A presentation at the 2018 CUNY Graduate Students In Music Conference https://gsim.commons.gc.cuny.edu

1. The Vocoder, Auto-Tune, Pitch
Standardization, and Vocal Virtuosity
Ethan Hein, NYU

2. Digitizing audio makes it possible to multiplex
or encrypt it, but directly representing the
waveform requires a lot of data

3. The Fourier transform
decomposes complex
periodic waveforms into
a sum of sine waves,
which can be expressed
compactly as a list of
magnitudes and phases

4. Lord Kelvin’s
mechanical
synthesizer
performed Fourier
transforms with
gears and pulleys

5. The vocoder uses Fourier transforms to break
the voice into frequency bands and analyze the
amount of sound energy in each band, along
with the noise content

6. The vocoder plays sound back by generating a
harmonic-rich tone (the carrier) and filtering
it according to the frequency content of the
voice (the modulator)

7. Bell Labs developed the vocoder in the 1930s

8. A vocoder used
for military radio
encryption

9. Early vocoder-like
technologies in music:
“talking instruments”
e.g. Sonovox and talkbox

10. Using a synth as
the carrier creates
the Kraftwerk
“robot voice”

11. Herbie Hancock:
vocal virtuosity via
manual virtuosity

12. MIDI virtuosity -
“Harder, Better,
Faster, Stronger”
by Daft Punk

13. Grand Mixer DST - using manual
virtuosity to transform vocoded speech

14. The phase vocoder
makes it possible to
change the pitch and
timing of digital audio
independently

15. Andy Hildebrand
used Fourier
transforms of
sound for both oil
exploration and
music synthesis

16. Hildebrand’s fast phase vocoder is
the basis for Antares Auto-Tune

17. Uniform pitch standards are a new
phenomenon - equal temperament did not
become the European standard until the 19th
century, and even then, concert tuning
pitches varied by region

18. When Retune
Speed is set to
zero, Auto-Tune
quantizes pitches
(too) perfectly

19. Auto-Tune turns rappers posthuman

20. Berber music uses Auto-Tune the same way that
American R&B does: to quantize melismatic singing

21. Celemony’s Melodyne enables pitch
correction and reharmonization of
polyphonic audio

22. Chance The
Rapper’s “All We
Got” uses “the
Prismizer” - a
MIDI-controlled
artificial harmony
technique

23. Soundtrap: Auto-Tune in the web browser

24. Auto-Tune turns the voice into an
Orff xylophone - no wrong notes

25. Has digital pitch
correction destroyed
the craft of singing? Can
mechanically produced
music have soul?

26. “I’m not a perfect note hitter either but I’m not going to
cover it up with Auto-Tune. Everybody uses it, too. I once
asked a studio guy in Toronto, “How many people don’t use
Auto-Tune?” and he said, “You and Nelly Furtado are the
only two people who’ve never used it in here.” Even though
I’m not into Nelly Furtado, it kind of made me respect her.
It’s cool that she has some integrity.” - Neko Case

27. Should we
embrace a
posthuman
musical
future?

28. Thanks for
listening!
ethanhein.com
@ethanhein