News You Can Bruise for 2006 March 30 (entry 2)

(8) Thu Mar 30 2006 23:31 Vowecowedrrr: I hate the vocoder because it's used in all the damn pop songs I hear in the supermarket, and I suspect its primary use is to cover up the fact that pop singers can't sing. But this tutorial and its obvious-in-retrospect explanation of how vocoders work is pretty neat.

Comments:

Posted by Josh Myer at Fri Mar 31 2006 00:20

Man, I remember the first time I heard a vocoder. It was at a concert: dude went over, tapped a pedal, and suddenly, his guitar was singing with him. It was so incredibly cool.

(I was apparently a lot easier to impress at 12.)

Posted by Sean Neakums at Fri Mar 31 2006 00:34

Mogwai uses one whenever they want vocals but can't bothered to write lyrics. They are industrious in their laziness.

Posted by Fredrik at Fri Mar 31 2006 03:06

Hmm. I thought it was AutoTune that everybody used for cover up.

(and you confuse vocoders with talkboxes either, btw)

Posted by Fredrik at Fri Mar 31 2006 04:36

"(and you confuse vocoders with talkboxes either, btw)"

hmm. I'm pretty sure I meant to put a "shouldn't" in there, somewhere. Any chance that we can get an "edit this comment" button ? (infogami has spoiled me...)

Posted by Adam P. at Fri Mar 31 2006 10:17

Which pop songs on your supermarket radio have vocoder on them? I guess maybe Mr. Roboto, maybe some E.L.O. ... ? Or maybe you go to a supermarket that plays a lot of Air and Daft Punk, in which case I want to shop there too.

Anyway, I agree with Fredrik - if there is a vocal-related audio technology we should rail against, it's autotune. Personally I think pop records whose singers rely on this (I'm looking your way, Lindsey Lohan and Hilary Duff) would be greatly improved if all the lyrics were sung with a vocoder.

Posted by Leonard at Fri Mar 31 2006 10:32

I think I may be confusing vocoder with talkbox. But I can't find out just at this moment because my sound card stopped working today. More on this later.

Fredrik, an "edit this comment" button would mean user accounts in NewsBruiser + user accounts for commenters, and I don't want to go there. The alternative is a challenge/response password for each individual comment, and that doesn't sound to great either.

Posted by Leonard at Fri Mar 31 2006 18:00

No, it's definitely vocoder that I'm sick of. I can't believe you guys have escaped all the pop songs that are 60% vocoder. Like the one about love, and the other... one about love.

Posted by Brendan at Mon Apr 03 2006 08:56

Kid Rock uses a vocoder when he "sings," and that one Kid Rock-Sheryl Crow song got supermarket play. Likewise Maroon 5.