rare even in rock, and he really channels that energy to create something neat. Lyrically he's impressive. I will never be entirely a fan of rap's lyrical style - I'll always yearn for the incredibly focused and taut language of poetry - but Eminem does it well. He has extremely inventive rhymes, he sets up incredible rhythms, and he manages to be surprisingly funny at times, other times incredibly creepy. I didn't like rap for a long time. Last week something clicked and I finally just understood what I was supposed to be listening for.
- albertcardona 18y ago
  I suggest an on-site visit to the DNA Lounge. Music as lively and as good as ever. [The DNA Lounge also has web audio broadcasting]
- mynameishere 18y ago
  It's been in a rut since ~1980. Obviously, arguing on the basis of opinion is tricky, unless people are willing to use a common metric, and have common overall tastes. People have a very, very bad habit of preferring music from their own youth. This is similar to the phenomena of almost always preferring the version of a song you hear first, even if there are lots of successful covers. So it's hard to be objective. But let the people downmodding the OP consider some active bands from a year long before my birth, 1969 (off the top of my head): The Beatles The Rolling Stones Led Zeppelin The Doors CCR Hendrix Pink Floyd [Clapton was somewhere between cream and dereck and the dominoes] ...those are the major acts. Leaving out clapton, I would posit that each one of those groups is better than any group from the past 20 years. Disagree, fine, but to say that the overall culture was comparable is to leave yourself open to ridicule. ADDENDUM: Here's a better list. The lineup for woodstock--ONE frickin' concert, which manages to leave out some of the best groups, like Zeppelin and the Doors and Bob Dylan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival#Performing_artists_and_sequence_of_events http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival#Performing_a... It's almost surreal how good that list is.
  - marvin 18y ago
    Music culture in the sixties/seventies isn't comparable to music culture today because the general culture of these two eras isn't comparable. There's a major chicken/egg problem here: society doesn't appreciate music in the same way, there is less openness among the general population, drugs aren't nearly as accepted, not nearly the same number of people go to music festivals etc. etc. etc. It is more of a cultural shift than the decline of music as an isolated phenomenon. If you start dragging out the "everything was better before" argument, remember that you'll get more than the music if you go back to 1970. War, the draft, unemployment, massive amounts of LSD... I haven't seen any commenter in this thread attempt a somewhat scientific assessment of the quality of music then and now. We can probably agree that the general culture is less friendly to good music today, but if you want to go deeper than that there is really no way to reach a consensus. I'm of the belief that you can find just as novel, inspired, creative and emotional music today as 30 years ago. There might be a bit less and it will certainly be more obscure, but artists still create. As a case in point, both Marilyn Manson, Dream Theater and The Cardigans have created large amounts of novel music the last 10 years. Even though these musicians aren't among the most obscure, I still think you're doomed to fail if you search the pop charts for good art.

biohacker42 18y ago

I like The White Stripes a lot, but I've heard a few live performances, and... is it just me or is Jack not able to hit the right pitch to save his life?

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
coglethorpe 18y ago
There's a lot more to The White Stripes than singing in tune. :-) Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin said it pretty well on his "60 Minutes" interview. He said that enthusiasm counted for a lot, more than in his singing, which was decidedly off in the clips of him playing live that ran during the interview. The Stripes have a whole package, from their brother/sister husband/wife pairing, to the goth vibe, to the artsy videos. Somehow they hit on something that people like, even if it's out of tune.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  Holy crap, I think we just found a way to link Chris Martin (Coldplay) and Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror)!

pxlpshr 18y ago

Auto-tune has been in use for a long time, I guess America is finally waking up to its pop-u-liciuos facade? Lets hope so. MTV ruined music when they made presentation more important than sound. Music was great in the past-time because radio was the mass-medium and sound doesn't discriminate against physical characteristics that would otherwise make one unattractive for marketing.

dag 18y ago
Remember that The Monkees predated MTV.
- pxlpshr 18y ago
  How many years has it been since there was a blind or deaf musician on top charts? :)
  - inglorian 18y ago
    A deaf musician? I can think of several blind musicians off the top of my head, but barring Beethoven (and only at the end of his life) I can think of no deaf ones, ever. Seems entirely contradictory, no?
    - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
      http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051013/REVIEWS/51011001/1023 http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20... This is Ebert's review of Touch the Sound, which is a documentary about a deaf percussionist.

