Why does T-Pain sound like a robot?

For the past few years, artists like: T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Gorilla Zoe have educated the masses on the auto tune sound. Tracks like: Chopped & Screwed, Lollipop, & Lost are great examples of this music production tool, which is setting new trends in all genres of music. Honestly I am not a big fan but when an all out rap artist like Lil Wayne does a rock album using this feature it is huge for boundary pushing. The software tool puts an effect on the voice that gives it a robotic or phased sound. Autotune is used to correct pitch but can be used to put that distorted or phased sound on vocals as well.

But...where did that style come from...

The original gangsters of autotune in the hip hop/soul/rnb categories, or vocoder and talk box as it was called then, was pioneed by Zapp and Roger.

VOCODER
The vocoder is a little different concept. It is actually used solely to make that phaser effect on the voice and is an actually a microphone that is extended out of a keyboard which is played in sync of keys and harmonys.




TALKBOX
A talk box, is a small piece of hardware that is connected to a pvc pipe and rests in the artists mouth. It can be played along with instruments to help run harmonys and chords. This makes the possibilities endless. Most people not familiar with old school funk and rnb, would be more familiar with Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive album, which used a talkbox on most known tracks from that album.

Here are some videos of Zapp and Roger at work.
Most of their work has been sampled by everyone from Dr. Dre to EPMD.





Peter Frampton on the Talkbox





CHECK BACK AT THE END OF THE WEEK FOR MY MOTHER'S DAY BLOG :)