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17 Jun 2009 08:44

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Culture, Music: Must-see video of the day: Taylor Swift + T-Pain, “Thug Story”

  • Usually, we wait a little while before posting our first video of the day. But this Taylor Swift-goes-hardcore bit from last night’s CMT Music Awards is too good to wait for. BTW, Swift killed at last night’s awards.source

23 Apr 2009 08:49

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Offbeat: Katie Couric is a great singer when she’s auto-tuned

This auto-tuned take on TV news starts off slow but once Katie Couric starts “singing,” it becomes amazingly epic. source

07 Feb 2009 10:42

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Music: Auto-Tune’s creator: I never intended it to be used T-Pain-style

  • If you set it to 10, that means that the output pitch will get halfway to the target pitch in 10 milliseconds. But if you let that parameter go to zero, it finds the nearest note and changes the output pitch instantaneously. I never figured anyone in their right mind would want to do that.
  • Andy Hildebrand • who created Auto-Tune based on seismic autocorrelation techniques he learned in the oil industry. He designed it to be unnoticeable (in the article, super-producer Rick Rubin says it’s used even more than you think), but producers found creative ways to break it. Now Kanye West uses it to make breakup albums. He should be proud! • source

20 Jan 2009 09:22

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Music: Bon Iver has a new EP out, and Pitchfork kinda likes it

  • Blood Bank certainly dispels concerns that Vernon’s accomplishment was somehow environmental – that For Emma’s poetic circumstances, and not its contents, were responsible for its success.
  • Amanda Petrusich • reviewing Bon Iver’s new Blood Bank EP, which features an a capella track built around auto-tune. She gave it a 7.9. Bon Iver, the Justin Vernon-led indie-folk band, has been gaining significant traction on the Billboard charts in recent weeks. • source