Smule, an iPhone app developing company that has brought us revolutionary apps such as the Ocarina, Leaf Trombone, and Sonic Vox, has done it yet again with their latest “I Am T-Pain” app. It uses Antares Audio Technologies notorious auto-tune technology, to allow you the opportunity to pitch-shift your voice to the sound of T-Pain or customize your voice to the scale of your choosing.
Auto-Tune originated as a plug-in that uses a phase vocoder to detect, analyze, and modify pitch in vocals and instruments. Its initial release in 1997 immediately put it on the world stage as a proprietary audio processor that would eventually find itself in nearly every professional recording studio. It has since drastically changed the music industry by allowing practically any talented or untalented singer alike capitalize off its ability to disguise their inaccuracies, and mistakes.
This has been fought at by many audio engineers and musicians due to its negative effects on the perception of music in contemporary times.
At the 51st Grammy Awards, the band Death Cab for Cutie made an appearance wearing blue ribbons to protest the use of Auto-Tune in the music industry. Furthermore, The lead single of Jay-Z’s 2009 album The Blueprint is titled “D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)”.† Jay-Z elaborated that he wrote the song under the personal belief that far too many people had jumped on the auto-tune bandwagon and that the trend had become a gimmick.††
But setting the auto-tune feud aside, this time around Antares Audio Technologies took their auto-tune technology down a rather different road. With the help of Smule, they molded auto-tune into a creative road to self-fulfilling amusement at your fingertips.
I recorded a short sample so you guys can get a grasp at what this iPhone app has to offer. In the recording I’m in freestyle mode, so there’s no background music which allows you the freedom to overlay a beat, post-app if you wanted.
My Freestylin’ Self…
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The Tuning section is defaulted on T-Pain when you first download it, but once you switch it to custom the real power behind this app is revealed. As you can see to the right it has a scale drop-down list to pick your desired scale and choose whether its in Major or Minor. Once you’ve selected the scale of your choice you have four preset buttons that are programmable simply by holding them down.
The beats section provides you with five free downloadable T-Pain instrumental tracks that feature syncopated lyrics that are displayed on-screen for you to karaoke along with if you so desire. There are also three free downloadable beats that give you a little more freedom to just mess around with. And finally, Smule takes advantage of the iPhone’s new premium content system by offering three .99 cent downloadable songs by T-Pain, two of which you are singing a duet with T-Pain.
But above all the cleverest part of this application isn’t its auto-tuning powers but its easy ability to lay down a track and quickly share it with your friends; whether its via email, facebook, myspace, or smule.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if a future hit came out of this app. And for a mere 3 dollars, who could resist? I couldn’t, and I can hardly stand hearing auto-tune in the music industry, but I can’t seem to put this app down… “I Am T-Pain” Karaoke night anyone?
Grab a copy of this ground-breaking app in the App Store here.
Check out the I Am T-Pain App at work in this music video collage of the song “Buy You A Drank”:
† “Death Cab for Cutie protests Auto-Tune“. Idiomag.com. 2009-02-12.
†† Schwartz, Barry (2009-06-06). “Jay-Z Premiers New Song, ‘D.O.A.’: ‘Death Of Auto-Tune’”. MTV. Shaheem, Reid (2009-10). “Jay-Z Blames Wendy’s Commercial — Partially — For His ‘Death Of Auto-Tune’“. MTV. MTV Networks.
There are three major mixing styles that started to emerge nearly a half a century ago; the New York Style, the LA Style, and the London Style. Although there’s less of a distinction between them nowadays, most of the recordings you hear, still fall into one of these three major mixing styles.
The New York Style
The New York sound is one of the punchiest, aggressive mixing styles there is, due to the amount of compression that is used. The rhythm section is typically the most compressed section out of the bunch; starting with sending all the drums into a stereo bus. The stereo bus is then ran through compression to your liking, and then you gradually mix in the wet compressed stereo bus drums into the mix along side the dry uncompressed drum tracks using faders. You can further augment the amount of wet compressed drums by boosting the high and low frequencies on the stereo bus track using EQ.
