This Janet Jackson BASSLINE breaks laptops

[@maxjahnke]

Kudos for the guy shouting at the hard drives and using technology to measure the impact. Quality content indeed.

[@joshuaboniface]

It's something that server designers need to carefully consider. Having dozens or even hundreds of hard drives vibrating away in a server can affect each other in subtle ways. The various HDD manufacturers even make "special" (how much is real engineering and how much is marketing is debatable) models specifically designed to reduce these effects. The screaming part just shows how much it can effect it by having a sudden peak, but the effect is happening constantly just at a lower level.

[@crifox16]

literally watched that video yesterday lol

[@edstirling]

​@@joshuaboniface the engineers are calculating how frustrated they can make server techs before they scream too loud.

[@chsxtian]

His name is Brendan Gregg. If you ever wanted to learn everything about computer performance I can highly recommend his work.

[@brendoggg_]

I swear that was Danny McBride. Or whoever the hell the East Bound and Down guy is.

[@TonyChungLive]

Forget the slightly sharp E frequency-I’m pretty sure it was Janet Jackson’s sick dance moves that broke hard drives.

[@edwardclark6731]

thats NOT adam neely.

[@TheRealAhmadAmiri]

No it isnt.

[@metal422life]

🙉🙈🙊🤢🤮

[@Avacado721]

Sick? In what way especially compared to today’s mtv music

[@Pressplay_Media_EU]

He who sings sharp E within my royal dwelling, is responsible for all my fancy wine glasses.. You break it you buy it, the saying goes..

[@meteorplum]

Another reason/place where recordings are sped up is at radio stations, to fit in more songs per hour. According to a retired Canadian radio engineer, the DJs in 1930s Argentina would crank up the speed of the tango records they spun on air (around 10%) so they can fit more songs in (and get paid more by record companies, I think). When tango orchestras discovered this, they were mad because the tangos are recorded at specific speeds for the dancers. The sped up versions on the radio made people danced too fast, especially compared to the version that gets played if the dancers went to a dance hall and had the band play it live. Eventually, they decided to start playing tangos slower when recording, so that the sped up version on the radio would be at the right speed, and play live at the right speed. Not sure how this addressed people playing the records at home, but there it is. This story had apparently gone around the tango world for years when the Canadian engineer heard about it. The verification was comparing surviving records of the time with published sheet music with tempo markings, but also when people with access to tape recording equipment (often employees of radio stations) would record the broadcasts, when can then be compared to surviving records. And because a number of master tapes for tango recordings made in Argentina in the 30s and 40s were lost in a suspicious warehouse fire, modern reproductions were made from original records or the pirated tapes, and the inconsistency was made evident. The engineer made his own digitizations of the records, then sped them up while keeping the pitch the same, using the sheet music and pirate recordings as guides, and released the remastered versions as being closest to the original intent of the orchestras.

[@halflearned2190]

Fascinating story. A bit like they TV stations did with Seinfeld episodes re-runs then, speeding them up by a few percent to squeeze in more ads.

[@danhectic5629]

@@halflearned2190 sometimes i swear the pitch is higher!

[@babayaga1767]

they could also get more commercials in because music took up less air time

[@soysantim]

As an Argentinian, didn't know this and it's great information.

[@brainwashalpha5495]

@@halflearned2190 i wondered why some old tv shows like seinfeld sounded a little higher pitched on older youtube videos and that explains a lot actually. people probably recorded it off of one of those live reruns with a vcr or something

[@Kizilejderha]

To be fair when I started synth design I was always paranoid about the possibility that I will accidentally create a soundwave that will destroy my headphones, my computer, or maybe even give me a heart attack or something. Now I fear once again, thank you.

[@kaitlyn__L]

lmao yeah I was worried I’d hurt my headphones the first time I made a patch with harmonic clicks and intermittent horrible rumbles. they turned out fine but it’s probably only a matter of time before I stumble on the wrong frequency in a filter sweep or something

[@frustavogongpseudo-intelle8561]

heart attack? okay

[@thecousinwithaforesaken]

Pretty please make a cognitohazardous synth pack please I will make outer wilds covers with it

[@Ehh.....]

Brown note part Deux

[@haze_lee]

i made a track with purely subsynths and i think it actually damages my ears as im listening to it

[@talfacprez]

Having been in radio for 45 years I can tell you radio stations would speed their music up even more to make our competition sound drab and boring. It really made a difference on ballads.

[@supernoodles908]

So radio stations are Nightcore fans

[@YAMISOOLD2009]

The things one learns as time goes by. I had no idea yet a part of my brain did notice but had no idea what I was noticing. But I have heard from guitar player friends that when they would try to play along with certain records that they would often have to tune differently to match up. Radio always was and always will be more of a business than people realized.

[@upgradeiself1603]

Club DJ´s do this as well.

[@YAMISOOLD2009]

@@upgradeiself1603 interesting. Funny how it's not more widely known about.

[@NeonBeeCat]

is that why i heard pink floyd song (it was from the wall but im not sure if it was another brick in the wall pt 2 but it was in the key of d) slightly sped up in georgia a few years ago? it was really weird

[@Grimmers]

Honestly the revelation that most 1970's pop engineers and 19th century orchestras were effectively making nightcore was way bigger to me than the hard drive factoid.

[@handlemonium]

*"Just like how Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation caused 5400rpm laptop hard drives to pull a Tacoma Narrows"* 😁

[@kitchensinkchronicles3272]

seriously blew my mind

[@Mandy-ve2sh]

Fuckin' hell do I hate nightcore

[@chondrya942]

GOD DONT CALL IT NIGHTCORE 😭😭

[@abovethemist1412]

@@kitchensinkchronicles3272 just like the laptop hard dri-

[@alexclark6777]

"With music by our side, we can break laptop hard drives."

[@eklectiktoni]

AWESOME! 🤣

[@nitesy381]

sakkijarven polka flashback intensifies.

[@UnstoppableWolfOFFICIAL]

😂 greatest comment

[@The-Cat]

9:50 OOOOH YEEAAHHHH

[@highland_persuasion]

"Let's wreck together to improve our tech-drowned lives."

[@Christophe_L]

It definitely has to do with the fact that it was a synth producing the bass, not a bass guitar: a synth can produce waves almost perfectly in tune for an indefinite amount of time, while a guitar string's fundamental frequency will change immediately after it's plucked.

[@Bombtrack411]

The part about "varispeed" is fascinating because I used to get frustrated trying to play along to old albums on my guitar because everything was slightly off.

[@dans2576]

I feel your pain. Ironically ‘Ride The Lightning’ was the one that wound me up and took me ages to work out why 😂

[@ZephyrusAsmodeus]

It all makes so much more sense now lol

[@fundymentalism]

If only we could all play (and tune) by ear :p

[@Shermanbay]

One reason the pitch was slightly off may not have been intentional. I was involved in the music industry decades ago, when tape was the main medium for all professional recording. A master multi-track tape, mixed to a master tape, then transported to a disc mastering house to be played on a different tape machine was the standard media path. But high speed accuracy between many tape machines and disc cutters was not a priority; constancy was (so the sound didn't noticeably flutter). There was a significant likelihood of a speed mis-match between the original recording and the final disc pressing, insignificant to most parties at the time, but which might render the apparent pitch different from the original, standard A=440 when analyzed 30-50 years later.

[@ezreth]

me getting upset when every pink floyd album is tuned slightly differently, except dark side of the moon, that one is tuned perfectly, in fact the first note of time is what i used to use to tune my guitar

[@Aaron48219]

I was born in 77 and grew up to parents listening to Baker Street. I always wondered why the two versions sounded different! I can finally sleep at night knowing I wasn't going crazy as a child.

[@YexprilesteR]

Niice

[@darryldouglas6004]

I’m with you there. The album version seems to drag and I noticed it as well not realizing there were two versions but thought the radio station had a messed up turn table. 😃

[@buxeessingh2571]

@@darryldouglas6004 see, I prefer the album version because of its more chill vibe.

