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By Steven Jackson
Friday, December 05, 2008
Twenty per cent of the Billboard Top '50 singles currently utilise the voice-altering effect popularised by T-Pain, which ironically has precedence in Jamaica.
This is a significant music trend and has implications, much like distortion did to the guitar in the 50s. Eleven of top 50 Billboard songs have the T-Pain vibe including:
.Kanye West, Love Lockdown #6;
.T-Pain Featuring Lil Wayne, Can't Believe It #15;
.Rihanna, Disturbia #17;
.Kanye West, Heartless #21;
.T-Pain featuring Ludacris, Chopped N Skrewed #30;
.Jay-Z & T.I. featuring Kanye West & Lil Wayne, Swagga Like Us #32;
.Jim Jones & Ron Browz featuring Juelz Santana, Pop Champagne #33;
.Ludacris featuring T-Pain, One More Drink #38;
.Chris Brown, Forever #40;
.The Game featuring Lil Wayne, My Life, #46; and
.Lil Wayne featuring T-Pain, Got Money #49
Currently only one song on the Top 20 Reggae charts uses the effect, Konshens' Winner. But many others use the effect locally including "Munga [Honorebel] who buss using the effect", Gregory Morris engineer at Tuff Gong told Splash.
He and other engineers say that the T-Pain trend will continue locally. "We always use it. We used it on some tracks since week for Andrew Blood and others," Marlon Reid at Jr Blood Recording Studio disclosed. "People just going to continue to use it same way, because you have some artistes that cannot sing good."
Interestingly, T-Pain says he will no longer use the effect on his own voice going forward, but wants artistes to pay him royalties for utilising the effect. P Diddy has reportedly done so.
"Total rubbish," Dean Mundy, Vigilanti Entertainment told Splash yesterday. "He did not design the software. He should be paying the software royalties because it has enhanced his music."
Auto-Tune created by Antares Audio Technologies in 1997, is now standard in studios around the world. Its primary purpose is to disguise off-key singers. But engineers discovered the robotic effect it produces when abused.
Mundy worked at Shocking Vibes and Penthouse in the '90s into the millennium. He remembers producer Dave Kelley utilising the software on songs. Most can recall the robotic vocals of Beenie Man and Ms Thing on the 2004 track Dude, prior to T-Pain. Variations of the effect were utilised before T-Pain was even born, via a talk-boxes and vocoders.
Pink Floyd used it on the album Animals, and it was the signature sound of '70s funk musician Roger Troutman of Parliament-Funkadelic and Zapp. Many of Troutman's songs were sampled in the '90s by West Coast rappers, with California Love a Dr Dre and 2Pac collab being his biggest hit.
However, the first big song to utilise Auto-Tune (rather than vocoders or talk boxes) was Cher's 1998 Believe (in Love).
Kanye West and Lil Wayne's new albums are rife with the effect allowing the rappers to sing with confidence. "Some people definitely overuse it, artistes are singing out of key and saying to engineers 'just fix it up in Auto-Tune', dem get lazy," Morris, the Tuff Gong Studio engineer quipped.
Performing Auto-tune tracks live are difficult, cautioned Morris. "Even Munga a whole heap of people did [say] how him sound so different on stage. That is one of the reasons that T-Pain cool off."
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifes..._AUTO_TUNE.asp
Friday, December 05, 2008
Twenty per cent of the Billboard Top '50 singles currently utilise the voice-altering effect popularised by T-Pain, which ironically has precedence in Jamaica.
This is a significant music trend and has implications, much like distortion did to the guitar in the 50s. Eleven of top 50 Billboard songs have the T-Pain vibe including:
.Kanye West, Love Lockdown #6;
.T-Pain Featuring Lil Wayne, Can't Believe It #15;
.Rihanna, Disturbia #17;
.Kanye West, Heartless #21;
.T-Pain featuring Ludacris, Chopped N Skrewed #30;
.Jay-Z & T.I. featuring Kanye West & Lil Wayne, Swagga Like Us #32;
.Jim Jones & Ron Browz featuring Juelz Santana, Pop Champagne #33;
.Ludacris featuring T-Pain, One More Drink #38;
.Chris Brown, Forever #40;
.The Game featuring Lil Wayne, My Life, #46; and
.Lil Wayne featuring T-Pain, Got Money #49
Currently only one song on the Top 20 Reggae charts uses the effect, Konshens' Winner. But many others use the effect locally including "Munga [Honorebel] who buss using the effect", Gregory Morris engineer at Tuff Gong told Splash.
He and other engineers say that the T-Pain trend will continue locally. "We always use it. We used it on some tracks since week for Andrew Blood and others," Marlon Reid at Jr Blood Recording Studio disclosed. "People just going to continue to use it same way, because you have some artistes that cannot sing good."
Interestingly, T-Pain says he will no longer use the effect on his own voice going forward, but wants artistes to pay him royalties for utilising the effect. P Diddy has reportedly done so.
"Total rubbish," Dean Mundy, Vigilanti Entertainment told Splash yesterday. "He did not design the software. He should be paying the software royalties because it has enhanced his music."
Auto-Tune created by Antares Audio Technologies in 1997, is now standard in studios around the world. Its primary purpose is to disguise off-key singers. But engineers discovered the robotic effect it produces when abused.
Mundy worked at Shocking Vibes and Penthouse in the '90s into the millennium. He remembers producer Dave Kelley utilising the software on songs. Most can recall the robotic vocals of Beenie Man and Ms Thing on the 2004 track Dude, prior to T-Pain. Variations of the effect were utilised before T-Pain was even born, via a talk-boxes and vocoders.
Pink Floyd used it on the album Animals, and it was the signature sound of '70s funk musician Roger Troutman of Parliament-Funkadelic and Zapp. Many of Troutman's songs were sampled in the '90s by West Coast rappers, with California Love a Dr Dre and 2Pac collab being his biggest hit.
However, the first big song to utilise Auto-Tune (rather than vocoders or talk boxes) was Cher's 1998 Believe (in Love).
Kanye West and Lil Wayne's new albums are rife with the effect allowing the rappers to sing with confidence. "Some people definitely overuse it, artistes are singing out of key and saying to engineers 'just fix it up in Auto-Tune', dem get lazy," Morris, the Tuff Gong Studio engineer quipped.
Performing Auto-tune tracks live are difficult, cautioned Morris. "Even Munga a whole heap of people did [say] how him sound so different on stage. That is one of the reasons that T-Pain cool off."
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifes..._AUTO_TUNE.asp
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