To listen to a few examples of the New York Style check out these bands listed below:
Goo Goo Dolls – Better Days
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Nada Surf – Always Love
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The LA Style
The LA sound has a naturalistic sound that resembles that of a live performance. It can still contain compression, EQ, reverb, and more; but anything that is mixed in with the original recording is added to develop its original sound rather than remodeling it into something its not.
To listen to a few examples of the LA Style check out these bands listed below:
Eddie Vedder – Guaranteed
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Billy Joel – Vienna
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Don McLean – American Pie
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The London Style
The London sound style is an intensely constructed musical performance that uses multiple effect layers to achieve it. By using multiple effects layers, it allows each effect or instrument for that matter to hold its own perspective, or in other words its own sonic environment within the sound scape of the song. This can enable specifically chosen effects to come in at different points in the song and completely change the dynamics of the sound from that point on.
To listen to a few examples of the London Style check out these bands listed below:
The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
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Fatboy Slim – Praise You
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Other Styles & Beyond
Since the late 80’s or so there has been a homogenization of the three major styles due to the technological advancements in audio production. This has allowed audio engineers the freedom to record, mix, and master practically anywhere he or she pleases. But that ability has only existed for a couple of decades. Before the late 80’s the three major styles influences practically all music that was recorded; meaning you would be able to identify where the music was recorded simply by listening to it. The technological restrictions and the monopolization of the record industry for better or worse controlled the studios and therefore the engineers; which is why it was normal to see most studios with house engineers; these engineers typically worked full time at one specific studio for most of their career.
Today, the audio production market is predominately driven by freelance engineers that travel from studio to studio, city to city, and therefore interchanging styles along the way. The once regional sub-styles that existed in areas such as San Francisco, Philadelphia, Ohio, Miami, and so on have succumbed to one of the three major styles, because of this. This expanding homogenization and diversification is not only done by freelancers interchanging styles from one location to the next. It is each individuals musical tastes, cultures, philosophies, past mentors, innovations, and so on that truly bring us to new alterations of the three major mixing styles and beyond.
As you all might know, I am the sound engineer for Circus Brown’s Not a Side Show every Saturday Night on KRCL 90.9FM radio based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
I started working with Circus Brown a little over a year and a half ago when I was introduced to him by Matt Mateus: the man who invigorated purpose into my life by inspiring and teaching me the principles and practices of sound engineering. And so, I owe my entire careers success and future success to Matt. In fact, many of the principles he instilled in me have directly resulted in the creation of this website. He always taught that sound engineering practices should be past on from one generation to the next.
While I seemingly veered off subject, I couldn’t have been more on subject. Circus Brown is a radio dj that is directed connected to Salt Lake City’s local music scene, and furthermore one of the only radio dj’s in SLC that uses his connections to properly represent the local music scene. Circus Brown has been a radio dj for 6 years now with KRCL, undoubtedly changing the dynamics of the music scene in Salt Lake City.
Since 2002, he has been blogging about life in Salt Lake City, the local music scene, and his radio show. And with his latest addition “Circus Brown’s Podcast Central” you can subscribe to his podcasts and receive his entire shows and interviews via rss.
If you don’t have an rss reader, or are new to rss feeds and readers, I highly recommend using Google Reader to subscribe to your rss feeds. It works like a charm, uses your Google account (if you have a gmail account for instance), you can view/download music and video files straight from the reader, and if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch it couldn’t work better.
Now, last but not least Muscle Hawk played on the show last Saturday and I must say it was an amazing experience. They came in around 9:30pm and started setting up all their equipment. Lindsey on the drums, Josh on a beautiful Analog Moog Little Phatty Synthesizer and bass, and Greg on an M-Audio Axiom 49 key midi controller, Ableton Live 7, and a very versatile Korg Zero 8 digital mixer that glued everything together.