[@lysergichedgehog7769]

@@buxeessingh2571 me too

[@madMARTYNmarsh1981]

There were a few songs I loved the radio version of as a kid, went out to buy the album based on that one song and was underwhelmed because nothing sounded right. Now I know why why. Trixie Hobbitses.

[@gammaphonic]

I spent years working in a music shop. One fella I knew who sold pianos used this trick. When demoing a piano to a customer, he’d play an upbeat tune on one piano, then he’d play the same tune on a piano that was the same price, but had a much higher profit margin, but he’d play it a half tone up to make it sound more appealing to the customer. And it worked shockingly often.

[@Dennzer1]

🤯

[@oliverriezebos]

That's some serious customer strategy

[@serpentines6356]

Wow, that is interesting. A very good salesman!

[@regulator7931]

Sneaky piano salesman!

[@Bobby_Uterus]

So he was lying to his customers? Maybe he should have been selling used cars.

[@boondoggle4820]

She actually sampled that bass line from a Sly & The Family Stone song, so I wonder if the original would also break laptops. By the way, shout out to Larry Graham who came up with that bass line, the first song ever recorded to feature slap bass!

[@mickeymuse2]

I'm guessing not; if she sampled the baseline from another song and then the whole of "Rhythm Nation" got sped up, that means that the original baseline would play at a lower frequency.

[@chioma916]

not drake's dad (uncle?) 😭😭thats so funny

[@musicnerd72]

Jimmy and Terry added a bass line in addition to the sample.

[@Zikato]

He mentions this in the video btw

[@naywahn]

4:10

[@RealDavidN]

Having worked on this topic professionally, I can tell you the hard drives have multiple resonant frequencies, and that the high frequency resonances affect the drive more than low frequency ones. So if this is real, it's most likely a high harmonic of one of those notes that's killing the drives. The in-between tuning could be a factor that makes this song uniquely damaging. But that would only apply to certain hard drives, because different models have different resonances. That being said, we "killed" drives with broadband noise, so if you hold your computer up to speakers with ANY loud song going, the drive is going to slow down because of read/write errors. And when too slow the operating system locks up. Too much vibration and the damage can become physical and permanent. So I don't recommend trying this on a laptop you'd like to keep. Great analysis of the song and the tuning trick, Adam.

[@BrandtRedd]

Yet another reason why hard drives don't belong in laptops - at least not any more. There's no reason today not to have an SSD in your portable machine. Drives with moving parts fail prematurely in laptops because they are moved, shaken, dropped, etc. The best drives had an accelerometer that retracts the heads when rapid movement is sensed but I don't think it was sensitive to resonance.

[@ledoynier3694]

And i'd be surprised if laptop speakers could reproduce anything below 100Hz lol Holding any laptop to a PA speaker is a recipe for disaster indeed. And the only reason why it only kills laptops is because no one tried to hold a desktop up to a speaker and see if it crashed lol

[@davidmiller9485]

@@BrandtRedd sigh, how about rephrasing that where you don't sound like an ass. like this "I think that SSD's are a better technology to use in a laptop. If someone wants to use a disk type drive that's fine and up to them but my choice would be SSD's". See i got the point across without sounding like a sanctimonious ass.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

@@ledoynier3694 Yep, all sound is is pressure waves within a frequency range that roughly corresponds with what we can hear. It is going to jostle the drive a bit. Given a very loud sound, it shouldn't be surprising that it causes problems. I remember being at a concert when I was younger and the opening act was so loud that I was having trouble breathing due to the pressure waves. And, firefighters have used similar pressure waves to extinguish fires under certain conditions where they're too hot with too much fuel to otherwise extinguish.

[@karolakkolo123]

@@BrandtRedd The reason we stil use HDDs is because once an SSD fails, you can't recover any data from it. But you can still recover most if not all data from a hard drive. SSDs are mostly used for speed while HDDs are used for data security and longevity

[@tompw3141]

When pipe organs are installed in churches or other buildings, they have to slightly detune pipes that create too much resonance in the room... Otherwise those notes would stand out when played. (This is part of the process of "voicing" - making the organ sound good in its specific space)

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Interesting. I have the feeling the highest F on my keyboard is louder than the C above it. Or any of the other notes around it. Guess there has to be some resonance with the chassis.

[@KUsery42]

When I was a kid I got to tour my grandmother‘s church with the „organ player lady“. Now I’m not exactly sure of the specifics, but I was in the basement looking at this amazing pipe organ system and she mentioned she couldn’t play in a certain timbre with dissonant chords with its lowest register bass tones because it had a physical effect on the building that wasn’t ideal, then played whatever it was briefly and it was amazing to me. I’m probably describing it wrong, but she banged out some chords (very briefly to be clear) that made the walls seem weak. If that makes sense. I don’t remember but I think she played the first aria of *Cantata 54 by Bach for a little bit and dropped the bass pedals like a boss . I probably teared up a bit. I’m not a religious person btw, but… angelic would probably the most appropriate word for what she played that day and delivered to my ears. This pipe organ was massive, basically two stories tall, and she was amazing for letting me know what it could do, if only for a brief moment. :) *Edit: Now I think about it, it was probably Cantata 29, whatever, it was a long time ago. I’m not a classical music scholar like she was. Still awesome. :)

[@HordrissTheConfuser]

Don't get me started on pipe organ resonance. The one I play at my parish church has wood panelling, which LOVES to buzz, usually somewhere between bottom C and bottom F. So far, shoulder barging or kicking the offending panels has proven effective. On other occasions, the seals on the pipes will buzz or rattle, and the slightest tweak/twist is needed. Of course, the whole thing expands and contracts with temperature and humidty, so it'll occasionally start misbehaving again. On the matter of tuning, our parish church's organ is a little below concert pitch (A=440). We like to half-joke that it's in baroch tuning, but it's probably just flat. It's (usually, more or less) in tune with itself, but other instruments have to adjust, and most digital keyboards cannot be used with it.

[@brainwashalpha5495]

wow that is interesting. the organ is a really fascinating instrument

[@wideopenwounds]

I help tune organs (and maintain them) for a living and never thought I’d see a comment like this, hits close to home. But it’s true, the process of tuning an organ is very specific to the organ and the space that it’s in, voicing of an organ is everything, if the builders did a muck job of cutting the mouths of the pipes.. well.. you can do only a little to fix that problem but it’ll never sound the way it should.

[@supralapsarian]

Holy cow, that “Baker Street” example is intense. That’s at least a 90¢ bump.

[@sentientblender]

Reminds me of the version of Everybody Wants To Rule The World that’s currently on spotify. People say the song is written in D but the recording is juiced so hard it sounds like slightly flat D#.

[@dyl_out]

i honestly had always thought those were 2 different versions of the song

[@yeetyeet7070]

slower version is better

[@audibletapehiss3764]

@@yeetyeet7070 Waaay better. Speeding it up only brings the sax forward at the expense of all the texture. Same thing happened on Rhythm Nation - when he slowed it down, you could feel the actual groove of the song around her voice.

[@shiverian5970]

@@audibletapehiss3764 cap

[@busardr1452]

I had the album Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 and WOW! When you played the slowed down version I literally had a flashback of listening to the album in my parents basement when I was 14. That is it! I never realized they used Varispeed to juice up the singles.

[@jessicawalton3497]

Same! That side by side blew my mind. I realized, "Wait a second. 🤔 I HAVE heard both versions!" Lol!

[@isaacthek]

You could build a song that hits all the right notes for mechanical hard drives of various types to operate as a broad musical bomb...

[@LupusArgentum]

But would anyone actually want to listen to it? It would probably sound off-key as hell.

