Moog's MF-401 Auto De-tune Fixes Music 79
Max Romantschuk writes "Moog Music has released the MF-401 Auto De-tune, a revolutionary new DSP device that promises to undo the clinical results of Auto-Tune. According to Moog Music, 'even a T-Pain vocal can be restored to its complete original character, scrubbing the pitch correction and leaving the untreated vocal in all its wavering sharp or flat glory.'"
Too bad this isn't real (Score:3, Funny)
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She may not crank it up to 100% in-tune and 0ms transition time (T-Pain/Cher level), but I'm willing to bet that either she does it herself, or the producer or record label does it for her. I doubt any pop music created in the last several years doesn't use auto tune, on at least a subtle level.
Any artist who doesn't use it probably points it out already. Unfortunately, it's about as common now as compression. I doubt we'll see it go away any time soon.
Though I do wish I could buy one and turn every si
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YAY music continues it's downward spiral into the toilet!
Compression + autotune = crap.
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There's nothing wrong with auto-tune, per-se. A bit of subtle auto-tune means fewer overdubs and punch-ins. The problem only comes when it's overdone and locks the singer's voice in perfect pitch, removing any sense of emotion.
Similarly with compression, a little bit goes a long way. When there's background noise especially (which is most of the time we listen to music anymore), 20dB of headroom means the quiet bits can become inaudible. The problem isn't with compressor, it's with the loudness war. C
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I agree. "In all things, moderation."
I heard an interesting podcast from Time magazine about Auto-Tune [time.com].
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I read that article when it first came out, a great read. My favorite quote:
The program's retune speed, which adjusts the singer's voice, can be set from zero to 400. "If you set it to 10, that means that the output pitch will get halfway to the target pitch in 10 milliseconds," says Hildebrand. "But if you let that parameter go to zero, it finds the nearest note and changes the output pitch instantaneously"--eliminating the natural transition between notes and making the singer sound jumpy and automated. "I never figured anyone in their right mind would want to do that," he says.
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I know a former studio engineer who (among the many stories he told me) once had to do a similar trick. A well-known folk artist (who happens to live in my hometown... so keeping quiet about his name here) was having trouble hitting a particular note. After dozens of re-takes (and this is in the tape era, when do-overs were expensive), this guy just says "good job, everyone" and
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I would suggest the precise opposite. When auto-tune is used to camouflage poor musicianship, it just feels dishonest, but when used to overtly alter the sound such that it can be used as an effect it is merely another form of distortion. We don't discriminate against wah pedals or guitarists who use them... why should autotune or vocalists be forced to play by different rules?
That said, T-Pain is a crappy singer and none of his vocal parts are interesting for any reason other than his liberal use of autotu
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I would suggest the precise opposite. When auto-tune is used to camouflage poor musicianship, it just feels dishonest, but when used to overtly alter the sound such that it can be used as an effect it is merely another form of distortion. We don't discriminate against wah pedals or guitarists who use them... why should autotune or vocalists be forced to play by different rules?
My thoughts exactly: if it's noticeable and used for effect, I'm totally alright with it.
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Right, I was definitely agreeing with you, just expanding on what you said.
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Loads of "recording artists" use Autotune. When used properly you can't tell it's being used. Guys like T-Pain just crank the rate of note blending way down so it's more obvious.
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Well, it's obvious on a lot of artists anyway---if you can't sing worth crap and it's shifting the pitch a long way, it sounds like crap even if you have Auto-Tune set to a slow response time.
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what do you do with a drunken sailor,
what do you do with a drunken sailor,
what do you do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning...
shave his belly with a rusty razor, ...
shave his belly with a rusty razor,
shave his belly with a rusty razor, early in the morning...
Definitely offtopic, but still (Score:4, Funny)
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When I heard that call I had to pull off the road.
Bababooey to y'all.
Re:Too bad this isn't real (Score:5, Funny)
Lady Gaga as a drunken sailor
That would be Amy Winehouse.
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My kingdom for a mod point.
And a towel to wipe up the water I just spit out laughing.
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damnit (Score:3, Interesting)
This would be awesome and perfect - if it weren't April 1st.
*sigh*.....you can only dream.
Is it possible? (Score:2)
This being Slashdot, let me ask: is this even possible?
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I doubt you could ever recover the original vocal in full fidelity, but it wouldn't surprise me if you could "deprocess" the vocal performance to some degree. It's not actually that hard to recognize autotuning even with the unaided ear, so I'm sure you could do processing on the vocal and essentially recover a reasonable approximation of the original performance.
