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 :)

The 360 Record Deal

These are some great resources and articles on the infamous 360 Record Deal and in comparison, a breakdown of developmental record deals.

360 RECORD DETAILS & BREAKDOWN

THE 360 RECORD DEAL BLOG

THE DEVELOPMENTAL/DEAL RECORD DEAL

Anyone who is an emerging artist or up and coming indie record label should read this. I myself was doing regional tours, DJing on stage for 2 summers with a pop/hip-hop group, that had a 360 record deal. There is also the developmental/demo record deal which honestly is something I will probally push more to younger artists. I know even though this group I was with thought their 360 deal sounded like a bad thing and they were getting ripped off they actually would've made a ton of money if they did their homework and stuck with it. In the long run they were dropped from the label.

What a nightmare for someone like me who is serious about music and comes to work 100%. There was so much lazyness in this groups camp. Everything for shows was done in procrastination, like soundchecks, appearence, and even taking the stage. I am usually one not to judge but after getting to know our main lead singer, who the group was named after, I can't believe I was even involved with this group. The lead singer was the biggest pre-madonna I have ever worked with. I will say he was a great guitar player but his singing abilities were not up to par and on occaision would try to rap on stage...this just shows you the magic of Pro Tools(his album was produced by Neil Pogue who was the engineer for Outkast's grammy award winning The Love Blow/Speakerboxxx). I remember once doing a rock style cover of "Today Was A Good Day" By Ice Cube and he forgot the lyrics and started doing some weird guitar solo over it. Once, Simple Plan and The Last Goodnight were opening for us and his guitar went out on the first song and he walked off stage. He left the drummer and I up there, so we put on a big show for the crowd doing a drum & scratching solo and of course he got mad that we stole the show(Here is the video of this performance). We never had a stable drummer, and the hypeman was shy and afraid to put himself out there. I remember once we were playing at SXSW in Austin,TX and had a great slot to show our stuff. Our lead singer was making a mountain out of a molehill because he couldn't get a new outfit to wear and it effected the whole show. Luckily on this trip I got to be great friends with the new drummer at the time, Lorin Christopher and we started a camp within the camp. We decided we would just go along for the ride to try to get our names out there and it ended up working. Luckily we both left to pursue other projects. I realized the path this group was on and since I was contracted to the band and not signed onto the label I got out at the right time before they threw me under the bus with their horrible decision making.

Honestly I think the group got lucky and now would be considered a one hit wonder...its funny because they still push that single and its 3 years old. If you look at all their mistakes and attitudes it all goes back to them thinking they were getting ripped off, horrible A&Rs, and lack of authoritave management...I believe this group was hungry to make it in the music world but as soon as a label started doing stuff for them they got lazy...check these articles they are very interesting even if you are just a music junkie.