LonnyGomes.com

Auto-tune, it’s all the craze now a days. Just in case you don’t know what it is, it’s an audio plugin that makes T-Pain sound like he can sing. Who knows, maybe he can sing without it but I’ve never seen it. And I guess that’s the point, Auto-tune corrects your voice so it sounds like you’re completely on pitch. With Auto-tune you don’t have to be dead on to sound good.

The use of Auto-tune is a controversial subject. Some music purist believe there is not place for it. Some use it purely for the vocal effect while still others use it because without it they would sound horrible. One thing to note is that for Auto-tune to work correctly you do have to be able to carry a tune to a certain degree, you just don’t have to be perfect.

I recently put out a mix tape. I wanted to include a “diss” of a fellow DJ but I wanted to do it in a creative way. I ended up recording a song using Auto-tune, singing a “parody” of Snoop Dog’s “Sensual Seduction” track. I figured if he could sound good with Auto-tune, me a former Jackson 5 could have been should be able pull it off as well! Check out the final results below. I think I just may have Snoop beat! Well … maybe

Today I watched the Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a Dream” speech.  The King foundation allowed CNN to rebroadcast the speech at noon today.  I never actually saw the footage in it’s entirety, and I found it very interesting.  Much of the b-roll footage showed the diverse crowd of people who were in attendance, and in the background the weathered visage of honest Abe looked on.

I’ve been to the Lincoln Memorial several times — often playing tour guide to those visiting DC — but never really stopped long enough to think of all the history that has taken place on it’s steps.  Yesterday, we were watching the free pre-inauguration show, which took place on the same very same steps.  

Some of the biggest names in politics and entertainment were sharing the steps that King did 46 years before.  It definitely brings another perspective to the monument and the man it remembers.

Today, Soledad O’Brien interviewed a few people who were in town for the inauguration who were also in town August 28th, 1963 to hear Dr. King speak.  Some say, King was the Moses and Obama is Joshua generation.  Continuing with the bible reference, some have even said from the death of King to the election of Obama represented 40 years of walking in the wilderness and it now is time to see the promise land.  I’m not sure if I’m ready to go *that* for with it, but one thing is for sure, I will be in DC tomorrow to share in the experience of history.

A couple years ago, I made a “tribute” mix to MLK … it’s actually more a commentary on freedom.  It’s a bit long (about 10 minutes), but check it out when you get the chance.

Without going into to much of the background story, this mix was inspired from a trip to Ocean City. There was this joke that I was lactose intolerant, and when one of our friends walked in the door she greeted me saying “what’s up Lactose”. Well, at least that what she said she said … everyone else in the room heard “what’s up black toast”!

Later in the weekend, the same girl told us a story on how she said something to a group of people that made it sound like she said black people were disabled so of course there couldn’t have been a more suitable name for this mix. Tim DeFoggi makes is rapping debut on this mix and of course I had to throw some Raffi in as well. Oh and Beavis and Butthead makes a cameo appearance on this mix as well.

One day while record shopping I came across a record that contained MLK’s “I have a Dream” speech. I also found some dance vocal tracks talking about freedom. I then toyed with the idea of making a tribute mix.

Fast forward a year later, it’s MLK’s birthday weekend and I had nothing going on. It being his birthday, I decided to listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech on vinyl. Then I started listening to the other tracks and got inspired to finally see my original “tribute mix” idea through.

I really put some thought into the song selection. Some people felt that my decision to include Rage Against The Machine in this mix didn’t fix. Although it definitely isn’t sonically ideal, I felt like the song represented one aspect and feeling of the idea of freedom which I felt fit well with the concept I was trying to go for.

This is another recording that I and two of my other turntablist friends recorded at a session. We later tried to do a “proper” recording but never could recreate the “original funk”.

So one night I was in a DJ session with 2 other guys and we started coming up with an actual “song”. It seriously sounded hot. I was all excited and got everyone over to do a proper recording where I had each stereo input getting pipped into ProTools … it completely bombed. I don’t even think I could salvage the recording. The recording below is a recording during the session but more “after the fact”.

Armed with a Linux box and open source software I set out to sample Steely Dan. Yeah, that open source drum program really didn’t cut it. Shortly afterwards I ended up buying a Mac which I felt was a doable “compromise” from my “open source/anti-windows” roots!

Before I had anything like Reason or even Garage Band I was trying to experiment with making a beat with a bass line. I ended up sampling my guitar on my Linux box using Audacity and dropping the tone and adding a bass boost effect.

Yeah, well it didn’t turn out that well but I worked with what I had at the time! I was also using some open source drum machine and a Prince Paul sample which no doubt was from something he sampled!

This mix started as a Garage Band loop my friend sent me. I had just gotten these Pat Robertson records and I wanted to sample them. I ended up going with the “Sunday School” concept.

This mix was a bit more “sentimental”. The reason why I put it up was because the first part of the song was me actually playing the piano. There is some seriously distortion in the recording and I’m not sure how I didn’t realize that when I was recording it. Much of this mix was done on vinyl, including the “Son of a Preacher Man” track.