WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO MY ROCK N ROLL?

[Phox]

Also... WHAT THE HELL IS A 13-YEAR-OLD DOING DRIVING AROUND WITH A BUNCH OF OLDER KIDS AND GOING TO HOUSE PARTIES??? FUUUUUUCK!!

IKNORITE!!?

But Nigel, yesterday was THURSDAY!

So, that means...

like...

fuckin'...

TOMORROW IS SATURDAY!

[Jasper]

FUN FUN FUN


Also agree with Requia here, artificial loudness is absurd and bad.  If I like it, I'll turn it up myself thanks.

[Laughin Jude]

Stephen Colbert sings "Friday" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

[Phox]

Stephen Colbert sings "Friday" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

[Jasper]

Damn you, NBC...

[Phox]

What is this? I don't even fucking....

[maphdet]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

I couldn't make it past the 10 second mark.

My son was watching some awards show on the teevee and shit like this came on. Dad had to ask WTF was that? Was it music?
(luckily my son wasn't sure either.)

[Bruno]

I'm just wondering when this whole auto-tune thing is going to die.  I remember back in the 80s when artists got shit for lip-syncing at performances instead of playing live.  Now, every other pop star-let has their vocal chords digitally enhanced.  I mean, fuck, if we are going to have robotic singing can't we at least have real robots doing the singing? 

I have seen the future!

[Laughin Jude]

I'm just wondering when this whole auto-tune thing is going to die.  I remember back in the 80s when artists got shit for lip-syncing at performances instead of playing live.  Now, every other pop star-let has their vocal chords digitally enhanced.  I mean, fuck, if we are going to have robotic singing can't we at least have real robots doing the singing? 

I have seen the future!

What have they done to that poor fleshlight?

[Triple Zero]

I'm still of the opinion that vocoders (as opposed to autotuners) are AWESOME ALWAYS.

And that no amount of over-use can EVER spoil them, EVER.

I DARE the gods of the music industry to try and make the vocoder into a trite and over used effect, DO IT!! DO IT NOW!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

That's an autotuner, not a vocoder.

Autotuner is when you pitch-bend a human's voice so that it is in tune with the music, and applying it "too much" makes for the effect that is being (ab)used in contemporary pop music. Also see my story two posts back ITT.

A vocoder is a different effect. It electronically separates the human voice into the plain buzzing sound of the vocal cords, and the way it is altered (filtered) by the vocal tract, throat and mouth. Then it replaces the buzzing sound with a synthesizer buzz* and alters (filters) it in the same way as the vocal tract/throat/mouth would have. The result is a robot-like voice, because it removes (replaces) all of the intonation. But it still sounds very much like a voice and is reasonably clear to understand because the most important parts of forming syllables and words are done with the filtering in the vocal tract/throat/mouth and not so much the vocal cords.

This is a typical vocoder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeXTZOSWIUU (ja tvoi sluga, ja tvoi robotnik!!)

This is a also vocoder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmoFNya6P4Q

Vocoders are similar to autotuners in that they also allow to control the pitch perfectly in tune, but in the case of vocoders, that's just because the pitch is determined by the synthesizer buzz, so it's always accurate. It still removes all the intonation of the voice, though.

*any harmonically rich sound will do, actually. Near the end of Daft Punk's harder better faster stronger they use an electric guitar, for instance.