Zombie Eaters, now 100% more grim
July 4, 2011 11:07 AM Subscribe
Help me recreate this bizarre Xbox 360 music streaming glitch!
I've got my Xbox networked to my PC, and often stream music around the house. When playing Faith No More's 'The Real Thing', everything ran as normal... until 'Zombie Eaters' came on. Then, on the fly with no audio quality loss, the Xbox player played the song at exactly half speed, and the pitch dropped accordingly. I've gone back and played the song several times, and on the Xbox it always runs at half speed, but on the PC and iPod it's normal. The Xbox also sees the play time for the file as the normal 5:40 or so, but the timer continues to run as the song plays out to 11:20-ish.
The interesting thing is that the song sounds AWESOME AS HELL this way. So! I'm trying to recreate the time stretch and pitch shift without having audio quality loss. I've found that WMP has a 'variable speed' option in their enhancements, but with automatic pitch correction which makes the file sound very buzzy (the vox are the important part to pitch drop). I've got the free program PaulStretch, which was used to make that wild Justin Beiber 800% track - but by default the processing it uses gives the track that shimmering sound to cover for the processing artifacts of slowing the track. There are a plethora of options to tweak, but none of them seem to move me closer to a clean sound, just more distorted/buzzy/etc. I guess the closest sound I'm trying to get is like an old tape deck running at half speed, with all the clarity of that analog decompression and none of the digital distortion of modern adjustments. I also have Adobe Audition, but similarly haven't found a correct setting to reproduce the sound.
Anyone have any insight as regarding how to reproduce this excellent chopped and screwed tone?
I've got my Xbox networked to my PC, and often stream music around the house. When playing Faith No More's 'The Real Thing', everything ran as normal... until 'Zombie Eaters' came on. Then, on the fly with no audio quality loss, the Xbox player played the song at exactly half speed, and the pitch dropped accordingly. I've gone back and played the song several times, and on the Xbox it always runs at half speed, but on the PC and iPod it's normal. The Xbox also sees the play time for the file as the normal 5:40 or so, but the timer continues to run as the song plays out to 11:20-ish.
The interesting thing is that the song sounds AWESOME AS HELL this way. So! I'm trying to recreate the time stretch and pitch shift without having audio quality loss. I've found that WMP has a 'variable speed' option in their enhancements, but with automatic pitch correction which makes the file sound very buzzy (the vox are the important part to pitch drop). I've got the free program PaulStretch, which was used to make that wild Justin Beiber 800% track - but by default the processing it uses gives the track that shimmering sound to cover for the processing artifacts of slowing the track. There are a plethora of options to tweak, but none of them seem to move me closer to a clean sound, just more distorted/buzzy/etc. I guess the closest sound I'm trying to get is like an old tape deck running at half speed, with all the clarity of that analog decompression and none of the digital distortion of modern adjustments. I also have Adobe Audition, but similarly haven't found a correct setting to reproduce the sound.
Anyone have any insight as regarding how to reproduce this excellent chopped and screwed tone?
It's just playing it at half the sample rate, so just half the sample rate.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:55 AM on July 4, 2011
posted by Sys Rq at 11:55 AM on July 4, 2011
Response by poster: Audacity did it in one go - the 'Change Speed' effect option. Altho I bet the sample rate halving would accomplish the same. Either way, here are the results! Thanks folks.
posted by FatherDagon at 12:01 PM on July 4, 2011
posted by FatherDagon at 12:01 PM on July 4, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
Get a lossless version of the song (if you have the cd, ripping to .wav is easy--otherwise, you can probably find a .flac online).
Use Audacity to do your effects (if you're starting with a .flac, you may need to convert it to .wav first). Then, convert back to .mp3.
posted by box at 11:33 AM on July 4, 2011