DJ C; Since You’ve Been In This Club* ->
[audio:https://archive.mashit.com/audio/Since_Youve_Been_In_This_Club.mp3]
Wayne pointed out this article by Sasha Frere-Jones on The New Yorker site about Auto Tune. It’s the software that makes singers on many of todays pop songs sound inhuman. It’s purpose is to artificially correct the pitch of sung notes, but when tweaks are made to the settings other-worldly effects occur. Think Cher’s Believe, or almost anything by T-Pain and you get the picture.
A couple months ago DJ Flack pointed out to me that he’d been listening to the hip-hop / R&B station in Boston and for an hour straight every track featured the effect. A bit annoying innit? Certainly it’ll sound dated next decade. Yet still, there’s something awesome about breaking technology to create newness.
In order to illustrate the Auto Tune effect Sasha went into a recording studio and sang Kelly Clarkson’s Since You’ve Been Gone. Engineer Tom Beaujour recorded him and then demonstrated various uses of the software on Sasha’s voice.
When Ripley asked if I was going to make a remix of Sasha’s cover song I have to admit it hadn’t occurred to me, but then I thought it just might be the perfect accompaniment to the remix of Usher’s Love in This Club that I had been meaning to make.
If you haven’t heard yet, Love in This Club was made using stock loops from Apple’s Garage Band software. I went and found the loops and made this remix out of them. Those Apple Loops are royalty free right? So I can remix Love in This Club all day long and not have to worry about rights infringement? I guess that remains to be seen. I’m sure there’ll be more on that later.
Tom Beaujour is featured on my remix explaining how the “Cher effect” is created and then Sasha sings “Since You’ve Been Gone.” In addition to the Auto Tune that Tom had already applied to Sasha’s voice, I also copied it to a second track and re-pitched the notes to create a harmony, but instead of Auto Tune I used Ableton Live to tweak the notes up and down by hand.
Full disclosure: I didn’t use the Garage Band or Auto Tune software in the making of this track.
MP3 Download
DJ C; Since You’ve Been In This Club* ->
[audio:https://archive.mashit.com/audio/Since_Youve_Been_In_This_Club.mp3]
* ft. Sasha Frere-Jones & Tom Beaujour
BTW: Have you noticed how similar Love in This Club is to The Office theme?
[youtube b9GilKnpiv0]
BTWx2: Wayne also pointed to this absolutely awesome (slightly frightening) animatronic video version of Love In This Club:
[youtube wxOVFrfxCxA]
haha, this is great!
is it dubstep speed? sounds like it is… 😉
It’s 135 BPM; Boston-bounce speed. Easy to mix with Dubstep.
yo jake, any way you could post the instrumental of this? diggin the boston bounce sound, but not sure if the vox will work being played out =)
You mean the the spoken “Cher effect” part? Sasha’s “Since You’ve Been Gone” vocals are kind of integral, especially at the breakdown, but I could take them out too and see what happens. Just let me know and I’ll make an edit.
yeah that’s what i meant. or maybe put in the original since you’ve been gone vox on it? maybe autotune em? just an idea =)