Aczid's blog

I just had to post this for awesomeness. I am going to get my friends who have iPhones to install this.

Looking at the subtitle of my blog, I hope nobody misses the obvious reference to this. Released in an era when hip-hop (although it was generally known as ‘rap’ at the time) was still sounding good. No need to distinguish true hip-hop music from the boring formulaic derivative it has generally become. From last century, here’s a true hip-hop classic:

Eric B & Rakim - Don’t sweat the technique

Apparently, women wore clothes back then!

Several friends informed me of a new technology by Melodyne called Direct Note Access. So far I’m baffled as to how it works. I find it an amazing feat and I hope they reveal some more information about the mechanics of it. Anyway, here is the very impressive demo video:



Update: I’ve found a video of a presentation at the Frankfurt Musikmesse 2008 by the inventor Peter Neubäcker himself.

Great presentation, more source material explored and some hints as to how it works. From what Peter is saying, I suppose it works a bit like this: The source material’s spectral information is analyzed. For example if a root tone of 220 hz wave is detected that counts as A3 and so on, given some leniency and/or self-reference. I think that’s how the old Melodyne works, but they have extended this technology to deal with polyphonic material. I speculate it’s somehow done by looking for other waves at certain ratios (harmonics) after a root tone (fundamental) has been identified. These resampled tones can be pitched, arranged and timestretched to create new notes and chords.

Update 2: Found another video on Melodyne’s media page that seems to confirm my hypothesis. Thank you Sound on Sound!





All I can say for certain is that Mr. Neubäcker is a genius. Can’t wait to check out the plugin.