Here’s Circus Brown’s Blog Post for the entire radio show featuring Muscle Hawk live:
New “Circus Brown’s Not a Side Show” Podcast
Saturday night Connery and I were visited by a very special holiday bird, Muscle Hawk.
Another great show with plenty of new music plus some Queen, Cars, Dr. Hook, Randy Newman, Wire, you know all the classics needed to keep a cold winter night cozy.
New podcast is up for your enjoyment, and you can also check out Muscle Hawk live next year a few dates are listed on their myspace.
In my opinion they have nearly perfected their musical sound, and when I spoke to them about how they achieved their sound Greg replied, “It took a long time to get to this point, but I finally feel like we’ve achieved the sound we’ve been striving to get all these months”.
I for one thoroughly enjoyed meeting and recording Muscle Hawk and I hope Circus Brown will revisit them next year when they have produced some more amazing tunes. As Circus mentioned you can listen to the entire show featuring all six of the songs they played that night. And they have several shows coming up in February and March 2009 so check out their myspace for the specific dates and times.
In Part 1 of Getting to Know DAWs I briefly stated that the main components of a DAW are the pre-amps, audio converter units, and audio multi-track software, but I didn’t describe to you what they do! So in this post and all future posts for that matter, I will do my duty and describe to you all the technical terminology and explain the concepts behind the terminology so that you’ll gradually learn and acquire an understanding of the principles behind sound engineering.
But before we get started I want all of you to realize that the key to understanding how a digital audio workstation works is not necessarily all about the technical aspects, but more about the conceptual aspects of how a digital audio workstation operates. For instance, if you understand how one channel strip on in a DAW works you will understand every sequential channel strip that is in that DAW. So without further ado let’s delve into getting to know digital audio workstations Pt. 2 (Input Section).
Input Section/Module – this is the first section/module that signal has to go through. Depending on the situation, the settings that you make in this module could make or break you. This is also the stage where analog to digital audio conversion takes place. The terminology below is what can typically be found in the input section of any given digital audio workstation.
- Phantom Power 48 V
- Pads/Attenuation
- Preamplifier
- Mic/Line Switches
- Trim
Phantom Power 48 V – is the option to change the voltage that runs to the microphone. There are specific microphones that require phantom power, which is also known as 48 V. If for instance, the Phantom power switch is off and you’re using a microphone that requires phantom power you will not receive signal from that microphone. There are more specific voltages that are microphone specific. We will look into the specific differences in these microphones when we start talking about how microphones work and about microphone placement.
Pads/ Attenuation – this option almost speaks for itself. Attenuation or pads is the option to attenuate or rather cut the microphone signal, typically -20 to -30dB, before the signal enters the microphone preamp. This option is here for specific instances when something is coming in too hot (loud) so that it would result in the microphone preamp overloading.
Preamplifier (Preamp) – the preamp’s function is to amplify the low-level microphone inputs into a level loud enough to be modified and reproduced. This level is known as a line level, which typically is a +60dB boost from the low-level microphone input signal. A good example of a preamplifier outside of a DAW is on a guitar in the form of the pickup. Without a pickup the vibrations of the guitar strings wouldn’t be amplified resulting in the inability to hear the vibrations of the guitar strings at an audible level. This same principle is applied to any low-level input signal that comes in to a digital audio workstation.
Mic/Line Switches – as I stated before a preamp is used to amplify the low-level microphone signal into a line level signal. But, what if you already have a line level signal? And for that matter what if you put a line level signal into a microphone level preamp?
If you put a line level signal into a microphone level preamp, the line level signal would overdrive the microphone preamp. This is because the microphone level preamp is looking for a low-level microphone signal. So if you put a line level signal in a microphone level preamp it would essentially be amplifying a signal that does not need to be amplified. That is why we have the mic/line switch to identify what kind of signal is coming into the specified input.
