Name any hip hop song played on the radio in the past year or so. Did any of the lyrics sound sort of warbly – as if sung by a robot? Chances are, the answer is “Yes.” That’s called Auto-Tune. And now there’s an app for that.
Smule, the masterminds behind the smash-hit apps Ocarina and Leaf Trombone, have teamed up with hip hop artist T-Pain (known for calling on Auto-Tune for just about every word he sings) and the makers of Auto-Tune, Antares, to bring the pitch-tweaking tool to the iPhone as I Am T-Pain. Oh – and it works in real time (and we’ve got hands-on video.)
In its original form, Auto-Tune is an audio processing application for Windows and OS X. By way of what can only be explained as audio engineering voodoo, Auto-tune allows artists to pitch correct their vocals to perfection. Some, like T-Pain (and, as of recently, Kanye West and the Black Eyed Peas,) use Auto-Tune to add that signature drunken-robot sound that is oh-so-trendy as of late. Generally, a copy of Auto-Tune will cost around $400 bucks. Smule’s application will set you back $2.99.
What Smule has done here is technically incredible – and it’s a friggin’ killer product idea, to boot. You sing into the iPhone microphone, and it pipes your voice back through the iPhone earpiece or (preferably) speakers/headphones, complete with that Auto-tune sound. You can pick which scale you want your voice “Auto-tuned” to, saving your favorite settings as presets for later use. All of the technology is officially licensed and based off of the original.
While you’re free to plug-in and robo-sing A capella, I Am T-Pain comes with instrumental versions of 5 T-Pain tracks and 3 generic beats. The words for the T-pain tracks are displayed on screen with perfectly synced highlighting, allowing for impromptu Karaoke sessions. Making use of the premium content system added in iPhone OS 3.0, they’ve also tossed a handful of premium tracks into the mix for 99c a pop. All performances can be recorded for later playback, sent via email, or pushed to an accompanying application on Facebook or Myspace. If you’ve got friends with iPhones, you should fully expect to get a pitch-tweaked message in your inbox before too long. Don’t be surprised if they call you “Shawtay”.
We’ve been playing with this application for around 4 1/2 hours now, nearly non-stop. We’ve only found one fault so far: you can’t sing along with music stored on your iPhone. This is presumably due to licensing issues involved with recording/sending tracks, or technical limitations of the iPhone. If you want to cyborg-croon to your self-provided beats, you’ll need to play them on a stereo and jack the iPhone into the microphone port.
Hip hop fans are going to love this. Drunken frat boys are going to love this. Hell, I can’t stand hearing Auto-tune used in songs anymore, and I can’t put this thing down. Good job, Smule – you’ve got a real hit on your hands, here.
You can grab it in the App Store here.
Check out this exclusive clip of R&B singer Akon playing with the app for the first time:
Been a beta tester for a month of this. Very excited to see it on the App Store. You guys will love this. It provides hours of fun. You won’t be disappointed.
What a freakin’ great idea. Another sign that the iPhone is a truly transformative platform. IMHO, as big a deal as the PC (in the early ’80’s) or the Web (in the mid-’90’s).
Greg can finally sing like Cher.. he’s been trying to for years.
Ahmm didn’t JayZ just declare death to the auto tune the other day. Auto tune…sooo 2008
Yeah, but we all declared Jay Z dead long ago. Jay Z is so 2001.
Co-sign. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Jay z doesn’t dictate my music tastes.
Ha, THIS is what will kill auto-tune, not Jay Z. With everybody and the moms’ singing in auto-tune, it will finally become so uncool the rappers will move on…
This will be a huge seller, I think. The downside to it is that the beats are sloooow to download.
Also, I’d like to see some real-time controls to adjust levels on the fly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDOYN-6gdRE&feature=PlayList&p=736C3116AD309B58&index=7
I’m totally gonna buy this.
I was going to buy it, until I heard that you were. Thanks for letting us all know. By the way, what will you be having for dinner?
Direct appsto.re link: http://appsto.re/autotune
you can also use http://appsto.re/iamtpain
Autotune needs to die. I think this app underlines the true lack of effort needed to produce tinny overprocessed vocals with zero talent, and I fully expect a future billboard hit to come from this app.
Very good video Greg, btw!
Was the youtube video real or an advertisement?
Great….. I must gonna buy it… Looks nice
This looks cool! I agree with Greg, nice video.
Doesn’t do anything on mine with default settings :-S
same for me, almost nothing
Very good video Greg, btw!
Fantastic App. Auto-tuning is something always interesting. It helps express things. But sad that it can’t sing along with music stored on iPhone. It would be nice if licensing properties partially allow some music to be used in Auto-Tuning.
It sounded like Akon was struggling to find the word “app”… and never found it. man he’s so cool he doesn’t need to know what iphone apps are. just market it and smile.
For the real hip hoppers out there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8RqgDsO3c4
I confirm this doesn’t work at all, I just hear my voice with no effect… with any setting. How can that be ? Using 3GS
You should try a frontal lobotomy, that will take care of all your “issues”.
Got it last night. Therefore went to sleep real late. Fun app.
I was looking for a professional tool for this a few years back but they were all hundreds of dollars on up. Some of the Roland devices seemed cool but not fully sure if they did this although the collateral read like they did (and more of course…Roland products always do tons of stuff).
Harry “someone reverse engineer this thing and put a highly tunable up on Cydia” Wang
“put a highly tunable up” -> “highly tunable version up”
Harry “hates not being able to edit his comment” Wang
Oh joy! Now I can see Neil deGrasse Tyson in concert.
Bought it last nite hung out with fam today it was a hit! My granma is now tpain lol
It’s now the #1 paid app download as of today, September 5, 2009.