Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Snow Day!!

So school was canceled at U of I yesterday and today. Two days off! That's not a bad school week:

Sunday-Monday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday-Friday-Saturday




This is a car in our alley. The wind was causing crazy drifts everywhere. Most snow I've seen in years!

Happy V-Day to all -- If you don't have a date, don't sweat it. This is just Darwin's way of reminding you that if you don't find a mate, your genes will not be passed on. No biggie!

Monday, February 05, 2007

Billy Joel -- Tuning Up a Broken-Down Legend

Did anyone else hear Billy Joel singing the national anthem during the superbowl?



I've spent close to 200 hours with Xtension Chords studio work, and its made me very aware of the pitch correction in music. Pitch correction (AutoTune is one brand name of software, but i'll use the general term) is an algorithm that analyzes the sound coming from a microphone, figures out which pitch you're singing, and if you're not right on a note it will drag your pitch up or down to the nearest neighboring "official" pitch. If you need an extreme example, listen to "Believe" by Cher, and listen to her voice. It sounds "synthy" because it has an extreme amount of pitch correction applied to it.

Listen to Billy Joel sing (actual singing starts at 1:00 into the clip, so FF). Keep pitch correction in mind. First phrase: "Oh say can you SEEEeeE": Can you hear how he overshot "see" and Autotune pulled his pitch up to the next note up (the wrong pitch)? I all could think about while listening was autotune, autotune, autotune, JESUS BILLY JOEL SOUNDS LIKE A ROBOT.

The superbowl shouldn't have hired him. No one should hire him, and if they do, they should let him sing with his real voice and see if people will like it.