[@nobodynowherre9117]

@@LupusArgentum you severely underestimate the power of jazz😂😂

[@mojojojo6400]

This is something that Pinky and The Brain would do

[@jancoscholtz]

😂😂😂

[@jancoscholtz]

@@nobodynowherre9117 🫡

[@jericho86]

Swinging a laptop around like that is a great way to keep a spinning hard drive functional.

[@Afonso.Soares]

I’d rather shout at server HDDs than even touch the laptop looking for the frequency of resonance. I’ll let you guess who has the quality content.

[@AppleGameification]

@@Afonso.Soares why are you desperate for everyone to "guess who has the quality content"

[@mrphlip]

To be fair, no-one ever accused Kyle Sandilands of scientific rigour. Dude's not that bright.

[@Afonso.Soares]

@@AppleGameification to my eyes, the guy shouting at the server HDDs is a better example than those other guys waving the laptops around ever could. Also, to me, the “quality content” comment felt more like a criticism than a compliment.

[@davinsosa1438]

I thought that as well. Internet people are apes lol

[@Me541503]

You just fully justified a feeling I've had sooo many time while listening to music, that a song playing seemed to be going slightly fast or slower than another time I heard it. That now feels like it was fully possible that the songs speed was adjusted from a different playing of it.

[@eeee8479]

Apparently, your heart rate and alertness level can alter how you hear a piece of music!

[@Me541503]

@@eeee8479 I believe it but there's been times when the songs all sounded as usual and then one song would just sound slightly off from how I remembered the song and the next song would be at its usual pace. I have been a HUGE music person since I was a young child so that might be part of it too.

[@EddyThron]

It used to happen to me to a great extent when listening to Cher’s “Believe”. There was this one version which I really really loved and had feelings the original lacked. Well now I know what that version is.

[@thouhoodied]

I watch a channel called Oneyplays, and one day after being used to the little melody they play in the intro for their videos, It completely just changed pitch and speed, it made me feel insane, because I never heard it the same way again

[@Me541503]

@@EddyThron That is one of the songs that everyonce in awhile would just sound slow and off to me

[@renzellous]

This has finally answered why I remember classic music of my childhood at a lower pitch than now. Thank you Adam!!

[@fdterritory]

I know the real reason: because Rhythm Nation is too much of a banger to be handled by ordinary technology.

[@msclrhd]

It's such a banger that even laptop hard drives want to dance!

[@FlyteDanny]

It seriously has one of the sickest basslines ever, even Michael Jackson used to say this was one of his fav songs ever.

[@confuseatronica]

There's this other later Janet Jackson song (that I can't find but) which had an intro that sounded like a dot matrix printer or floppy drive music. I only ever heard it on TV speakers but I have a feeling it would be mechanically exciting if it was played on decent speakers

[@nedim_guitar]

True!

[@qi_kayon]

clearly 💎

[@highland_persuasion]

Young Michael and Janet were both at their creative peak. Michael made Off The Wall at 20, Thriller at 23, Bad at 28, and Dangerous at 32, and HIStory at 35. Janet came up with Control at 19, Rhythm Nation 1814 at 23, janet. at 26, The Velvet Rope at 31, and All For You at 34. They were able to achieve so much both sonically and visually.

[@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole]

Janet didn't come-up with anything, she was the child-project of Mr. Jimmy-Jam and Terry Lewis III after their work producing and writing for The SOS Band. Janet was an entertainer, but not a real musician or songwriter. Not the same comparison as Micheal Jackson. Janet is cool, but just saying, let's be real about your statement.

[@highland_persuasion]

@@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole honey, before you discredit Janet's contributions and relegate her to just being a muse, you must listen to interviews from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis themselves. She was just as involved as they were in writing and production. So much so that she was even nominated as a producer of the year for her second album. She probably wasn't as hands on as Michael was with his craft, but that doesn't mean she just got in and out of the studio to cut vocals. If you listen to Jimmy and Terry's entire caralog, you'd notice how much more elevated their work with Janet was compared to the other artists. In fact, their best material was with Janet. When it comes to vocal production, especially the harmonization and layering, Janet's work is just as, if not more intricate and meticulous than her brother's was, especially as she progressed with her career. The fact that Janet was able to make a name for herself and step out of her brother's shadow is remarkable in itself, especially considering how huge Michael was at the time and how women (especially women of color) were not afforded the same liberties and opportunities that men were then. And that's being real about the statement.

[@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole]

@@highland_persuasion You were right. That was harsh of me to sat that Janet Jackson didn't come up with anything on her own. I humbly apologize for seeming like I was discrediting her work. Not my belief nor intention. I'm apologizing to Janet Jackson, not to you. The real problem was that you were casually suggesting that Janet Jackson IS a Micheal Jackson, and although they bought the same noses, she's a FAR cry from her brother. The truth is, MOST songwriters in popular music don't match up to Micheal. (Remember, my statement was that she not a real musician. Which, compared to the greats, she's no virtuoso player or songwriter. You're trying to SUGGEST that Janet is a Lionel Richie or Elton John. Cheryl Crow could write a song, so don't while about "women of color," not getting their chance at being Mozart. If Janet could write, we wold have seen that gold in her early albums before she was sought out by Jimmy-Jamn/Lewis. As I said, Janet Jackson is an ENTERTAINER. It's actually YOU who's doing the discrediting. Of my statement. It doesn't MATTER if, as you say, Janet Jackson was "just as involved" in the songwriting as Jamn & Lewis. So was Andy Bell, of Erasure. But everyone knew it was Vince Clarke who was the master of song craft, which he had proven after writing all of the songs in his first band, Depeche Mode. I'm NOT saying that Andy Bell or Janet Jackson are not great, they are actually quite talented. But they speak and act thru their voices and stage persona. They helped guide and influence the music, and they are indeed muses. But they will NEVER compare to say, Paul Simon or, Stevie Nicks as songwriters. And they know it. Madonna knows it. Andy knows it. The difference between Madonna and Janet Jackson is that Madonna, for all her arrogance, is actual humble--while, Janet is a sickening egotistical parade. "Accidentally" flashing her tits out in a football stadium just to draw attention to herself? Encouraging young people to be childish whiners? That's, my dear audience, THAT'S entertainment.

[@jogennotsuki]

@@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole Get a blog or something. Nobody wants to read this drivel...

[@highland_persuasion]

@@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole Sooooo, this discussion has surely been taken to some places and so let us circle back to what actually was said in the first place. Look, I get that whatever is posted online is open to interpretation, and so you're entitled to your own understanding of my comment, but what matters here is one's intent behind what they post. For the record, I was NOT in any way "casually suggesting" that Janet is Michael. If I brought up Michael's name in a Janet-centric post, it was just out of sharing their interesting and rare situation of being influential siblings in the music industry who were both good at what they do and released a string of critically and commercially successful albums while they were young. It was more of an expression of my admiration for them and the slight parallels that existed between their individual careers, rather than their level of talent or artistry. I didn't even go as far as comparing her or him to other artists - it was YOU who did that in justification of what YOU understood. I didn't drop names of other artists as well because that's how the original comment was intended - a Janet and Michael appreciation post. From the get-go, it was YOU who interpreted it the way that YOU felt I was suggesting. And that's fine, because I've made my point with my original post and clearly, at least several people get it or agree with what I said if we were going off of likes, but even if they didn't, I'd still stand by my comment because at the end of the day, I am really only in control of what I post, and not how it comes across or is understood, and what's important to me is that I've been able to express my point, no matter how others may dissent from it. Also, artistry has many facets beyond songwriting, which I said nothing about in my original post either, but was brought up somehow. I said what I said; and I'm still good with it by the way I intended it. End of discussion. Peace.

[@stevethepocket]

So here's a fun fact I recently learned: the spinning platters inside mechanical hard drives? They're made of glass. They're coated in extremely fine rust so they look metallic, but they're glass at their core. So it might be hypothetically possible to generate a frequency that _literally_ breaks them.

[@jmbmntis]

based homestar pfp

[@clownsforclowningaround]

Depends, sometimes they are actually fully metal.

