Moog's MF-401 Auto De-tune Fixes Music

Max Romantschuk writes "Moog Music has released the MF-401 Auto De-tune, a revolutionary new DSP device that promises to undo the clinical results of Auto-Tune. According to Moog Music, 'even a T-Pain vocal can be restored to its complete original character, scrubbing the pitch correction and leaving the untreated vocal in all its wavering sharp or flat glory.'"

Comments

Re:Too bad this isn't real

[JBMcB]

Loads of "recording artists" use Autotune. When used properly you can't tell it's being used. Guys like T-Pain just crank the rate of note blending way down so it's more obvious.

Re:Is it possible?

[spazdor]

Depending on the sophistication of the autotuning algorithm, sure it is.

If the vocal is being corrected using naive pitch-shifting or phase synthesis or something like that(i think gsnap and Antares Autotune both fall in this category), then the vocal formants will be shifted up and down right along with it. Since formant frequency is usually constant (or close to), a signal processor could pick up on the modulation of the formant, and apply the reverse pitch-shifting in order to make the formant constant - in the process recovering the original pitch modulation.

On the other hand, if the autotune was done in Melodyne, which allows you to flatten the formant modulation independently of pitch, all bets are off.

Re:Hurray!

[Farmer Tim]

The H910 had to be switched in and out manually to be used as a pitch corrector, so no, it wasn't autotuning. It was, however, still used to artificially manipulate vocals to the correct pitch, so the distinction is operation method, not principle.

Autotuning was a function on the 1987 Eventide H3000 (IIRC), so the statement that there was no such thing in the 80's is still incorrect.

Be Careful What You Wish For

[howlingfrog]

Some studio-manufactured AutoTune pop stars can actually sing, and some can't, and it's often surprising which is which. If you watched the Oscar telecast a few years ago, you know that Beyonce is a real musician. Christina Aguilera has talent (though chooses not to use it). Several of the High School Musical kids turned out to be decent singers or actors or both once they got out from under Disney's thumb. And on the other hand, despite the strong genetic component to musical talent, pre-AutoTune professional musician Billy Ray Cyrus's daughter can't sing at all without the help of her robotic overlord. As a film projectionist, I had to watch Last Song the other day. In one scene, Miley sings along with the radio AN ENTIRE FUCKING HALF-STEP SHARP! For non-musicians reading this, that's the interval between two adjacent piano keys. If you play two notes together that are separated by a half-step, it sounds awful. And anyone who's not completely tone-deaf can tell it sounds awful. It takes a modicum of musical training to identify the specific problem, but anyone can tell it's wrong. So remember, AutoTune is saving your ears from that crap every day. If it had never existed, there would be fewer no-talent hacks on the radio, but now that they're there, turning it off is a scary, scary idea.