首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Auto-Tune: Why Pop Music Sounds Perfect If you haven’t been listening to pop radio in the past few months, you’ve missed the
Auto-Tune: Why Pop Music Sounds Perfect If you haven’t been listening to pop radio in the past few months, you’ve missed the
admin
2013-07-30
40
问题
Auto-Tune: Why Pop Music Sounds Perfect
If you haven’t been listening to pop radio in the past few months, you’ve missed the rise of two seemingly opposing trends. In a medium in which mediocre(平庸的)singing has never been a bar to entry, a lot of pop vocals suddenly sound great. Better than great: note- and pitch-perfect, as if there’s been an unspoken tightening of standards at record labels or an evolutionary leap in the development of vocal cords. At the other extreme are a few hip-hop singers who also hit their notes but with a precision so exaggerated that on first listen, their songs sound comically artificial, like a chorus of 50s robots singing Motown.
The force behind both trends is an ingenious plug-in called Auto-Tune, a downloadable studio trick that can take a vocal and instantly nudge it onto the proper note or move it to the correct pitch. It’s like Photoshop for the human voice. Auto-Tune doesn’t make it possible for just anyone to sing like a pro, but used as its creator intended, it can transform a wavering(颤抖的)performance into something technically flawless. "Right now, if you listen to pop, everything is in perfect pitch, perfect time and perfect tune," says producer Rick Rubin. "That’s how widespread Auto-Tune is."
Auto-Tune’s inventor is a man named Andy Hildebrand, who worked for years interpreting seismic(i.e. relating to earthquakes)data for the oil industry. Using a mathematical formula called autocorrelation, Hildebrand would send sound waves into the ground and record their reflections, providing an accurate map of potential drill sites. It’s a technique that saves oil companies lots of money and allowed Hildebrand to retire at 40. He was debating the next chapter of his life at a dinner party when a guest challenged him to invent a box that would allow her to sing in tune. After he worked on autocorrelation for a few months, Auto-Tune was born in late 1996.
Almost immediately, studio engineers adopted it as a trade secret to fix flubbed(搞砸了的)notes, saving them the expense and trouble of having to redo sessions. The first time common ears heard Auto-Tune was on the immensely irritating 1998 Cher hit "Believe". In the first verse, when Cher sings "I can’t break through" as though she’s standing behind an electric fan, that’s Auto-Tune — but it’s not the way Hildebrand meant it to be used. 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.
Like other trends set by Cher, the creative abuse of Auto-Tune quickly went out of fashion, although it continued to be an indispensable part of the engineer’s toolbox. But in 2003, T-Pain(Faheem Najm), a little-known rapper and singer, accidentally stumble onto the Cher effect while Auto-Tuning some of his vocals. "It just worked for my voice," says T-Pain in his natural Tallahassee accent. "And there wasn’t anyone else doing it."
Since his 2005 first album, T-Pain has sent a dozen mechanically cheery singles into the Top 10. He contributed to four nominated songs at this year’s Grammys on Feb. 8, and his influence is still spreading. When Kanye West was looking for an effect to match some heartbroken lyrics, he flew T-Pain to Hawaii to see how many ways they could adjust Auto-Tune. Diddy gave a percentage of his upcoming album’s profits to T-Pain in exchange for some lessons. Even Prince is rumored to be experimenting with Auto-Tune on his new record. "I know[Auto-Tune]better than anyone," says T-Pain. "And even I’m just figuring out all the ways you can use it to change the mood of a record."
Rubin, who’s produced artists as diverse as the Dixie Chicks and Metallica, worries that the safety net of Auto-Tune is making singers lazy. "Sometimes a singer will do lots of takes when they’re recording a song, and you really can hear the emotional difference when someone does a great performance vs. an average one," says Rubin. "If you’re pitch-correcting, you might not bother to make the effort. You might just get it done and put it through the machine so it’s all in tune." Rubin has taken to having an ethical conversation before each new recording session. "I encourage artists to embrace a natural process," he says.
With the exception of Milli Vanilli’s, pop listeners have always been fairly indulgent about performers’ ethics. It hits that matter, and the average person listening to just one pop song on the radio will have a hard time hearing Auto-Tune’s impact; it’s effectively deceptive. But when track after track has perfect pitch, the songs are harder to differentiate from one another — which explains why pop is in a pretty serious lull(停滞)at the moment. It also changes the way we hear unaffected voices. "The other day, someone was talking about how Aretha Franklin at the Inauguration was a bit pitchy," says Anderson. "I said, ’Of course! She was singing!’ And that was a musician talking. People are getting used to hearing things dead on pitch, and it’s changed their expectations."