[@nboccanfuso]

Modern disc wafers mostly use an aluminum titanium alloy, which is then commonly coated with a Cobalt layer that is used for data storage, which is than coated with DLC (diamond like coating) to protect the head from scratching the wafer. There's numerous other materials in use, but these are commonly the most used to today. Source, I work at Veeco. The company that makes the equipment that companies like Samsung, Hitachi, Western Digital, etc. need to make their drives.

[@jazzzzdude]

Some are ceramic but some are metallic. I have smashed up many disk drives for security reasons. Also, if you take out a platter and rub a magnet over it to erase the data, it is still possible to recover the data with an electron microscope. To be totally secure you have to damage the surface physically. The ceramic ones are easier to secure because they shatter when you hit them with a hammer.

[@Furiends]

This is true but it'd have to be extremely powerful. Platters are subjected to some pretty ridiculous forces already due to their rotation speed. I find it much more likely you'd break them by causing instability while they're rotating.

[@wolflover968]

VariSpeed was also used on "Take On Me" by a-ha, especially on the tail end of the chorus where he holds that note for a VERY long time. Prince also used VariSpeed on many of his b-sides.

[@peterelfman]

I figured the 'Rhythm Nation Breaks Laptops' thing was a lot of click-baity hokum that I ignored; I've been listening to that song on my laptops for decades without an issue. I was surprised by the fact that you covered the topic. I had no idea it was going to be so damn interesting. Nice work putting this one together!

[@cooldebt]

I'm just shocked that Kyle and Jackie O are the ones in that video clip (their morning radio show had little to do with great music 😬)

[@magdalene2229]

@@cooldebt We can't escape the cultural cringe!

[@gabrielferreira7550]

As a software engineer, you can bet that somewhere in that filter pipeline there's a comment saying something like "DO NOT REMOVE, fixes something that breaks hard drives."

[@reaganharder1480]

Or worse, there's no comment at all leaving anyone working on the code with absolutely no idea why those couple lines are there, and thus no one will ever remove it for fear of what it might break.

[@adamkozakiewicz6766]

No, there's probably just "DO NOT REMOVE". The "fixes something" part would seem absurd to future developers and could get it removed - so, to be safe, it was probably left out or neutered, not mentioning what it actually fixes. Which makes the theory that it might still be there even more probable - lost context.

[@mina86]

// Temporary fix -- May 2003

[@meethepie]

@@mina86 this is the real answer LOL

[@EasyMoney322]

Is it too hard to comment it like "CVE-2022-38392" ?

[@peterpanda5069]

Man I love a story about spinning hard disk failure that goes all the way back to diapason normal and the pitch wars, a hundred years before the transistor was invented!

[@g0tst1ngs]

Just shows how everything and everyone is connected somehow :)

[@reggiep75]

The Pitch Wars - just like the Opium Wars but without the addiction and death! 😂🤘

[@mihailmilev9909]

@@reggiep75 lmao

[@kenrowan7234]

As a retired physics teacher, I complement you on a great lesson. Well done Adam.

[@Arthurein]

As a telecom engineer, I would be more interested in studying the lower frequencies observed in Rhythm Nation. Hard drives are usually made of either aluminum or ceramic covered in a magnetic material, and so I do not expect it to shatter due to resonance like it would happen with a glass of wine. It is more likely that any resonant vibration would damage the read/write head or force it to head straight into the magnetic layer (then scratching it), thus causing problems and/or forcing the hard drive to slow down. If I had to bet money on this, I would say that the drum section could be the real offender. It is snappy, low and high frequency, rhythmic and really, really loud. I could see the read/write head moving with the beat and causing real damage. But, as you said, more research is needed.

[@charlesnathansmith]

That may be right, but it sounded like they meant the computer was just crashing rather than the hard drives being permanently damaged, so it could've just been a string of R/W errors wouldn't necessarily require as much movement. I have a feeling it's probably a combination of things. Drums and clean tones with one or more resonant freqs hitting at exactly the right time to rattle different parts that respond to different things. No one complained about sweep tones doing it and there's no possible way thousands of them weren't exposed to that. The repetition and timing of the hits would have to factor in. Repeated errors that pile up

[@Arthurein]

@@charlesnathansmith After thinking about it for a little while, I think you might be onto something. I am more and more convinced that the effect doesn't have to be caused by a single frequency. There could be some form of resonance that causes errors (although I'm still skeptical because other frequencies will probably disturb resonance amplitude). It could also be due to the clicking in the rhythm, which could be causing a consistent set of R/W errors. In some of the shots that are shown in the video, it feels most likely that the laptops crashed because they're swinging them left and right. That's a terrible idea for a fast-spinning hard drive! In any case, it's most likely that there is no individual cause, as you said. Just a combination of things happening at once.

[@charlesnathansmith]

@@Arthurein yeah I've crashed some of them just banging my knee on the bottom of the desk. It's doubly painful 😣 Separate freqs will be undoing each other's work to some extent, but not in a clean perfectly restorative way. You don't have to blast it with pure sine waves, maybe just have to get separate parts shaking just enough

[@Arthurein]

@@charlesnathansmith Been there, sadly!

[@nrXic]

That's possible but if the frequency filter actually worked that indicates that it was indeed a resonant frequency causing the problem. There are also a ton of songs with percussion that's snappy, loud, etc. and they didn't seem to consistently cause issues.

[@itsjustjest]

The narrative quality of your teaching style is something the behold.

[@bertberw8653]

The behold what

[@squillz8310]

The behold what

[@atatdotdot]

@@bertberw8653 The teh behoald...ward...son.

[@johnhendy1281]

@@bertberw8653 I suspect "to behold" was the intent.

[@Asp0321]

This takes me back to high school when I thought I was going crazy because I couldn’t learn some Metallica songs off the album. I thought something was wrong with my headphones or my bass. It took my music teacher telling me about how the recording process worked, which blew my mind as a kid.

[@dalandanpatriarca1125]

I had the same experience! I was playing along with songs and came upon a song that made me sound out of pitch which was crazy since I was in tune with the other songs. I just assumed that when they recorded all of their instruments were slightly out of tune. lol

[@VoidR]

Same here! The same group of friends I used to jam with got together a few yeas back and we cranked this one out. With properly tuned guitars we noticed that we also played the tempo sluggishly and went with it. It sounded more like doom metal than the marching feel of the album. Actually the whole album has always made be feel a bit off kilter.

[@afterimage1925]

mhm, similar experience. i was learning fade to black on piano but noticed the pitch on the song was a little higher than my piano

[@tasty8186]

It's not the recording process so much as the musicians deciding to tune A to 445hz. Not that uncommon in thrash metal

[@Asp0321]

@@tasty8186True, and I should have specified. My teacher basically told me about two different things that day. The first is that A = 440hz was/is not always standard across the board, and how recordings can be sped up or slowed down to change a song. Still, as a 13 year old kid, that’s a crazy thing to learn!

[@IM-qy7mf]

I wish I had a music theory friend to give a formal explanation to what I hear in music: the "varispeed" phenomenon you described is something I've explicitly noticed in some of my favorite songs. I didn't know how to formally explain it, but to me it, it came out as, "the song never dulls". Some songs can have plenty bass, catchy hooks, lots of syncopation, but without that varispeed treatment, still be dull, slow, and unappealing. Add varispeed to it, and you have a song that increasingly hypes you up. Here is a reference song for slight varispeeding: Vex - Wande Coal.

[@Thoracius]

Used by Joe Meek a lot. And a lot of Fleetwood Mac guitar parts.

[@bulletproof_legs]

My reference song is either Nine Inch Nails' "Mr. Self Destruct," "The Walk" by The Cure, or " Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo. I'd like a music theory friend to explain it as well. I've been telling my fiancé about this difference in tempo and pitch I've noticed for years now and he tells me I'm just getting old so things sound differently now. "Well if this is a thing, why haven't I heard about it?" I showed him this video tonight and I still don't think he's convinced.

