i am t-pain
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T-Pain stops by CES 2011 to plug patently ridiculous, amazing I Am T-Pain microphone (video)
It's Vegas, so it's not completely unsurprising to see folks like Lady Gaga and T-Pain stopping by unannounced. But seeing the latter over at a Jakks Pacific booth at CES? Not exactly --- shall we say -- expected. Regardless, T-Pain was most definitely in the house, primarily to showcase his newest $39.99 accessory, the I Am T-Pain microphone. For all intents and purposes, this here mic is your dream come true, enabling you to sing into it and hear it emitted back with a "T-Pain Effect" embedded. In other words, it's your autotune instrument of choice. There's a bit of inbuilt memory as well, enabling users to record clips for future hysteria, while also giving them the chance to blend in T-Pain remarks as they rap and offload their favorite clips to their PC. It's absurd in every sense of the word, making it impossible to pass up. If that makes any sense. Head on past the break for an interview with the man himself, courtesy of our pals over at TUAW.
Macworld 2010: Andrew Gregory of AutoTune the News
We can reveal our secret now: during Macworld's setup, we wandered into the wrong room, and randomly came across a stage shared by David Pogue, LeVar Burton, and the Gregory Brothers A.K.A the AutoTune the News crew, all rehearsing for David Pogue's keynote. The keynote went off well, and afterwards, I asked Andrew Gregory to come by for a conversation at the booth; Andrew does the extremely popular Autotune the News segments on YouTube with his brothers Michael and Evan, along with Evan's wife Sarah. He kindly agreed, and you can watch the video of our chat by clicking on the link below. Andrew told us that he and his brothers have been Mac users from the start, and he also shares with us part of the story behind the I am T-Pain AutoTune app, along with his impressions of the Macworld show floor. It was very fun to meet up with him in a pretty unlikely place -- be sure and give our chat a look.
Best of the Rest: Griffin's Picks of 2009
DJ Hero What started out as tepid fascination in DJ Hero quickly turned into a deep, passionate love. I initially thought it was just another rhythm game knock-off with an obtuse peripheral and a too-high price point. However, as my turntabling improved, my fondness for the game multiplied. Based on the game's lackluster sales, I'm guessing most people shared my outright hesitance -- but once you invest a bit of time and patience into DJ Hero, I guarantee you'll get hooked. (And that soundtrack! Oh, man, that soundtrack.)
Smule turns you into T-Pain
God bless Smule. I panned their Ocarina app way back, but since then they've pushed right along without me, releasing idea after idea on Apple's App Store. And I think that, though the Leaf Trombone didn't really capture my attention, this one might finally be the big winner in my book: they've released I am T-Pain, an app that will automatically Auto-tune you into the style of some of the rapper's top songs, with more purchaseable within the app. There's even a "freestyle" mode, complete with a few unreleased background tracks to jam with -- as you can see above, all you do is talk into the iPhone's mic, and you can autotune the news or whatever else you want. Shawwwwty! Silly? Maybe, but they're going to sell a million of these, and given that Smule's apps tend to be easy to pick up and fun to play with, even people who aren't familiar with T-Pain's work will probably get the app just to sing a few bars to see what it sounds like (you can also send those messages off to Facebook or email as well). And Smule is moving right up into the iPhone 3.0 era: the app comes with four songs, and there are four more available to purchase in-app, along with even more (and more popular: Kanye's "Good Life" and the Lonely Island's "On a Boat" track are due out soon) songs coming, complete with lyrics and auto-tune settings and timings in the future. Maybe you're laughing. Maybe you think this is dumb, and you've already had enough of auto-tune on pop radio, and don't really want it in your iPhone, too. But trust me on this one: Smule is a company that's made silly music experiences on the iPhone extremely popular, and having T-Pain's tunes and auto-tuning abilities (officially from the company behind the pro version, too) available in this app is going to make it big, no question. The app's available right now for $2.99, so pick it up if you're feeling the beat and want to sing, even if you can't. Yeahhh-eeeyeaahh-yeah.