Dilpil 18y ago

I'm not sure it makes sense to be concerned with whether or not a song was made by a singer or an engineer, or about anything besides the song itself for that matter.

Jebdm 18y ago
Well, it does make live shows more difficult.
- tricky 18y ago
  A lot of performers run auto-tune real time when they play live. I got to sit behind the board when a friend of mine ran sound for nsync. He let me hear the signal before it went thru the autotune box. hi-larious.
  - electromagnetic 18y ago
    The thing is, when you pay $50+ for a ticket you're paying for talented artist... I suppose the engineer should be considered the artist not the 'singer'.
    - tricky 18y ago
      I saw a band called "Metrostation" a few months ago. The place was sold out with tweens who were having the time of their life loving this amazing band. Funny thing was, the band was not playing. Everything was tracked on 2 macs run by a chubby guy in a phillies hat on the side of the stage. I'd argue the majority of people who go to these shows have no clue and will gladly pay their $50 just to see famous people and tell their friends.
  - Radix 18y ago
    I would pay money to hear that against the tuned version... did he make any recordings?
    - tricky 18y ago

musiq 18y ago

We used to do "comping" of vocals back in the 80's, and afaik it's been done since the early 70's. We did this on the 2" 24 track tape recorder by copying/re-recording bits of multiple takes onto a single track. Then came Auto-Tune. That meant that less perfect singers no longer would have to strain themselves by performing a dozen tracks, we could do with three or four, focusing on performance and feel. AT would assist with the pitch. Sessions actually became more creative, since the tools were better than before. So "perfect vocals" have been around way longer than Auto-Tune. We just did it in a more tedious way, and wore out the singers vocal cords in the process. Pop is just pop. Other genres will always cater for those who want to listen to more "real music".

mattmaroon 18y ago
That last part was my first thought. Everything else about pop music is highly synthesized and scientifically produced. Why not the vocals?
- axod 18y ago
  "Everything else about pop music is highly synthesized and scientifically produced. Why not the vocals?" I sense you think this is a bad thing... Are cars made by hand any more? Does being made by robots make a car any less fantastic?
  - brk 18y ago
    Most of the cars that would be considered "the best" are still hand-made, at least to a large degree. The difference though is that a car is a physical object produced by a persons talent. A vocal track is (in spirit at least) something produced directly, or a direct output of the vocalist. Part of the mystique is supposed to be the fact that not everyone can carry a perfect tune. Except than when you apply too much technology post-processing, you eliminate the exclusivity (and garbage up the track at the same time).
  - nfg 18y ago
    Is the robot praised for its creative brilliance and held up as an 'artist' also?

tlrobinson 18y ago

Auto-Tune being abused: Why every Kanye West and T-Pain song sounds completely ridiculous. It was kind of neat the first few times, now it's just annoying.

thomaspaine 18y ago
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of a vocoder, not auto-tune.
- thomasswift 18y ago
  No he's thinking right. Vocoders usually sound a lot different. Kanye and T-Pain are using Auto-Tune.
  - Erf 18y ago
    To be fair, Kanye has also employed vocoders. See: "The New Workout Plan"
    - mjgoins 18y ago
      I could be wrong, but I believe that was a talkbox, not a vocoder. In the style of Zapp & Roger.
pkaler 18y ago
When referring to Kanye West, I'm assuming you mean 808s and Heartbreaks. Auto-Tune was used as an instrument on that album. That's what the original article alludes too. The vocals are supposed to contrast with the super, lofi, YouTubeyness of the background music. This completely the opposite of Kanye West's past work all the way back to Jay-Z's Blueprint album. One big critique of Auto-Tune is that it kills emotion by making pitch too perfect. You can't say this about 808s and Heartbreaks. The album sounds like nails on a chalkboard. And it's supposed to. The album was created in the context of him breaking up with his fiance and his mother dying. You can call Kanye West a lot of things, but disingenuous is not one of them. The use of Auto-Tune wasn't meant to be disingenuous in this one particular case. (I can't believe I just deconstructed a Kanye West album on Hacker News.)

tricky 18y ago

If you want to play with this, fire up GarageBand and check out the AUPitch effect. (make a real music track, then look in the track info, go to Vocal effects and try "Male Basic with pitch")

tricky 18y ago
wait, no, it isn't AUPitch... There's a slider there that says, "enhance tuning" that is similar to auto-tune. sars.