[@EmporioZuagroast]

I once had a small cheap laptop that had a permanent filter on its headphone jack. even when i plugged it into a good sound system, it still sounded as if it was coming from a laptop speaker, just louder. i never understood why a manufacturer would do a thing like that and totally ruin the audio... now i understand.

[@evilspoons]

There's always the possibility it just had a shitty DAC too 😄

[@EmporioZuagroast]

@@evilspoons well, it was shitty, but after this video i think it really might have been on purpose.

[@Padgriffin]

Your laptop just had a shitty DAC.

[@robertt9342]

@@EmporioZuagroast . Likely wasn’t a sound thing. More likely a power issue.

[@jgreen2015]

Ugh I love when these random unanswered questions from life get answered unexpectedly

[@elliottcyrus_music9602]

“The guitar is an important part of the blues.” Adam Neely finally said something kinda positive about guitars

[@andrewkepert923]

Or negative about the blues. Take your pick.

[@elliottcyrus_music9602]

@@andrewkepert923 this would be very on brand

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Blues is like a meal. When the piano is the meat and the bass is the gravy, something has to be the potatoes.

[@DeflatingAtheism]

Which begs the question, if the kernel of blues is just a guy with a guitar, is he really going to be that fussy about what precise frequency his lowest string is tuned to?

[@LegoLoco7]

One of my local radio stations actually pitches all their music up by about a semitone very similarly. My mom even noticed it before, and she said it made that radio station stick out from most.

[@heatherr0420]

It breaks laptops? That is total badassery

[@samsanimationcorner3820]

Can we take a moment to appreciate, technology breaking aside, how fucking fire this song still is? God damn it gets me moving even when I don't want to dance.

[@Succui]

Exactly, I’m sick as hell right now and feel like garbage and I’m still moving lol

[@thegreatgambeeno]

The whole album

[@williamsalazar244]

It’s so fire that the computer couldn’t handle it.

[@samsanimationcorner3820]

@@Succui welcome to the rhythm nation. Your visa is your feet

[@dcmsr5141]

I keep Motrin when I dance to this, I can't help it. But Goddamn I love it!!!!!

[@switch1e]

I’m a huge music nerd and I’m also a computer science nerd, so this was a really awesome video for me. I was not expecting Dave’s Garage to be mentioned in an Adam Neely video 😅

[@christopheroliver148]

or that old Solaris ZFS demo.

[@rett.isawesome]

a great little cameo for sure. folks should check out his video about it if they haven't already.

[@KalleBlixtHagholm]

Speaking as a software developer I can say with quite certainty that the code is definitely still there and nobody remembers why. Software sucks.

[@Mustakrakish1123]

and it's old school enough there's probably an ascii art dragon right above it.

[@SafffOneee]

that's bad for audio, even the sharpest filter i see in EQs (q of 24) tapers and curves out at the base so more than 82.4 Hz is being lost

[@JoeLabisch]

Meanwhile, another yet unknown and unfiltered frequency breaks the laptop screens

[@web_sorcery]

Loved this! The music geek, science geek and engineering geek in me were all tantalized. Thanks Adam.

[@callieanastasiaart]

She’s so iconic, her music breaks computers. 🤩

[@AutPen38]

KZbin wouldn't even exist without Janet Jackson. Adam's video and the billions of others on this website/app are all descendents of Janet Jackson's nipple.

[@hardcase7753]

this is my first real exposure to her and my thought was "oh this goes HARD". might be checking her stuff out. that choreography is everything

[@whatzupwitu]

Never knew this song had the power to do that!

[@Meckolo]

we stan 😍😍💞💖💗🙏🏻

[@whatzupwitu]

@@GeneralZap says who…

[@AdaptiveAudio]

Resonance is really neat. You can do so many strange things. Its part of what makes metal detectors work and why they put pendulums in skyscrapers to help keep them standing upright during certain types of earthquakes.

[@gikem4882]

I hope this news encourages everyone to check out the rest of Janet Jackson's amazing discography.

[@zubrhero5270]

Haha, that was the _real_ purpose of the video!

[@Alfonso162008]

At the very least, I'm sure it made the views of Rhythm Nation's videoclip to skyrocket in the last few days 😂

[@shiningnightmare5616]

Ryhtym Nation Laptop Resistance Challenge [IMPOSSIBLE!!!!]

[@TheRealJanKafka]

I'll pass, thanks.

[@wolfetteplays8894]

I wouldn’t call her “amazing” more like great.

[@DPedroBoh]

Thank you for not taking 14 minutes to get to the point. You explain what's going on in the first 2 minutes and the next 12 explaining the details.

[@polychrome6129]

I don't have perfect pitch, but I immediately know when Adam has retuned his piano. Idk why it just sounds different from how I remeber a piano sounding.

[@MoombaRick]

lol happened to me too, i was like "wait, that piano is out of tune isn't?" then to realise it was pitched up

[@lachlanrussell18]

Adam’s talked about tonal/learned perfect pitch before! It’s a good thing, you’ve got a deep understanding of the piano, or a good ear for tone, or both!

[@ptkstefano]

The notes at 3:26 do sound weird tho

[@scptime1188]

Reminds me of when musicians get so familar with an instrument that they have perfect pitch for that instrument only.

[@matturner6890]

That's because it's literally just different from how it normally sounds. So maybe you do have absolute pitch.

[@euromicelli5970]

Two things about Raymond Chen: first, he has an impeccable reputation so you can be sure this story is true. Second, Raymond never names third-party companies involved in compatibility stories like this (and he has told hundreds of them) and attempts at speculating in the comments are summarily removed. The point is to share an interesting compatibility situation, not to assign blame (good people make bad decisions). In summary: a) This happened; b) Raymond probably remembers which company it was; c) no, he’s not going to tell.

[@JRandomHacker]

Seeing a crossover between The Old New Thing and Adam Neely was definitely not what I expected today, but I'm here for it.

[@snap-off5383]

you can see "IBM" on the laptops being killed in the video.

[@BariumCobaltNitrog3n]

This is similar to how the airline industry treats "incidents" no matter how minor or tragic. The NTSB investigates and writes up a detailed report of "what happened" and speculates on how and why. There is never a mention of anyone being disciplined or what the punishment was. There is no fear of retribution from reporting an anomaly like gear not dropping, weird sounds, wing strikes, bird mishaps, engine failures, near misses and the thousands of go-arounds, aborted landings and take-offs and the dreaded runway excursion. 90% of fatal crashes are excursions where the plane takes longer to land or take off than there is runway and the plane visits a jungle or neighborhood.

[@allanwind295]

"This guy" (5:05) is Brendan Gregg who is an industry expert in computing performance. It would be like referring to Janet Jackson as that girl that sings on some song. When Brendan shouts at the server (with 3.5" drives) it didn't crash but temporarily increased latency. He explained this is cause by disk vibration (kzbin.info/www/bejne/qnXElJ2oiKiYp5Y ). Disk platters are apparently made of aluminum alloy or a mixture of _glass_ and ceramic.

[@introvertedcorpse]

As a person with perfect pitch, the varispeed concept explains a lot for me. Often I wondered why radio and album recordings of the same song were slightly differing in pitch.

[@misterjohnlove]

You're the professor who is preaching above this drummer's comprehension, yet continues to captivate him and inspire at home studying.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

I actually prefer the slower / normal version of Baker Street, it really allows the piano note to stand out and extended

[@BlunderDownUnder]

So do I, the sped up version feels too compressed (not in as bitrate sense, but in trying to fit in too much, too fast).