Despite Randy Jackson’s stock American Idol critique — "A little pitchy, dawg" — many beloved songs are actually off-pitch or out of tune. There’s Ringo Starr on "With a Little Help from My Friends", of course, and just about every blues song slides into notes as opposed to hitting them dead on. Even Norah Jones, the poster girl of pure vocals, isn’t perfect. "There’s some wonderful imperfections of pitch on ’Don’t Know Why’ from Come Away with Me," says Anderson, "and most of the other tunes on the album as well. But I wouldn’t want to change a single note."
Let’s hope that pop’s fetish for uniform perfect pitch will fade, even if the spread of Auto-Tune shows no signs of slowing. A $99 version for home musicians was released in November 2007, and T-Pain and Auto-Tune’s parent company are finishing work on an iPhone app. "It’s gonna be real cool," says T-Pain. "Basically, you can add Auto-Tune to your voice and send it to your friends and put it on the Web. You’ll be able to sound just like me." Asked if that might render him no longer unique, T-Pain laughs: "I’m not too worried. I got lots of tricks you ain’t seen yet. It’s everybody else that needs to step up their game."
Originally the creator intended to use Auto-Tune to______.
选项
A、change a poorly-sung song into a perfect one
B、make everyone sing like a professional singer
C、inject some vitality into the pop industry
D、bring the flaw of pop songs into public
答案
A
解析
该句提到,Auto-Tune虽无法将每个人的歌声都变成专业歌手的歌声,但就像它的发明人所希望的,能把颤抖走音的歌声修到毫无瑕疵。题干中的the creator intended to use与该句提到的used as its creator intended对应,[A]项是对Auto-Tune的作用,即transform…flawless的同义转述,其中change…into,a poorly-sung song,a perfect one分别与transform…into,a wavering performance,something technically flawless对应,故答案为[A]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/AHHFFFFM
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Spaceisadangerousplace,notonlybecauseofmeteors(流星)butalsobecauseofraysfromthesunandotherstars.The【B1】_____a
Ifyouthinkwomenstillgainmoreeconomicbenefitthanmendofrommarriage,youmaybelivinginthepast.Today,menarebett
A、Thecolorsofclothing.B、Theindividualtasteonclothing.C、TheideaofpsychologyofclothingD、Theclothingfashion.CWhat
Occasionalself-medicationhasalwaysbeenpartofnormalliving.Themakingandsellingofdrugshasalonghistoryandisclos
A、Lessthan6months.B、2months.C、6monthsormore.D、1month.DHowlongshouldthenoticebegiventothelandlordaheadoft
It’sasimplecalculus,kidsandmoney:Frombirthuntilcollegegraduation,childrenconsumedollarslikethey’rechickennugge
Activitiessuchaseatingandshoppingaregenerallyincludedin"play".BeforetheIndustrialRevolution,leisuremeant______.
A、Listeningtoadults’advice.B、Askingadultsmanyquestions.C、Learningfrommistakes.D、Doingwhatadultsdo.DWhatisthebe
A、doctorandnurse.B、Librarianandlibrarypatron.C、Forestrangerandhiker.D、Nurseandpatient.D推理判断题。对话一开始,女士说Thedoctors
GeorgeHerbertMeadsaidthathumansaretalkedintohumanity.Hemeantthatwegainpersonalidentityaswecommunicatewithot
随机试题
已知某机器设备的成新率为45%,该设备的已使用年限为10年,资产利用率为80%,则该设备的尚可使用年限为【】
我国现代小说家______创作了《阿Q正传》、《狂人日记》、《祝福》等一系列反映五四运动前后社会现实的优秀作品。
患者,男,28岁。无明显诱因出现右膝关节肿胀不适1年余,伴行走时关节打软、交锁症状,无全身症状,查体在髌股关节周围尤其是髌上囊处可扪及滑膜增厚,局部皮温增高,但不红。根据上述症状,为明确诊断,下列最具诊断意义的检查是
妊娠试验阳性,是因为孕妇的血尿中含有
下列不属于临床药理学研究内容的是()。
检验检测机构应当建立与活动范围相适应的管理体系,作业指导书不在此范围。()
商业银行应当为国别风险的识别、计量、监测和控制建立完备、可靠的管理信息系统。管理信息系统功能不包括()。
铁路运输企业逾期()日仍未将货物、包裹、行李交付收货人或者旅客的,托运人、收货人或者旅客有权按货物、包裹、行李灭失向铁路运输企业要求赔偿。
将N、K、L、M、W5人按一定距离站成一排,但是5人有如下关系:(1)N、K不能相邻;(2)W、K不能相邻;(3)N、L不能相邻;(4)L、M不能相邻。根据上述条件,5人的正确排序是()。
Windows NT操作系统提供了一个良好的用户交互界面,它是( )。
最新回复
(
0
)