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
2012-02-02
28
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’s 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."
According to Rubin, the effect of Auto-Tune on singers may be______.
选项
A、positive
B、negative
C、exaggerated
D、underestimated
答案
B
解析
该句提到,曾为诸多歌星如南方小鸡乐团(Dixie Chicks)和金属乐队(Metallica)制作过专辑的制作人Rubin担心Auto-Tune的保护网会使歌手们变得懒惰。由此可推断出,Rubin认为Auto-Tune会对歌星产生消极影响,故答案为[B]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/HevFFFFM
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
PartⅡReadingComprehension(SkimmingandScanning)Directions:Inthispart,youwillhave15minutestogooverthepassageq
Forwelloveracentury,onestreetinNewYorkCityhasbeenknownfortheheartoftheAmericantheater.The【S1】______.
A、Shewashurtbytheman.B、Shelosthertemper.C、Shedidn’tspeaktoherhusband.D、Shemissedthedinnerparty.A综合推断题。女士说她不
A、Itisn’treliable.B、Itneedschecking.C、Itisdefinitelytrustworthy.D、Itwon’thurttotry.D本题考查女士对网上征婚的态度,其实通过女士向男士的介绍,最
A、Shewasconsiderate.B、Shewasunforgiving,C、Shewasapologetic.D、Shewassympathetic.B选项均以She开头表明,女士的话为听音重点。由女士所说的...butw
A、Refinetheirinterviewingtechniques.B、Arrangetheirworkschedules.C、Selectappropriatecourses.D、Writecoverletters.A语义
Thebacteriathatcauseacommonfood-borneillnessshowlowdrugresistanceinAustralia,unlikesimilarstrainsfromtheUnite
Sleepwalkingisadisordercharacterizedbywalkingorotheractivitiesapersonengagedinwhile【C1】______stillasleep.Itis
A、Itpreservesthevitamins.B、Itbreaksdownthevitamins.C、Itmakesthemeateasiertodigest.D、Itreducestheproteinconte
A、ItisdifficultforpeoplelivinginaStoneAgeculturetomoveintoamodernworld.B、Inventionisanewideatomodernpeop
随机试题
需行非手术治疗的肠梗阻包括
胸腺瘤位于下列哪项,前方紧贴胸骨,后方从上至下贴附于气管、无名静脉、主动脉弓和心包
一般可以将房地产的供求状况分为以下几种类型:()。
根据英国遗产税制的规定,英国遗产税的纳税人不包括()。
在保持其他条件不变的前提下,研究单个市场风险要素的变化可能会对金融工具或资产组合的收益或经济价值产生影响的方法是()。
下列各项中,能够引起负债和所有者权益项目同时发生变动的有()。
根据我国《=刑事诉讼法》规定,未成年人犯罪的案件一律或一般不公开审理。关于该规定中未成年人“年龄”的理解,下列选项正确的是()。
仰韶文化是黄河中游地区重要的新石器时代文化,它的持续时间大约在公元前5000年3000年。今天在中国已发现上千处仰韶文化的遗址,其中以()为最多。
根据诺贝尔经济学奖获得者、欧元之父蒙代尔的理论,在开放经济条件下,一国的独立货币政策、国际资本流动、货币相对稳定的汇率,不能三者都得到,即存在所谓的“不可能三角关系”。我国经济已经对外开放,如果蒙代尔的理论正确,以下哪项陈述一定为真?
Whatistheauthor’sattitudetowards"therecurrentthemeoftheomniscientcomputer"whichwillultimatelytakeovertheorder
最新回复
(
0
)