Trim – adjusts a signal after it has gone through the preamp and/or line input to be compatible with other processes of the DAW. This should be tweaked so that when your faders are up all the way there is no audible distortion occurring.
This pretty much wraps up the input module of a digital audio workstation. Now, depending on the size of the digital audio workstation there could be eight inputs or 32 inputs. This means that there might be 8 or 32 identical input modules lined up on a physical mixing board or on your computer screen. But now that you understand the basic workings of the input module, its nothing but 32 input modules lined up, right?
I’ll be posting “Getting to know (DAWs) Digital Audio Workstations” entries about each section (module) in DAWs until we have covered all their inner workings.
CHARLES COHEN AT THE BUCHLA MUSIC EASEL from ∆LEX on Vimeo.
I recently found this amazing video on accident when I was reading Wei Zhu’s Developer Blog on Facebook’s Developers Website.
Now, while there is an enormous amount of information pertaining to synthesizers, be it their history, what they are, and how they work, I have had very little experience with analog synthesizers such as this one. I have worked with numerous synthesizers in software based music sequencers and DAWs, such as Ableton Live, Reaktor 5, and Logic Pro 8. But while I thoroughly enjoy messing around with my software based synths, I literally cannot wait til I get the chance to sit down and play with one of these monsters. Oh and, that’s if I ever get the chance to mess with one of these being that Buchla only made 14 of them…
Here’s a little excerpt describing the Music Easel published by Buchla & Associates back in 1973!
The Music Easel contains many of the elements commonly used to generate and process sound: a keyboard, sequencer, pulser, preamplifier, envelope detector and balanced modulator; oscillators, gates, envelope generators and filters; facilities for mixing, monitoring and reverberating. Many of these elements possess an unusual degree of sophistication. The keyboard is solid state, with touch sensitive, chromatically organized keys, accurate and reproducible pressure output, tactile feedback, octave shifting, and voltage controlled portamento. A complex oscillator, developed through computer aided simulation studies, is a rich source of complex audio spectra. featuring voltage control of pitch, timbre and waveform, this oscillator provides the Music Easel with a timbral range unapproachable by other musical instruments. Dec, 1973, By Buchla & Associates. Read more…
/ / / / / Viewing with headphones or a stereo source is highly recommended / / / / /
This colorful video features sound artist Charles Cohen improvising on a 1970’s Buchla Music Easel. This extremely rare instrument is one of Don Buchla’s 200 series. Buchla (a pioneer of audio synthesis) only manufactured 14 of these units. The entire film was edited from an hour-long set of free improvisation, with audio was taken directly from Charles’ mixing board.
All of the photography and editing was produced by Alex Tyson, a sound and video artist from Pennsylvania. The film was shot in 16:9 720p High Definition format, using the Letus35 Extreme and a 35mm LensBaby 3GPL.
At this time the film is only available online. While you can stream it in HD, it is best viewed on DVD.
Please contact the filmmaker for hard copies if interested.
Alex can be reached at alextyson (at) gmail dot com
Thanks to LensBabies for making this awesome lens!
Sonoma Wire Works: the creators of the popular guitar recording software RiffWorks and Retronyms: the creator of Recorder, the most popular single track recording software in Apple’s App Store, have released a slick, easy to use mobile version of a four track recorder.
The FourTrack app’s main functionalities can be seen in the screenshot to the left which include arming a given track, stereo panning, a playback scroll, and simple track faders.
FourTrack provides four discrete channels of .wav mono 44.1 kHz, and 16-bit sound quality. You can record as much as your iPhone or iPod Touch (2nd Gen) hard-drives can hold and FourTrack allows you too easily transfer your audio files to your computer via wifi.
This application is perfect for the musician that wants to get his or her ideas down on the fly or the group of friends that want to lay down a beat that has some layers to it.
