An Evening With the Brain Trust Behind 'Auto-Tune the News'

Comments (0) By Ben Westhoff Wednesday, Jul 1 2009

Despite all of the surrealist pop art being created, the Gregory Brothers consume nothing more intoxicating than Tecate or Ghirardelli chocolate chips tonight. Though the "Auto-Tune the News" segments come off as goofy and low-tech, they actually require many hours of disciplined editing and proficiency in Final Cut, Logic, and, of course, voice-modulation programming. By far, their most frequent YouTube comment is, "How do you do your Auto-Tune settings? I can't get the same effect!"

Though there are thoughts of a compilation DVD at some point, modern-day Warholianism isn't all fun and games. The crew maintain day jobs, presumably at least partly because those bastards at YouTube haven't agreed to partner with them to share ad revenue. (Apparently, they didn't have enough subscribers when they applied. What a racket.) Meanwhile, Jay-Z has declared their whole thing over. "It's interesting to see the impact his song has had," Michael says of Hova's recent single/hissy fit, "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)." "Some people have said to [Jay-Z], 'You're trying to stop our hustle.' It's funny to have a feud about a vocal effect."

Jared Gruenwald

Viral video stars, pondering some breakfast

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"Jay might be ahead of the curve," he concludes of this approach to Auto-Tune's popularity. "It can't last forever. It will be interesting to see if there's a disco-like backlash."