To get the information you need to plug in an external device.Īn OBD auto scanner is used to receive data codes and other information about the car's general conditions. Most vehicles are equipped with on-board diagnostics or an OBD2 port that provides access to data from the engine control unit (ECU).
A key instance is the haunting, deadened sound of Kanye West's voice on his melancholy, late-2008 album 808s & Heartbreak. Nevertheless, Auto-Tune has won the occasional accolade from music critics for providing a theme-appropriate sonic element. (Death of Auto-Tune)," and musicians including Christina Aguilera who have relied on the software have publicly blasted it.ĭebates have broken out over whether Auto-Tune has cheapened or at least homogenized pop radio, and whether it has made audiences expect singers to torch through songs without vocal errors or, as some have alleged, personality. With the salvaging of every poorly sung vocal, however, it seems the technology has made new enemies over the years, and not just in the audiophile community.įor example, rapper Jay-Z entitled a song on last year's The Blueprint 3 album "D.O.A. Many woozy singles later, T-Pains love of Auto-Tune became iconic, culminating in a in a Super Bowl commercial last February in which the singer asks, in his signature computerized lilt, for a partygoer to "pass the guacamole." The recording industry pounced on the technology, and the first song credited (or bemoaned) for introducing Auto-Tune to the masses was Cher's 1998 hit "Believe."Īlthough a success with audio engineers, Auto-Tune remained largely out of sight until 2003 when rhythm and blues crooner T-Pain discovered its voice-altering effects. During the 1990s, Hildebrand founded the company that later became Antares, and he applied his tools to voices. Andy Hildebrand, a geophysicist who worked with Exxon, came up with a technique called autocorrelation to interpret these waves.
Or, artists can make the correction happen quickly and artificially, which results in the warbling, digitized voices now all the rage in pop, hip-hip, reggae and other types of music.Īuto-Tune's invention sprung from a quite unrelated field: prospecting for oil underground using sound waves. This rate can be carefully calibrated so a voice sounds "natural," by tacking the voice smoothly back to the reference pitch. Auto-Tune users set a reference point – a scale or specific notes, for example – and a rate at which derivations from this point will be digitally corrected.