[@leschatsmusicale]

I prefer it too

[@n-Chantreuse]

I remember as kid (back when you rode dinosuars to school, was really cool) recognizing that the songs on the radio were generally faster/higher than the ones on the album, and I always thought it meant that radio stations had better playback systems than people at home could get. That was still true, but the fact that radio stations would get their own special versions of the album wasn't something I figured out. TBH, I didn't always like the radio version, as there was something about being sped up that stripped out something that resonated with me. I guess it must have been the *BASS*

[@DonoVideoProductions]

This. I hated the sped-up versions. Still do. Never understood why a business dedicated to listening to music always wanted to hurry up and get it over with. If I were a recording artist, I would be livid.

[@smellcaster]

No, Radio Stations didn't get special Versions of the Album, they just played the Singles.

[@StephenOwen]

@@DonoVideoProductions because they don't care about music, the music is there to entice you to stay through the ad breaks

[@DonoVideoProductions]

@@StephenOwen Cynical. But sounds absolutely true. I guess that's why they change formats all the time.

[@EebstertheGreat]

@@DonoVideoProductions To be fair, they're only speeding it up by like 1%. So they aren't hurrying much.

[@souricurry]

I don't have perfect pitch, but I definitely noticed the slight speed difference between radio edit and the actual song on an old Exposé album. I bought the cassette (exposing my age there) and realized "Come Go With Me" specifically sounded oddly slow to me. As a youngling I thought maybe it was because I was using a cheap AF tape player. It's fascinating to realize the actual reason why. And wow, but the clout of being able to say your bass line is so sick you can crash computers. You go Ms. Jackson.

[@zorilla0]

In 2000, the butt rock station where I lived sped up all of the songs so heavily that they were all roughly a half-step above their original tuning. I just assumed this was to decrease their play time and maximize ad space and that it was considered standard practice across most radio stations at the time. It's interesting to see the same thing was being done to singles back in the 70s and 80s. And as someone with perfect pitch, I _knew_ there was something off about that "E", but I didn't catch it immediately because you decided to be sneaky and also tune your own instruments up to match it lol. I'm probably in the minority here, but I greatly prefer the A440 versions of both "Baker Street" and "Rhythm Nation" because they don't throw off my senses like the sped up versions do.

[@fazergazer]

Same here all around🎉

[@JC-yy8iv]

I’ve only met one person irl with absolute pitch, and he wasn’t even a musician. It was a little startling to get a real glimpse into how you all perceive music, I remember one time after a set he said “You really like A minor huh” and I was struck dumb 😂 I think as a musician without absolute pitch, you use various strategies to make one song in A minor not sound like the next song in a minor, and it’s always a little weird to remember that for a handful of people out there it doesn’t make any difference, A minor sounds like A minor

[@wholehandedly]

The piano bass hits a lot harder on the album version of Baker Street; I definitely prefer it. The single version sounds quite thin and compressed by comparison.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Me too. The original sax just sounded nicer to me. I’m not sure if I have perfect pitch but even a 1% speed up sounds like a totally different note to me, let alone 4% which is what raises everything by a halftone (and ruins the scores of all movies and American TV shows released on PAL DVD!) And I’ve always been telling people when their tape deck was fast or accurately estimating the temperature of water based on its pitch while being poured.

[@mickeymuse2]

​@kitfaaace "Estimating the temperature of water based on its pitch while being poured" 🤯 Let me guess: cold water sounds higher pitched than hot water? I never thought about that before but of course that makes sense!!!

[@RobertMilesAI]

Something kind of obvious but not mentioned: A 5400rpm hard drive spins 5400 revolutions per minute, or 90 times a second. So it makes sense for the resonant frequency for failures to be in the 90Hz area. Perhaps this model spins a little slower than the rated rpm?

[@SuppositionalBox]

Highly likely. A lot of computer parts are over-reported on their speeds for marketing purposes. Nothing ridiculous mind you but people wont notice such a slight difference on a 5400rpm HDD lol

[@vindik8or]

A hard drive that resonated in its operating speed (and thus failed in its operating speed) wouldn't ever make it out of early development and into production. I don't agree that it makes sense.

[@SuppositionalBox]

​@@vindik8or Considering its just the one song and even others in the same band don't do it, I'd be willing to bet it was just a fluke they couldn't avoid.

[@CIubDuck]

I think more that the dampening they used for the harddrives were sub-par.

[@vindik8or]

@@SuppositionalBox it's definitely a fluke, but what I'm saying is that it's unrelated to the rpm. If a hard drive resonated with its rpm frequency, then it would fail every time it turned it on, let alone when you played a certain note.

[@davimariee]

7:02 You're hecking right we're tearing our hair out, I had to stop the video for a few minutes when you said it was in E to check if I wasn't going mad. It's not the first time you mess with people with perfect pitch and you still get me every time lol

[@idaprins1462]

SAME

[@simonrussell1018]

oh my god I have played guitar for 6 years and I thought I was LOSING MY MIND when he said it was in E

[@superdrwholock]

That's so cool I wish I had perfect pitch

[@MattMcIrvin]

@@superdrwholock It seems to be not an unalloyed blessing. I remember doing an experiment in high school AP physics where we were making the air above a column of water resonate at different frequencies, and my lab partner was a singer who had perfect pitch. He was a useful frequency detector but I had to get the water level just right so that it wasn't flat or sharp or he would be VERY ANNOYED.

[@superdrwholock]

@@MattMcIrvin Wow that's so interesting bro, I guess everything has it's pros and cons lol

[@chandlerw.dukesii.8097]

I love it, I always thought there was a reason for why music seemed a pitch higher than the normal keys. James Brown did the same thing with “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” in 1965. The original track was recorded in Eflat, the radio version that we all know and love sounds like it’s in the key of E and sped up a bit, he added some reverb to making it much more funkier and danceable. I learned so much thank you sir you are amazing!

[@LenweSaralonde]

In addition, the speed of the song in the music video may also vary from the one of the record because lots of old music videos were actually shot on film so the 24 FPS of the film had to be slowed down to 23.97 FPS (NTSC) or sped up to 25 FPS (PAL/SECAM).

[@OBrasilo]

For NTSC, stuff used to be Telecine'd back then to 29.97 fps. 23.97 fps didn't come until DVD when it was devised specifically for film.

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@OBrasilo Yes, things filmed for NTSC TV would often be shot at 30 FPS or 29.97 FPS. But not always. With 24 FPS films, they used 3:2 pulldown to spread 4 frames of film across 10 interlaced _fields_ (5 full frames) of NTSC video. One frame would go across 3 fields, the next across 2 fields, the next across 3, the next across 2 (3,2,3,2...) -- or vice-versa (2,3,2,3...). And they'd slow the playback down a tiny bit to keep it synched to 59.94 fields/s (29.97 frames/s).

[@SuperCubar]

13:05 Even tough I theoretically know, that music (frequencies) have a physical impact on matter, it's still nice to be remembered that music literally moves us :)

[@bobjason7540]

Should look up the new technology based on Tesla's work. They literally created levitation with sound

[@ahall9839]

The English language is literally dead

[@SuperCubar]

@@ahall9839 Why?

[@ahall9839]

@@SuperCubar For exactly the same reason that you don't understand what I'm making fun of

[@SuperCubar]

@@ahall9839 The curse of non natives I guess.

[@coolness06]

This gives me an excuse to listen to Janet's discography again (as if I needed one). She DOMINATED the late 80s and only got bigger in the 90s. Icon!!

[@christophermorin9036]

I've noticed this a lot in my younger days when tape cassettes were still popular. Walkmans/portable cassette players always seemed slightly faster than the originals.

[@morismateljan6458]

There are counterexamples too. The Doors' "Light My Fire" was slowed down, for some "mystical" reasons...it's sounds much more playful in original speed.

[@pricedownproductions9851]

They slowed it down because the keyboard solo was only painfully long and they wanted it to be unbearably long

[@atatdotdot]

That's not what "counterexample" means. You mean "an example of the reverse".

