posted by lee on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 6:55am
The new iPhone app, “I Am T-Pain,” allows wanna-be T-Pains and Kanyes to apply a heavy Auto-tune effect to their voice and sing along to a backing track. I was about to write an analysis of this curious new form of music making when I thought, why not just sing it Auto-Tune style using the app?
posted by lee on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 12:14pm
Les Paul, 1915-2009
As a guitar player, I was of course saddened by the death of the legendary music innovator Les Paul. I do want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to him, but I also want to take this opportunity to reflect on another music innovator, one that’s less well-known than Les Paul and is in fact reviled by some:
Harold "Dr. Andy" Hildebrand. Still alive.
No, I’m not referring to T-Pain (or Andy Samberg, for that matter). The musical innovator in this case is Harold “Dr. Andy” Hildebrand, the inventor of the infamous Auto-Tune pitch correcting/distorting software.
At first blush, the inventor of the electric guitar and multitrack recording and the inventor of Auto-Tune are worlds apart. One was a virtuoso guitarist and inventor; the other was a software engineer who based his pitch-correcting algorithm on seismic studies for oil companies. One’s innovation made rock ‘n’ roll possible, the other’s innovation made, um, this possible…
Lee: Hey Sheely, let’s Overthink Miley Cyrus’s hit single, “Party in the USA.”
