Auto-Tune was invented by an engineer named Andy Hildebrand in 1996. Hildebrand grew up playing the flute and became a professional studio musician, specializing in symphonic music, by the age of 16. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in digital signal processing, a branch of electrical engineering, and worked as a geophysicist for Exxon Mobil for a number of years, using sound waves to search for fossil fuels. Eventually he returned to his passion and began working in signal processing for music.

A few years into his new career, he was having lunch with a singer who asked if he could make a box that would make her voice in tune. Nobody else at his table seemed drawn to the idea—they were embarrassed for the singer because they assumed it couldn't be done—so he let it go. But Hildebrand knew the math wasn't any different from any other application of signal processing. The trick was to adjust a sound’s pitch without changing its playback speed  After mulling over the idea while he worked on a different project, he returned to it a year later and spent a month building a prototype that he could present at a trade show. The response was instantaneous.

“People were ripping it out of my hands,” he recalled. “Producers wanted it badly.”

“It's gotten such a bad name for so long because it's like 'Oh, you use Auto-Tune?' Yeah, of course you use Auto-Tune,” he says. “You're singing into six-, seven-thousand-dollar microphones, they didn't have those in the '60s… If technology comes along that improves a sound, that improves workflow or performance or overall feel, then you use it. It doesn't mean you're not talented. It means you're talented and somebody has the foresight to apply some great technology to your project. That's not a bad thing; that's a good thing.”

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Kobalt Music Publishing, Kobalt Label Services and Kobalt Neighbouring Rights divisions each offer a modern alternative to the traditional music business model, empowering creators with flexible contracts, ownership, control, and total transparency.

​We represent over 8,000 artists and songwriters, 600,000 songs and 500 publishing companies, servicing our clients with global licensing management, works and rights distribution, royalty collection and processing, online data and royalty statements, creative services, synch & brand partnerships, record release management and marketing.

More here: http://www.kobaltmusic.com/page-about.php

Dub is a genre of music[1] that grew out of reggae in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre,[2] though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae. Music in this genre consists predominantly of instrumental remixes of existing recordings[3] and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, usually by removing the vocals from an existing music piece, and emphasizing the drum and bass parts (this stripped-down track is sometimes referred to as a 'riddim'). Other techniques include dynamically adding extensive echo, reverb, panoramic delay, and occasionaldubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.

Dub was pioneered by Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Errol Thompson and others[2] in the late 1960s.Augustus Pablo is credited with bringing the melodica to dub, and is also among the pioneers and creators of the genre. Similar experiments with recordings at the mixing desk outside of the dancehall environment were also done by producers Clive Chinand Herman Chin Loy.[4] These producers, especially Ruddock and Perry, looked upon the mixing console as an instrument, manipulating tracks to come up with something new and different. Dub has influenced many genres of music, including rock(most significantly the subgenre of post-punk and other kinds of punk[5]), pop,[6] hip hop,[5] disco, and later house,[7] techno,[7]ambient,[7] electronic dance music,[8] and trip hop.[7] Dub has become a basis for the genres of jungle/drum and bass[9][10] anddubstep.[11] Traditional dub has survived and some of the originators, such as Lee "Scratch" Perry and Mad Professor, continue to produce new material.