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The page implies that it's not a reversal, like an expander to reverse the effects of a compressor. Rather, it's a de-tuner. In other words, it's totally possible to do. Just feed a couple of low-frequency oscillators to the target pitch of an auto-tuner. Bump it a few cents flat/sharp, let it drift another few cents every 5 seconds or so, and then warble a tiny bit at about 1Hz. Tada, auto de-tuned.
However, assuming the artist in question uses subtle auto-tune which results in the recording being sli
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Depending on the sophistication of the autotuning algorithm, sure it is.
If the vocal is being corrected using naive pitch-shifting or phase synthesis or something like that(i think gsnap and Antares Autotune both fall in this category), then the vocal formants [wikipedia.org] will be shifted up and down right along with it. Since formant frequency is usually constant (or close to), a signal processor could pick up on the modulation of the formant, and apply the reverse pitch-shifting in order to make the formant constant -
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My dream device would be one built into every radio that automatically changes the station to one playing a song that's not using Autotune. That way "artists" that are so bad that they have to resort to Autotune to sound passable would sell so few CDs/MPs that they'd find other ways to spend their time instead of making awful music.
Cool (Score:2, Interesting)
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Damn (Score:2)
I'd buy one.
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Fuck just buying one, I'd mandate it like insurance. Along with banishment to Elba for anyone caught using auto-tune ever again. Horrid, horrid noise.
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You know as well as I do that Elba wouldn't work. Unless you want an extra Hundred Days of processed music, send them straight to St. Helena.
Hurray! (Score:2)
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But studies show that teens, college kids, and young adults *like* the "sizzle" found in compressed ipods and autotuned music. The industry is just giving them what they want. Right?
Correct?
Hello?
Okay maybe not. Fine. I'll toe the official line. Modern pop music sucks and has sucked since the 90s (or 80s) (or 70s) (depending on your age).
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The eighties did not have autotune. The eighties had pop singers who could actually sing. You notice when people attempt to do karaoke versions of "Take on me" or "Still haven't found what I'm looking for" at the original pitch...
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Um the 80's gave us Plenty that could not sing. Motley crew, RATT, Poison, Guns and dork, Cars, Sting.... ok he was 70's.... Falco.....
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There's a difference between technical skill (which for instance Sting definitively has) and pleasant artistic impression, which is more arguable... To put it like that, it takes effort and training to sing poorly like Sting.
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The eighties did not have autotune.
Wrong [mixonline.com].
Re:Hurray! (Score:4, Informative)
The H910 had to be switched in and out manually to be used as a pitch corrector, so no, it wasn't autotuning. It was, however, still used to artificially manipulate vocals to the correct pitch, so the distinction is operation method, not principle.
Autotuning was a function on the 1987 Eventide H3000 (IIRC), so the statement that there was no such thing in the 80's is still incorrect.
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It's not in the same league. Maybe you could shift the pitch a little with this thing, like compressing a few seconds off a song and preserving the pitch, but I bet if you did anything like they do today, you would sound like a vocoder pretty quickly. (I haven't heard this thing you link to, would love to if you had a sample. I assume, though, that it couldn't have been better than early digital autotuning, or they wouldn't have switched?).
A phenomenon I've heard people who teach children to sing use is "dr
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I assume, though, that it couldn't have been better than early digital autotuning, or they wouldn't have switched?
Like much studio gear, price is the critical factor here. The basic Autotune software is around 5% the price of an Eventide ($5,500+), and you can't easily pirate hardware. The same can be said for LA-4A compressors and Pultec EQs...rare and expensive in meatspace, today anyone with ProTools can get the Bombfactory plugin equivalent for a fraction of the price.
Maybe you could shift the pitch a l
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With an H910, the pitch shift is constant as set by a knob. A glissando remains a glissando, and amateur's wobbly voice remains just as wobbly, just changed in frequency.
Which is why it's so hard to detect vocals that were shifted using one. It doesn't have the tell-tale impossible snap to note; all variations are preserved. The only give away is munchkinisation from excessive shift ranges.
It'll put you off key in a different key.
Or a fraction of a key for as long as the effect isn't bypassed, which is how
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I've heard the arguments for and against autotuning. On the one side are those that feel that it makes a performance illegitimate. On the other side are producers and engineers who say that it greatly speeds up the recording process because rather than doing numerous takes to get the perfect one, or literally stitching together parts of various good takes to produce a perfect one, they can take a decent take, clean it up and move on. As well, it's been pointed out that since multitrack recording became t
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The younger generations ears have been trained to prefer the dissonance of pop singers. You can form fit a turd to a baking pan, but it will never be a chocolate pie.
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sizzle? that's bit error.