On the flip side, there are some issues that after using it myself, I couldn’t have agreed more with Eliot Van Buskirk review on Wired.com when he stated…
However, the iPhone/iPod Touch hardware is an occasional issue when it comes to recording. The iPhone’s built-in speaker is too soft to allow the program to be used in any meaningful way without headphones, and not every pair of headphones has a skinny enough jack to fit into the first-generation iPhone. Plus, there’s currently no way to use a high-quality mic, and the software doesn’t work on the first-generation iPod Touch — just second-generation models that can be used with a third-party microphone). Nov, 6 2008, By Eliot Van Buskirk. Read more…
Setting aside the iPhone/iPod Touch’s hardware shortcomings, FourTrack marks the beginning of a new era for mobile phone audio recording innovations that will undoubtedly improve as technology advances.
And with Blue Microphones new Blue Icicle: a USB audio interface, I wonder if there’s any possibilities that may lie with it and Google’s new G1?
You can download FourTrack for the iPhone and iPod Touch (2nd Gen) from Apple’s App Store for a justifiable price of $9.99.
When I first heard about the new MacBooks the only words i seemed to hear were, “their aluminum, wait…their aluminum?!” Yes, they have a “Precision aluminum unibody enclosure.” Oh and they have a wicked graphics card: a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card to be exact, on their cheapest MacBook model…
But aside from a heap of fancy new design features and updated hardware improvements, there’s something that has all but disappeared from the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros… The Firewire 400 port…
But let me be clear: there’s really, really bad news for the MacBook. FireWire 400 is gone. There’s no way to add it back, because the non-Pro models lack ExpressCard. You can’t edit video from a DV camera, you can’t plug in audio interfaces from the likes of MOTU and RME, and you’ll have to do all audio, MIDI, and external storage through two USB 2.0 jacks. Oct, 14 2008, By Peter Kirn. Read more…
As an ol’ MacBook Pro owner and a die hard Apple fan, I briefly considered investing in a new MacBook Pro. But I think I’ll keep my FW400 port for now, and wait ’til Apple makes a smart functionality/usability decision instead of a “lets sacrific functionality for attractability” decision…
this does reveal a weakness of the Mac platform, which is that you are constrained to what Apple gives you in hardware choice. It’s worth noting that this is a definite mark in the plus column for standard PCs running Windows and Linux. That might not change your mind on OS choice, but there is still a choice, and each platform choice involves tradeoffs. Oct, 14 2008, By Peter Kirn. Read more…
Lets hope that next time Apple releases a new product they will at least give us the option to custom order additional FW ports or other customizable add-ons for that matter… Because if I remember correctly, Apple’s target audience is suppose to be creative multimedia individuals… The creative individuals that need the extra FW port for external devices…
The once dreaded PC just got a whole lot more interesting… Especially when I can customize it ’til kingdom come.
Sign the petition that’s requesting the return of the FW400 port to the MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
A Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is a system designed to record, edit, mix, and playback audio. The main functionality of a DAW is its ability to provide the necessary components to openly manipulate recorded sounds. The main components included in DAWs are pre-amps, audio converter units, and audio multi-track software (if needed).
There are two types of DAW’s in the audio engineering industry:
- Stand-Alone (Integrated) DAWs
- Computer-Based DAWs
In 1989, Digidesign introduced “Sound Tools” the first digital audio workstation for the Apple Macintosh, dubbing it “the first tapeless recording studio”.
The picture above is Digidesign’s most recent mid-end computer-based DAW called the “Digidesign 003 Rack Pro Tools LE System”. In this audio interface Digidesign has intentionally used the least amount of physical space while retaining maximum userability through its proprietary software Pro Tools LE. I say proprietary software because in order to use the Pro Tools LE software you need to have Digidesign’s hardware talking to your computer to authorize the use of Pro Tools LE… I know, your probably thinking the same thing I am, “Why did Digidesign make their products proprietary?” I could go on a long rant about this issue but instead I will say one word, “Capitalism”.