michaelneale 18y ago

Yes - I used AutoTune in recordings back in 1999/2000 - it was available as a DirectX plugin even then (I was one of the rebels who used Ensoniq paris for its superior musical instrament like qualities, unlike the now dominant thug "pro tools") - even on low end processors then it was practical to do it almost real time (and in any case, often I would just draw the graph of where the notes were meant to be). Once you did that a bit, you started to hear it everywhere. So I would put it at about 2000/1999 when I stopped hearing bum notes in pop songs on the radio. As a fond example, listen to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers "under the bridge" - a MASSIVE hit in the early 90s, most of the notes are flat. Can you imagine that song being a hit like that now in that form?

pjf 18y ago

BTW, Melodyne [1] does this plus some more jaw-dropping tricks. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFCjv4_jqAY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFCjv4_jqAY

likpok 18y ago
Melodyne is pretty crazy. Some of the changes lead to weird results (if you jump to far with vocals), but still pretty cool.
- ssharp 18y ago
  I think the latest version Melodyne is absolutely amazing. A lot of amateur composing/producing on computers is heavily restricted by a relatively basic set of tools. While the tools may have deeper option sets, hobbyists may take years to discover them. It's rare that a program comes along which allows you to have in infinite amount of sounds to choose from and allows anyone to think of creative ways to recycle existing recordings. When the program is as easy to use as Melodyne, it gives a lot of power to the amateur.

aston 18y ago

Autotune is just another tool in the producer's toolkit. And by tool, I really mean instrument. Like any instrument, you can't just use it and automatically make a blockbuster hit. People have tried... Good music is good music, no matter how it's made, and I have a lot of respect for someone like T-Pain who's basically single-handedly proved that Autotune can provide powerful emotional effect in songs. I also have no problem with helping pop stars sing better, on albums and in live performances. I prefer the best product for my bucks, if at all possible. I trust a producer like Rick Rubin to know when to employ what techniques to a record to maximize my enjoyment.

coglethorpe 18y ago
What I found interesting is that it was the way the tool was used differently than the investor's intention that made it so popular.
- parenthesis 18y ago
  That is not uncommon in the history of music technology. For example, the Roland TB-303 "was originally marketed to guitarists for bass accompaniment while practicing alone" [Wikipedia]. But what we got from it — in the end — was acid house. The vocoder was originally developed with telecommunications applications in mind, not Kraftwerk.

mynameishere 18y ago

That was embarrassing to read. Auto-tune is obvious and atrocious. The journalist in question has got to be tone deaf.

gabrielroth 18y ago
It sounds obvious when the settings are turned up really high and it's used as a pronounced, deliberately artificial effect, as in T-Pain and Kanye West and that one Cher song. Used at gentler settings, it can be almost completely transparent. I'm willing to bet you've heard it used both ways, and on the first ones you've thought 'obvious and atrocious,' and on the others you haven't noticed it at all.
- mynameishere 18y ago
  I notice it on almost every top 40 song. It's absolutely shameful that a professional would need it as a crutch.
  - parenthesis 18y ago
    But almost every top 40 song isn't music by a musician, but entertainment (of which music is only one component) by an industry (of which the "artist" is but one small, though highly visible, part).
nandemo 18y ago
I don't understand why this comment and mattmaroon's are being downmodded. Perhaps music is one of the topics with which people identify too much? Like religion and politics.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

Extremely cool stuff. So -- looking at this and Melodyne (see other comment) let's extrapolate to see where the technology is heading. It's Guitar Hero, except for real guitars. You and your friends play (hack) as best you can hit songs, along with vocals. The computer "adjusts" both the instrument and vocal performances to put you on-time and on-key. Heck, I'd pay money for that. It'd be awesome.

kirse 18y ago
http://guitarrising.com/ http://guitarrising.com/

wave 18y ago

You can hear it on the following video how Auto-Tune can make anyone sign like a pop star: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpu6C70WROM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpu6C70WROM

froo 18y ago

Oh great, yet another reason to hate the Oil Industry. Without Autocorrelation there would be no Auto Tune. Without Auto Tune we wouldn't have to suffer the music of Britney Spears. Andy Hildebrand.. you've just made my list sir.

c00p3r 18y ago

Does anyone developing a plug-in for the asterisk or other PBX or something? =)