The twinkle on the cymbals is NOT supposed to be there... but then most people under the age of 35 have never heard a set of speakers that cost more than $2500.00 on an amp that costs more than $5000.00 (not tuner, not receiver, plain old amp WITHOUT volume knobs) or even a properly mastered CD that doesn't have the soul compressed completely out of it. I cry for the generations of people that don't know what music is supposed to sound like.
Note: you dont haveto spend that kind
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Preaching to the (AVSforum) choir bro!
Most folks just don't value quality anymore. Bunch of posers with their shit Bose gear. And they wonder why audiophiles don't respect their gear.
You wouldn't of happened to posted plans and pics of you and your mate building the speakers along the way by any chance?
Cheers
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No real plans online. But it's a set of folded horns for bass with 15 inch woofers based on a clipsch design that have foreward firing 8 inch midbass drivers. (corner loaded to finish the large horn mouth) and a set of 6 foot tall linear array speaker tower that set on a specific point on the folded horns to minimize driver separation with 32 aluminum cone drivers in each speaker for the high and mids. acoustically and physically separated from the larger driver array to eliminate low frequency coupling.
T
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Just because you're ignorant of the difference between $50, $500, $5,000 and $50,000 speakers doesn't mean people who actually care about sound quality are in the weird ass-club. (Ok the $50,000 club is a little too insane for my tastes... "more money then brains. lol")
There is nothing wrong with low-budget gear, hell we all have a budget. Its just funny to see idiots think they got some hot shitz when they listen to their muzik on crap gear. FFS man, have some self-respect, take some pride in yourself,
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Problem is "audiophiles" typically include the idiots that buy $1000.00 cat 5 cables from Denon and $90.00 a foot directional speaker wire.
It's why I wont be called an audiophile and friends I know wont. and Yes, we drive those speakers with lamp cord... 8 runs of 18 gauge lamp cord for each speaker assembly.
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Just because you are ignorant does not make you right.
And you sir are highly ignorant. Come back AFTER you go hear even low end decent. Go find a store that sells FM-45's from JBL and a cheapish $1500-$2500 receiver. This is pretty much what I have at home except I have a old kenwood sovereign receiver from 7 years ago. It does not sound fantastic, it sounds great. and it sounds fricking incredible compared to ANYTHING sold at best buy or any electronics store. total price? $5500.00 spent. I'm low
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Not until they also invent a De-Limiter to remove all the terrible over-compression.
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If you get rid of the compression effect, you will more than likely get a much uglier compression at the top end.
A lot of times, compression is used to make headroom.
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Thanks. That was informative.
/moogerfooger/ (Score:4, Funny)
April fool? (Score:2)
Rane PI 14 Pseudoacoustic Infector (Score:1)
- Independent Power & Glory Switches
- Continuously Variable This/That Level
- Full-Function Ecstacy Generator
- Variable This to That Crossover Frequency
- Here-There Pan (Back Again Switching)
- Program Dependent Sheen Removal
- Anti-Resonant Concrete Chassis
- Proprietary Paint to Reflect Odd Harmonic Light Frequencies to Reduce Nono-Linear Photon Radiation Interference
- Time Warp Compression/Expansion to Synchronize Here/There Time Coordinates
MF-401 mobile (Score:1)
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Jenkins seems to be quite similar the other female setting, Mrs. Miller [youtube.com], who sings popular music instead of classical but is equally entertainingly awful.
Why is it.. (Score:1)
Be Careful What You Wish For (Score:4, Informative)
Some studio-manufactured AutoTune pop stars can actually sing, and some can't, and it's often surprising which is which. If you watched the Oscar telecast a few years ago, you know that Beyonce is a real musician. Christina Aguilera has talent (though chooses not to use it). Several of the High School Musical kids turned out to be decent singers or actors or both once they got out from under Disney's thumb. And on the other hand, despite the strong genetic component to musical talent, pre-AutoTune professional musician Billy Ray Cyrus's daughter can't sing at all without the help of her robotic overlord. As a film projectionist, I had to watch Last Song the other day. In one scene, Miley sings along with the radio AN ENTIRE FUCKING HALF-STEP SHARP! For non-musicians reading this, that's the interval between two adjacent piano keys. If you play two notes together that are separated by a half-step, it sounds awful. And anyone who's not completely tone-deaf can tell it sounds awful. It takes a modicum of musical training to identify the specific problem, but anyone can tell it's wrong. So remember, AutoTune is saving your ears from that crap every day. If it had never existed, there would be fewer no-talent hacks on the radio, but now that they're there, turning it off is a scary, scary idea.
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It isn't the singing people are buying. It's the sex. No one wants to go to a concert or buy a CD of someone who is ugly. So they get all the beautiful people who can't sing. But singing can be fixed.