[@pricedownproductions9851]

@@atatdotdot actually an example of the reverse would be slowing down a Jackson Browne song

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Another thing to add is the recording technique in the day. Today that stuff is all mixed together digitally, but back then it wasn't uncommon for the musicians to record together (and find the temp on the fly) or record it after each other while listening to the already recorded part (adjusting to whoever did the first take) Adam's video on "Fixing Led Zepplin with autotune" is a good example showing the difference.

[@ljt3084]

DJ's especially dance formats, House, techno, Drum and Bass have been pitching up on a turntable for decades exactly for this reason. It sounds more intense than the last DJ at the gig. It inspired manufacturers to go from +8% pitch slide on original Technics 1210's to +16 on CDJ's and beyond on virtual Apps. Dance music has gone through phases of dropping in tempo but DJ's will still pitch up most of a set from standard 33/45 0 pitch to +3% either to increase tempo (if key locked) or to increase pitch if still using regular vinyl. 3% being the baseline of the entire mixed set. Its not just to tempo match two tracks to mix them. Its actually been a technique used to lift a sets brightness just as an orchestra does.

[@DeflatingAtheism]

The moral of the story is… Gabber is the ultimate form of music!

[@AsHellBored]

DJ tables have a pitch shift up and down to match tempo. Its rare 2 songs will have the same tempo for more than a minute. there is a whole theory about mixing songs of the same or different keys. Never really used that, just what sounds good. But the 16% was more a user requested feature because there was a flood of noobies who wanted to become DJs, and they didnt really know that if you are going beyond 8% you are probably hoping genres, which is okay, but a more skilled DJ would do it in a different way.

[@brainwashalpha5495]

i've noticed this on a lot of dj sets, it definitely gives some tunes a boost from the original version

[@ECLECTOb]

😂😂😂

[@ralph90009]

I guarantee that through my extensive testing "For Whom the Bell Tolls" does not brick laptop hard drives, or at least none of the ones I have ever had anywhere near me!

[@Picksqueal]

It's funny, as soon as he mentioned Rhythm Nation being a slightly uptuned E my very first thought was all of Ride The Lightning being somewhere around A=443/444 and how often I played along with that album without crashing any computers.

[@Kylora2112]

@@Picksqueal It's be hilarious if Metallica tuned up so the anvil strike in the intro was in tune and that in turn bricked computers :)

[@Carbon2861996]

Broke my neck though

[@Picksqueal]

@@Kylora2112 I have no doubt in my mind that if metal bands knew this was a possibility many would be trying intentionally to do so.

[@eaterdrinker000]

@@Picksqueal : Undoubtedly you know that the loudness wars of the late 2000s killed many metal fans' ears and sensibilities. Metallica's "Death Magnetic" and Slayer's "World Painted Blood" are prime examples of this horribleness.

[@Philter-Music]

2 of my hdds died some years ago after being exposed excessive bass at gigs, but never straight away. It took quite a few gigs. I put it down to extreme spl at clubs not frequency. I mostly played i g#.

[@lairdcummings9092]

Now this is the enthusiastic geeky deep dive I love. It also explains why live music seems a bit darker than the radio.

[@tashreitsma]

This entire video was so fascinating, but the one thing that jumped out to me was the confirmation that I am not crazy. ALL THESE YEARS I thought I was losing my mind -- I could hear that certain songs sounded higher in pitch when they came on the radio. All my friends thought I was losing it; I thought I was losing it. So HA. Sharing this with my mates even if only for that point.

[@fakebonko]

Likewise - as a kid, I never understood why everything sounded slightly higher pitched on the radio. Guess I know why now.

[@RyanMcQuen]

Reminds me of the string player's motto: "It's better to be sharp than out of tune."

[@emryspaperart]

congrats on being the first person in a while who got me to play at normal speed instead of 2x lmao this was fascinating

[@baseballdude13000]

Ironic lol

[@LON009]

Reminds me of that lamp my mom had in her living room, that shaked a little everytime I played G7 on the piano.

[@Loweene_Ancalimon]

We've got early 19th century cabinets, the windows of which rattle around F, no matter the instrument it's played on :p

[@wingracer1614]

@@Loweene_Ancalimon When I first started playing the bass, the room I played in had a very strong resonance on a low F sharp. I could let it sustain indefinitely and eventually I swear the whole house would start shaking. Higher F sharps would do it too but much less intensely.

[@Rhekon]

Y'all houses can be brought down by a Tyler the creator track lol

[@HiDefHDMusic]

I was singing once and one of my moms pots hanging on a pot rack started ringing, I never figured out how to get the rest of them to do it though lol.

[@picassodilly]

This reminds me of math allegory in the book “Godel, Escher, and Bach.” to explain Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. Basically there’s a character with this super fancy record player and this other character creates a record to break it through resonance. So the first guy builds a special scanner to make sure a record is safe before playing it. Problem solved, right? Unfortunately, no- because the other guy designs a new record which fucks up the scanner. And this process goes on with a new scanner before the first scan and a new record to break that scanner, etc.

[@Ojja78]

I read that book YEARS ago. I think we're the only ones.

[@cachorro25]

@@Ojja78 not you aren't. That is one of my favorite books ever.

[@AndyZach]

Read it twice. 1989 and 2020.

[@hyakugame]

@@Ojja78 it's that book Carbomb read when they made that "w^w^^w^w" album, idk why you would think that

[@Neubulae]

Isn't that the Halting Problem…?

[@BillyBob2112.]

9:05 Actually, with the case of Baker Street, the entirety of Gerry Rafferty's album City to City was sped up to make it fit onto one record, as it was too long otherwise. While later CD releases put the album back at its proper speed, the original album version of Baker Street is the same as the single version.

[@BillyBob2112.]

I guess this is only true for the non-U.K. releases. The original U.K. album was released at the proper speed, although fitting 53 minutes onto one album would have lower audio quality than the 51 minute that most countries got. My main point is that the single version of Baker Street was not sped up specifically, rather the whole album was sped up for whatever reason in most of the world and the singles were sourced from this faster version of the album. Side note: slower version of Baker Street sounds better to me, adds to the relaxed nature of the song.

[@p3so375]

i actually prefered the first one over the second one just because i have heard the album release my entire life and the single release now sounds strange to my ears, even though it seems more exciting

[@obi92gd]

That music hits hard. Like LITTERALLY.

[@roxassora2706]

Ha, it literally breaks the color lines like disabling the screen

[@thegreatgambeeno]

I'm still rocking that album, never had anything break except my bad mood.*plays Black Cat bassline excitedly*

[@wplants9793]

Black Cat was my fav song as a 2nd grader

[@alexmcleod4330]

I wonder if the drives' rotation speeds mattered. Most laptop HDDs were designed to spin at 5400rpm (90Hz), but some were made to spin at 5200rpm, which is 86.67Hz, and pretty close to the frequency in question, or the 87.5Hz from the 'Vibration of Main Components' paper. The bassline is also using F natural, so (pitched up) it's bouncing between 84Hz and 89Hz. The drive must be counting revolutions per second, expecting 86.67Hz (for a 5200rpm drive), but it's getting those additional signals from the song at 84Hz & 89Hz, and it can't correct for the error by adjusting its own speed. At ~109bpm that apparent rpm error would keep reappearing, so I guess at that point the drive shuts itself down.

[@TobiasHarms]

This makes a lot of sense to me. A similar fault was found to be reason for Sweden, at the time, newest fighter jet crashing over Stockholm. The pilot and plane kept on correcting each other causing larger and larger oscillations until the plane went down.

[@alexmcleod4330]

@@TobiasHarms oh yeah - I was thinking it'd be a PID controller and it might shut itself down if the residual got too high - but an oscillating overcorrection could be more catastrophic than just an unscheduled shutdown. Now I have a good excuse for not dancing, even to the funkiest grooves. It's for safety!

[@ADHJkvsNgsMBbTQe]

I always thought I was imagining the pitch variations on the radio. Thank you for finally clearing that up!

