The Truth About Auto-Tune by BringMoreLegos

Champion(s):

MilesTeg
Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV.

AnthonyBianca
The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.


Runner(s)-Up:


Quiz Description

I've noticed over the years in discussions with laypeople (musically speaking) that there's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding of what Auto-Tune actually is, and how and when it's used. So I hope this quiz will be fun and edifying, even if you don't know much about it!

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1 AnthonyBianca 376 96 00
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1 MilesTeg 376 96 15
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3 KitchenB 366 92 15
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5 MitchellWA 355 85 00
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10 Tortoise 294 70 00
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12 Jeffurry 249 64 00
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16 MattK 239 51 00
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29 Ren 109 10 00
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32 DouglasLovesVixey 37 1 00
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Questions:

While the term "auto-tune" is typically used generically for any vocal pitch alteration effect, like Kleenex and Band-Aid it is a registered trade name. The official Auto-Tune software was developed and originally released in what decade?

Click to Reveal Answer
1990s

The underlying algorithms of Auto-Tune (and a host of other audio processing effects) rely on the principle that any periodic waveform can be represented as a sum of simple trigonometric functions, a transformation famously associated with what mathematician?

Click to Reveal Answer
Joseph Fourier

Andy Hildebrand, the developer of Auto-Tune, designed a set of complex algorithms for Exxon Oil before realizing their novel application to music production and adapting them to analyze sound waves. The original software helped his employer locate underground oil deposits by analyzing what?

Click to Reveal Answer
seismic waves

Auto-Tune was originally intended to be something of a trade secret, discreetly used to "fix" vocal performances. But producers Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling really didn't think it was strong enough, so they cranked the Auto-Tune up to 11 (actually, the Retune Speed down to 0), introducing the now-ubiquitous "robotic" Auto-Tune effect on what 1998 mega-hit?

Click to Reveal Answer
"Believe"

While initially associated with the artist from Q4, the extreme Auto-Tune sound would eventually become synonymous with what Rappa Ternt Sanga, who even lent his name to an iPhone app simulating the effect?

Click to Reveal Answer
T-Pain

The vocal processing technique heard here (on Alan Parsons Project's "The Raven") is not Auto-Tune, though they are often confused. This effect, originally developed to encode vocal data efficiently, modulates musical pitches from a synthesizer with spectral information from human speech, and is known by what portmanteau?

Click for additional information

Click to Reveal Answer
vocoder

Prior to the availability of automated pitch correction, audio engineers would either need to re-record or, from the late 1970s, painstakingly edit vocal tracks using a manual pitch-shifter such as the Eventide H910, which was punnily named after what rooftop-ready Beatles song?

Click to Reveal Answer
"One After 909"

Auto-Tune is most commonly utilized as a software plugin compatible with numerous recording studio interfaces. But you can also get it as a physical unit. Which of the pictured devices is an Auto-Tune module? (Give the corresponding letter.)

Click for additional information

Click to Reveal Answer
A

Auto-Tune's main competitor in the studio vocal pitch correction space is what product sold by Celemony, whose distinctive graphic interface is seen here?

Click for additional information

Click to Reveal Answer
Melodyne

Not all artists have embraced Auto-Tune, with Jay-Z titling a Grammy-winning 2009 single with what bold (and ultimately not very prophetic) pronouncement about the technology?

Click to Reveal Answer
"D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)"

Who is the television paterfamilias heard here (and not his alias), with the help of Auto-Tune and copious other music production tricks?

Click for additional information

Click to Reveal Answer
Randy Marsh

The use of pitch correction remains a controversial subject in the music industry, with some considering it a valuable tool and others rejecting it as disingenuous. Rather than hasten to judgment, I tend to agree with what rock trio, who offered this advice on their 1980 anthem "The Spirit of Radio"?

"All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open-hearted,
Not so coldly charted;
It's really just a question of your honesty,
Yeah, your honesty."

Click to Reveal Answer
Rush