CompUtahz! Getting Bigger and Harder and Faster and Stronger all the TIMeZ!!

There’s alot of “threshold” dependent signal processing done these days. Compressors, gating, and I even remember in ‘ol autotune 3, there was a setting which essentially said,

“how horribly out of tune do you want this guys voice to get before I start correcting it?”

Most of the devices with thresholds we commonly use “trigger” off volume input. De-esser’s take this further and trigger off frequency dependant volume input.

I wonder what weird and wonderful things could be done once computers and the software are so uber that their software threshold things could trigger off any machine recognisable pattern?

I wonder if in the future there would be a tool where a Live music engineer could set a mike to only open its gate when the software recognised the input of a unique singer’s voice freqency plot.

or a mic with a computer inside it that could alter its pickup pattern and eq pattern during a take according to the singers changing freqencies. Or set it to an internal lfo. Or spin around at a set bpm!!

ahh lololipops.

Or a pair of microphones with inbuilt mega brains that calculate all phase issues.

oh oh- what about… a vst plugin that mixes and masters all your music for you perfectly at the push of a button! and fixes up the arrangement too. And calls your mum.

I’d like a mike that when you stand in front of it ready to perform to a crowd, a little hologram pops up visible only to you, and says

“welcome to windows 5000x. Shall I make you sing like a God today?”

“Yes” I would say, “But please, this time, don’t cra—”

“error code 10534- please reboot, or contact your system administrator”.

Well, some of the things you mention (like mastering) are inherently subjective processes and a computer most likely wouldn’t be as good as a pair of experienced ears. Voice prints are a little too sci-fi to start thinking about musical applications right now.

However, some of the things you mention are another matter entirely. Like frequency based effects. Those are entirely possible to make. I once set up a frequency based sample and hold in Reason — it worked perfectly to glitch the ssssssibilanccccce.

Reason is good at that kind of thing because just about everything can trigger an envelope, which can then be used to automate other things.