MacDirectory Magazine

INTERVIEW PERFECT PITCH >AUTO-TUNING THE NEWS WITH THE GREGORY BROTHERS WORDS BY RIC GETTER There are many famous singers who are really talented, work very hard, practice constantly and when they belt out a song, they can nail each note to perfection. And then there are some who can’t (regardless of how good they look on stage). Anteres Auto-Tune is a technology that can process a voice track and nudge each note to exactly where it should be. The Gregory Brothers discovered a unique way to thoroughly abuse the program: Feed in the soundtrack of a newscast, do some editing (okay, a lotof editing) and the next thing you know Katie Couric is a Grammy nominee. The Gregory Brothers’ “Auto-Tune the News” videos have been a smash hit on YouTube and they recently landed a guest shot on Late Night With David Pogue at this year’s Macworld Expo. Being the great folks they are, they’ve agreed to let us annoy them with some questions: MacDirectory > The first question is pretty obvious: how did you ever get the idea to do this? Gregory Brothers > Last spring we were hanging out with a lot of different broadcasters and politicians, and there was a kind of grass-is-greener mentality among even the most successful and famous, like, boy we wish we were pop stars. You know, like, sure it’s great to be a news anchor on a major network, bit I’d ratherbe doing what Britney is doing. So that’s where we came in, to help realize those dreams. MD > Without giving away too many of your trade secrets, can you give us a geek’s-eye view of the production process? What software and hardware to you use for your capturing and editing? About how many hours of work are involved in creating a video like “Turtles?” Do your neighbors ever complain about all the singing coming from your apartment? feedback from your videos’ unwitting stars? GB > Occasionally yes. Most of them have been pleased to be featured. We have yet to hear from the office of Joe Biden. MD > We’ve seen the videos and Sarah and the Stanleys has to be one of Brooklyn’s best undiscovered bands. Has Auto-Tune the News helped propel your musical careers? Can you tell us a little about your recent work with Comedy Central and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live? GB > Thank you for the endorsement. We agree that Sarah’s music and her amazing band The Stanleys are a formidable force, look for more music from them soon. Auto-Tune the News has certainly driven fans hungry for more music to our existing catalog of original GB > We do most of our production at Andrew and Michael’s apartment. All the audio is done in Logic Pro, and the video in Final Cut Express. Rather than doing location shoots in Congress, we actually use the technology of “green-screen” to save production time. Our green screen is a green sheet tacked to Michael’s bedroom wall. But the video shoot is really one of the last pieces of the puzzle. As musicians, we produce Auto-Tune the News using music video methods, i.e. the music always comes first. We write the instrumental parts and then record the vocals and have a nearly complete single before we even think about shooting the video. Creating a single episode of Auto- Tune the News can take up to, or as many as, many hours. We have been fortunate with regard to neighbors; Michael and Andrew live below their landlord, and our initial concern about excessive noise was allayed by her declaration, “I was about to come downstairs and tell you guys to turn! it! up!” MD > Your work has become immensely popular. Have you ever received any songs. Many of those fans even like our music. For the Jimmy Kimmel bit, a very popular video featuring T-Pain singing an auto-tuned duet with President Obama, we were asked to do the audio for that bit. Clearly we fill a very small but important niche in the music industry - correcting the singing pitch of politicians everywhere. MD > What does it feel like to have your own Wikipedia page? GB > Simply giddy. The Gregory Brothers article is even longer than the article about the 4th Anglo-Mysore War so we know we have really made it in this world. The Gregory Brothers web site: The Gregory Brothers YouTube channel home page: Behind the scenes of a Gregory Brothers video: MacDirectory 95

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