Mr. Tunes

How the T-Pain Mic is Part of the New Music Revolution

I can’t lie. When I first saw the I Am T-Pain mic in Walmart, I was almost ecstatic in seeing this product. It’s so cheesy, that you can’t help but be excited about it.

There is actually a back story to this product that studio nerds will find interesting. Profiled in this month’s Fast Company, T-Pain originally had worked with Antares (the maker of Auto-Tune), in developing the app for the iPhone.

However, he was looking for some kind of more formal naming rights to this effect, which Antares was apparently not willing to offer. Yes this is a little confusing, but in the end he went off with recreating the effect by working with a rival to Antares, Izotope.

T-Pain Carries on a Rock and Roll Tradition

T-Pain is a good example of a phenom in pop music over the decades, and that’s the idea of musicians championing certain types of gear. This effect is used in their music, but also in their marketing.

Jimi Hendrix was a co-inventor of the wah-wah pedal, and it became a signature part of his sound. Peter Frampton made Heil Talk Box legendary. Keith Emerson loved his Moog Modular.

I feel like a lot of these grand displays of music toys has kind of fallen off in the DJ era, as the large majority of producers would now head out to the clubs with usually a variation of what everyone else is using, but you can always identify it from time to time.

There is also another element where many producers shroud their gear in mystery. However the flashy display of the monome creates too much temptation for artists like Daedelus to dare keep his tools hidden from the crowd.

New Artists Should Reap the Benefits of Branded Gear

Tim Exile and his big Mouth

Where I think there’s more opportunity for new artists, is not only championing a product that’s already available, but making their own ones. Tim Exile is the best example of this, releasing The Mouth and The Finger, which are tools that he uses in his own performances. They are wicked, and some of the best pieces of music software i’ve used to date (I used The Mouth to do the vocals on Want/Need).

The programs are built in Reaktor, which is a plugin by Native Instruments that you must pay for. But there are plenty of platforms out there that enable you to make new products with free software that people can use on their own.

There is also the Arduino revolution, which allows people to make prototypes of hardware devices, which they can go on to mass produce.

Even on a lower level, there can be a great market for artists that open up their productions for others to dissect or even glean new patches from. But ultimately, sharing a few loops isn’t as glamorous as making a self-contained mic that auto-tunes your voice.

So, while the T-Pain story might seem absurd and silly, I think this is something not only worth understanding, but also applauding.

How do you feel about the T-Pain Mic? Share your opinions in the comments below.