The Digidesign 003 is a perfect example of a computer-based DAW. It has all the necessary hardware capabilities as a integrated stand-alone DAW such as: 4 balanced XLR mic inputs, 4 balanced 1/4″ jacks, line inputs, monitor outputs (both main and alt)… The complete hardware specifications can be found here.
Once your passed all the hardware the power of the DAW really starts to shine. Computer-Based DAWs give you the ability to look at the sound waves in full detail, going so far as to cut and slice sound files, duplicate, layer, compress, apply effects, and the list could go on forever. Simply put computer-based DAWs are the most versatile audio interfaces out there and will continue to be in the future.
The Digidesign 003 Rack is a good example of a well equipped DAW that will get the job done in most home recording scenarios. Although there are many other DAWs that cater to beat-making music production, and specific post production venues…
The idea that any one application is better than another for creating certain types of music is somewhat of a myth. The majority of music-production applications available don’t discriminate by genre. Rather than listening to hype and taking everybody’s advice into account, a more sensible approach is to try as many different demos as possible. That way, you can spend some time trying different creative processes within each environment. It will become apparent which product you feel most confident with and which one contains the best tools for producing your music. Jun 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Mo Volans. Read more…
If your looking to start your own home recording studio and want a reliable, industry-standard digital audio workstation, the Digidesign Digi 003 Rack Pro Tools LE System is simply the most cost effective and overall performing DAW in its class.
Stand-Alone (Integrated) DAWs are audio interfaces that are self-sustaining… They typically consist of a mixing console, a control surface, audio converters, data storage, and everything else that I specified in Digidesign’s 003 hardware.
The major difference is that when you get into high-end stand-alone DAWs you will see equilization, compression, reverb, and many of the features you see in computer-based DAW software. The upside is you physically get to turn the knobs and faders on the mixing console and control surface. The downside is the versitility and the overall functionality cannot be matched due to the depth and scope of functionalities which lie in computer-based DAWs.
However, systems such as the Orban Audicy once flourished in the radio and television markets. Today, some systems still offer computerless arranging and recording features with a full graphical user interface, such as the Roland MV-8000, Roland MV-8800 and recent Mackie HDR-series hard disk recorders. Read more…
To sum Pt. 1 of “Getting to know (DAW) Digital Audio Workstations” up I can safely say that computer-based DAWs are beating integrated/stand-alone DAWs. Though there are new stand-alone DAWs that have integrated computer operations into their infastructure allowing functionality that compares closely to a computer-based DAW. In otherwords, although computer-based DAWs are beating stand-alone DAWs, with so many different venues of audio production we’ll be seeing both for along time to come.
Getting to know (DAW) Digital Audio Workstation Pt. 1 Terminology:
Audio Interfaces: An audio interface converts analog signals into digital information so that you can record, edit, and mix the information and then re-converts the information into analog so that you can hear it through your monitors.
Digidesign’s Proprietary Software: Pro-Tools software cannot be used with any third party hardware. Read the rest of this entry »
Hi all, and welcome to newbornyeti.com: In the life of an [tag]Audio Engineer[/tag]. First, because of its peculiarity I want to start off by explaining the name of this website. In the vast industry of [tag]Audio Production[/tag] there are namely two types of audio engineers: those who, after going through heaven and hell to learn the trade will lend a helping hand when a newcomer passes their way; and then there are those who, in fear of their job security ignore or thwart newcomers from learning in the trade.
This site stands for a newly born opportunity that has never been seen before in the audio engineering world, in other words a [tag]newbornyeti[/tag]. This site will educate an individual from square one how to become a highly educated audio engineer. It will start a conversation that doesn’t present itself enough. This conversation will enable you the viewers to partake in the learning process as well as help me expand my knowledge in the field.
- Connery Johnson
