Monday, September 08, 2008

Cook up a good beat

Fun video.
Like Pogue said: "First couple times I saw this, I would have bet you money that the beatbox sounds were audio samples, added during the video editing. But once I visited the guy’s Web site, I realized that he’s probably the world’s greatest beatboxer—and that he probably made all those sounds himself as the camera rolled."


TTL informs:
Beardyman is the name of the guy cooking the "Electro Funk Daddy Superstar Break".

I find lots of subtle things that make the performance great: the overall rhythm of his delivery, how he switches from narrative to beat boxing and back; brilliant writing, like when he filters the low and middle frequencies out of white noise using a household sieve; and the believably "enthusiastic" style of some show host in a routine cooking segment, all of which when combined to his virtuoso command of beat boxing technique gives a rather surreal effect.

There are also things which to truly appreciate you have to now a bit about the history of music technology. For example his Roland 808 clap sounds exactly like the real thing from 1980s. Also, how he feels the need to include both a 808 clap and a 909 clap snare in the recipe and then perfectly renders the sonical differences of those two devices in the beat.

Also he does simultaneous stretching and low pass filtering of the "signal" when he slows down the beat. Not to mention doing it while playing the beat backwards!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yep, man, they are great these beatboxers, aren't they. And Michael Winslow... really, I didn't know of his one-man shows. His imitation of Jimi Hendrix is just excellent... :) Thanks for this post.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Isn't it just?

How the hell does somebody make a sound like an electric guitar or a helicopter with his mouth?

Anonymous said...

Do you remember him imitating the rifle shooting in Police Academy, while being in a police car, surrounded by a mob of wild folks? Or when he imitated the sound of a shaver, while using the razor blade? :)))

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Only vaguely, but I've ordered the first P.A. DVD for rental, it's been an age since I saw it.
(I can't believe they made seven of them.)

Anonymous said...

I listen to the Beardyman's audios on his website (Bearfyman, and I think he's great. Thanks again for that post, Eolake.

Anonymous said...

Gosh, made a mistake in the name of that site - Beardyman, not Bearfyman :) The link works, anyway.

Anonymous said...

"How the hell does somebody make a sound like an electric guitar or a helicopter with his mouth?"

On the Hendrix imitation he uses external sound processing (a fuzz box and probably an octave divider) not to mention a backing track. A helicopter is one of the easiest things to imitate with a close mike. An unimpressive and a boring guy in my opinion. Nothing compared to skilled beat boxers like Beardyman.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

OK.
I couldn't figure out Beardyman's site, but I'll try youtube.

Anonymous said...

Beardyman is the guy cooking the "Electro Funk Daddy Superstar Break".

I find lots of subtle things that make the performance great: the overall rhythm of his delivery, how he switches from narrative to beat boxing and back; brilliant writing, like when he filters the low and middle frequencies out of white noise using a household sieve; and the believably "enthusiastic" style of some show host in a routine cooking segment, all of which when combined to his virtuoso command of beat boxing technique gives a rather surreal effect.

There are also things which to truly appreciate you have to now a bit about the history of music technology. For example his Roland 808 clap sounds exactly like the real thing from 1980s. Also, how he feels the need to include both a 808 clap and a 909 clap snare in the recipe and then perfectly renders the sonical differences of those two devices in the beat.

Also he does simultaneous stretching and low pass filtering of the "signal" when he slows down the beat. Not to mention doing it while playing the beat backwards!

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Holy crap.
I don't get any of all that.

I'm impressed by things like how he makes perfect imitations of everything, including a sexy female voice.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

BTW, is it technically still white noise if it's filtered?
If you put white light through a colored filter, it's no longer white.

Anonymous said...

The sexy female voice in the beginning is also and allusion to technology. It's as if the program has started and some engineer is a little late adjusting the pitch, or alternatively the playback machine has a delay in regulating its pitch. You can hear his voice lower in a steep gradual curve.

"BTW, is it technically still white noise if it's filtered?"

No, it's no longer called white noise if you filter parts of the spectrum out. Sound engineering also has concepts such as "pink noise" and "red noise" that denote noises with certain kinds of power spectra, but they aren't used very often.

Anonymous said...

.. man, and then, there's also a "brown noise" there :) I've never heared of the "white" and "pink" noises before finding out about the Hemi-Sync technology (brain's hemispheres synchronization), where these frequencies are used as a acoustic environment enhancing the effects of the Hemi-Sync audio-signals... :))))

And I agree with ttl in that M. Winslow is a bit boring comapred to Beardyman (www.beardyman.co.uk)