Dub music is characterized by a "version" or "double"[17] of an existing song, often instrumental, using B-sides of 45 RPM records and typically emphasizing the drums and bass for a sound popular in local sound systems. A "version" is a record with the vocals removed, the alternative cut of a song made for the DJ to toast over. These "versions" were used as the basis of a new songs by rerecording them with new elements.[18] The instrumental tracks are typically drenched in sound effects such as echo,reverberation, with instruments and vocals dropping in and out of the mix. Another hallmark of the dub sound is the prominent use of bass guitar. The music sometimes features other noises, such as birds singing, thunder and lightning, water flowing, and producers shouting instructions at the musicians. It can be further augmented by live DJs. The many-layered sounds with varying echoes and volumes are often said to create soundscapes, or sound sculptures, drawing attention to the shape and depth of the space between sounds as well as to the sounds themselves. There is usually a distinctly organic feel to the music, even though the effects are electronically created.[17][19]
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Often these tracks are used for "toasters" rapping heavily rhymed and alliterative lyrics. These are called "DJ Versions". In forms of sound system based reggae, the performer using a microphone is referred to as the "DJ" or "deejay" (where in other genres, this performer might be termed the "MC", meaning "Master of Ceremonies", or alternately, the later developed slang terms: "Microphone Commander" or "Mic Control"), and the person choosing the music and operating the turntables is called the "selector" (sometimes referred to as the DJ in other genres).
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A major reason for producing multiple versions was economic; a record producer could use a recording he owned to produce numerous versions from a single studio session. A version was also an opportunity for a producer or remix engineer to experiment and express their more creative side. The version was typically the B-side of a single, and used for experimenting and providing something for DJs to talk over, while the A-side was more often dedicated to the original vocal-oriented track. In the 1970s,LP albums of dub tracks were produced, often simply the dub version of an existing vocal LP, but sometimes a selection of original instrumental tracks produced in dub style for which no vocals existed.
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Hailing from Long Beach California, Chapter 11 is a live Reggae/Hip Hop group that has been together since 1998. Their album recordings blur the lines between live instrumentation and sampled loops and beats.

Live shows are pure energy and emotion. The sound could be described as a perfect blend of traditional Jamaican Reggae rhythms mixed with Hip Hop street smarts.

Marijuana Compound Removes Alzheimer’s-Related Protein From Nerve Cells

With the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease expected to almost triple in the United States by 2050, there is an urgent need to identify effective treatments for the condition. Now, a new study suggests marijuana may hold the key to such a treatment.

Published in the journal Aging and Mechanisms of Disease, the study reveals how a compound present in marijuana triggered the removal of beta-amyloid protein from nerve cells, or neurons.

Beta-amyloid is considered a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease; the protein clumps together in the brain of people with the condition, forming plaques.
Studies have suggested these beta-amyloid plaques disrupt communication between neurons in the brain, which leads to symptoms associated with Alzheimer's, such as impaired memory.

Preventing beta-amyloid accumulation in the brain might seem like an obvious way to tackle Alzheimer's, but because researchers are still unclear of the exact role the protein plays in the disease process, achieving such a feat is easier said than done.
Marijuana compound prevented nerve cell deathTo test their theory, the researchers applied THC to nerve cells with high beta-amyloid production.

They found that the marijuana compound reduced beta-amyloid levels and eradicated the inflammatory response to the protein, which prevented nerve cell death.

While clinical trials are needed to confirm the role THC might play in protecting nerve cells against beta-amyloid, the researchers believe their findings shed more light on the role beta-amyloid plays in Alzheimer's disease, which could pave the way for new treatments.

Here is the link to the original article: ​http://bit.ly/29xafbh

When reggae music comes to mind, for many there are also accompanying thoughts of marijuana and Rastafari. Since its inception, reggae music has notoriously been related to the culture of marijuana smoking but for some, it has developed somewhat of a chicken or egg scenario where it is uncertain whether or not reggae music is a product of the effects of marijuana smoking or the culture of marijuana smoking was bolstered through reggae music.

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In Colorado and Washington, where sales of marijuana have been legalized for recreational use, thriving cannabis tourism industries generating millions in state tax revenue offer travel package itineraries, featuring visits to marijuana production facilities, classes in plant breeding/growing techniques, sampling/purchasing various herb strains and their byproducts, even cannabis-infused massages.

In Jamaica, where ganja grows on an estimated 37,066 acres across the island, making it the top Caribbean supplier of marijuana to the United States and its Caribbean neighbors (according to the US State Department's 2014 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report), a projected -- legal -- marijuana tourism sector could offer everything Colorado and Washington can, in addition to a native soundtrack of thousands of herb-themed songs, visits to recording studios where smoking is inherent to the creative process, and a two-day marathon-length reggae festival, Rebel Salute, that features many of Jamaica's best acts responsible for some of reggae's greatest ganja anthems.

Read More Here: http://bit.ly/29qGjgA