[@andrews.2165]

Now with pitch correction the songs on radio is sped up but adjusted so it sounds similar but with a shorter run time for more commercials. I suspect that was done back then maybe it also seemed brighter but the tech wasn't around to speed up at fix pitch

[@BrandtRedd]

Radio stations would also have a custom EQ device on the main feed because each station wanted their own signature sound. It's similar to how today's professional photographers apply a custom filter to their photos.

[@angnstuff]

lucky me, that I don't own a laptop, because I've been blasting "Rhythm Nation" for years, trying to find out why new jack swing genre is so magical

[@MaxSMoke777]

Actually, a 5400 rpm laptop hard drive is pretty standard and has been for years, with very little difference between manufacturers. In the last few years, people have been moving to solid state, but there's PLENTY of 5400 rpm laptop drives out there. Some changes like shock mounting components would lessen the effect. When it comes to resonance though, it's actually the more solid, well built laptops that would be at the most risk. Thicker, stiffer, better quality materials hold on to vibrations better then thin, inferior ones.

[@h8GW]

Wouldn't just be good overall practice to mount laptop hard drives with foam tape, instead of screws?

[@hengineer]

except nobody uses HDD's anymore, its all SSDs.

[@joshuaboniface]

Another song to check: Xanadu by Rush. It's heavily based on E, with a slightly up-tuned (~452 Hz) recording. I'd be curious if blasting the very first bass drop ( kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6iWpGWKZbt1q8k ) would cause the same effect.

[@JoshFMusic]

It needs to be a constant blast, otherwise the resonance just fades away after a couple of seconds, there needs to be a constant pulse and force of sound to make it resonate

[@jtracy0283]

Apropos of nothing, Rick Beato calls this Rush's greatest song, and--while I may not go THAT far--it is an epic jam

[@snap-off5383]

"slightly up-tuned ahem sped up recording"

[@jeffreyquinn3820]

If you play 1970s Rush on computer speakers, you deserve to have your hard drive fried.

[@bobwegner]

@@jeffreyquinn3820 you win the internet for today.

[@GoldenLionCarpark]

Playing in a cover band, I’ve become aware of so many songs in the 80s/90s that used the varispeed or recorded sharp. Beyond grateful that “For Whom the Bell Tolls 440” is a thing on YT.

[@kylanbowden6125]

For the ones that don't, there's a Chrome "transpose" extension that lets you retune the song yourself, works great!

[@DeflatingAtheism]

Layla famously has two different varispeed tunings… within the same song!

[@MaXaNoMaLoUs]

Most all of Pantera is Horribly out of tune, the entire albums, it’s really a bummer lol

[@RD-jr8nv]

Dude, well done. I just want to acknowledge the effort you’ve gone to on this, blew my mind.

[@MattMcIrvin]

Several years ago when I was thinking about music theory a lot, I was reading up on different temperament systems and got to wondering what intonation violin players (who have a fretless fingerboard, so are not restricted physically by the instrument's tuning) instinctively used when they played. That turned out to be complicated, but in the process I came across mention of violin teachers who coached soloists to always play a little sharp to juice their careers.

[@Christiamorous]

My viola teacher had me tune to 442 during blind auditions to stand out. Not sure if it actually made a difference, but hey.

[@MattMcIrvin]

(btw, if I recall correctly, the answer to the question turned out to be that they play something close to Pythagorean tuning when playing a melodic line, BUT switch to more like justly-intoned thirds when they are playing double stops)

[@Roikat]

Playing sharp was also a thing that Charlie Parker learned from Kansas City saxophonists. The theory was, if you play confidently enough and are a bit sharp, everyone else in the sax section will sound flat.

[@CommandoBlack123]

I preferred the album version, and ended up enjoying your adjustment of Jane Jackson more than the released version

[@cliveradvan3414]

I was trying to understand how such a low frequency could effect a laptop considering most would be incapable of reproducing at a significant SPL at that frequency. I later realised the test was performed with external speakers so a bit of a let down really. Either way hardly a cyber threat!

[@DashRevoTV]

84Hz is not low. Most laptops are capable of producing down to 18Hz, it's just that it's inaudible for our ears as our ears can only listen from 20Hz - 20KHz.

[@synapticburn]

@@DashRevoTV yeah but this frequency is at 84hz and the laptop can't play 84hz (and lower) with enough spl, that's his point

[@cliveradvan3414]

@@DashRevoTV not with the built in speakers though. Typical range not below 150hz i would expect.

[@notkimjong-un3019]

If you watch the kyle and jackio show that he showed them reacting to it they all had there fingers on the power button 😂 i feel this might be a troll

[@duroxkilo]

@@DashRevoTV small speakers don't play that low, not even the blue tooth "bassy" ones... if you're referring to the audio cards' line out, then yes, some don't have a high pass filter and can output 1Hz w/ a tone generator

[@The-Assassin-From-Hell]

When a song is so powerful it can break a laptop 😂 This entire video is a scientific example of why rhythm Nation goes hard! ❤️

[@seanrichards9569]

That’s hilarious, and awesome. My version of this is also kind of funny, though more obscure. Working with Japanese noise group the Boredoms, we did a show at the Barbican in London with 4 drummers, 4 guitars and 4 basses, plus the DJ singer. Final piece of the puzzle was (wait for it) 100 cymbal players. For long stretches the performance was pin drop quiet with a level of restraint very inspiring with so many playing at once. But when things got loud? Well, this was not a show for the faint hearted. Anyway, because they played ‘noise’ and have both chordal and atonal elements, the overtones being created were felt in the body unlike any concert experience, and sure enough in the middle of the show the resonance frequencies were so intense (and non musical) that it started breaking the electronics in the audio equipment on stage. At first the sound system guys couldn’t figure out why the sound kept cutting out, only to realize the mic pre amps on stage were literally shutting themselves down dozens of times a second, not due to excessive input (the band’s engineer had that under control) but due to resonant frequencies. Anyone who works in live audio knows how rugged most of this gear can be, it can be thrown on tour in a truck, it can withstand bad weather, and it typically runs years and years without fail. But one (very resonant) band literally broke the gear they were playing through.

[@matturner6890]

You were part of boadrum?!? That's awesome :D

[@ibec69]

I wasn't expecting to read about Boredoms here. They were certainly unique. I saw them a few times in Japan, also OOIOO that followed them. They were mesmerising at times.

[@moushindeiru9769]

Wow boredoms

[@seanrichards9569]

@@matturner6890 yes, I’ve been their Production Manager for many years, so helped all the Boadrum shows become reality. Hard work but so rewarding!

[@matturner6890]

I really appreciate your hard work!

[@tonganqueenb5517]

Wow I’m a massive Janet fan and Rhythm Nation was one of the first albums I brought as a child. I didn’t know the song was sped up but you can definitely notice it when she performs it live with a band. Very interesting and well researched video. Thanks!

[@rezwhap]

Great video! I think you may be overanalysing the varispeed part here. The Sly & Family Stone track was directly sampled into an Ensoniq Mirage. They will have been wanting to hit a certain tempo, and probably did not care about the resulting pitch shift. Of course this was years before we got high-quality, affordable time stretching.

[@salal_guitar5583]

This is what I initially assumed as well - do you know if they would have tried to tune the string line that was laid down over the sample to the sped up sample? Or recorded the strings at the original tempo and sped both parts up? Or something else?

[@AKiEM.]

I don’t think there was any time stretching at all.

[@ChrisFaulkner]

Thank you for breaking this down. I grew up listening to 70s and 80s music and I have perfect pitch ears but I never understood why in a mathematical way, i never really thought about it but it did bother me listening to radio versions and album versions and you totally made it make sense. Thank you!

[@stickyfox]

Janet actually discussed the rock and blues influence on this album when she was hyping the new album on TV. I remember it being important to her to represent musical influences from outside strict R&B, which was kind of suffering at the time from the advent of drum machines and sampling and a growing resentment toward disco and soul. I was in high school at the time, and at the time, I gotta admit that I didn't really "get" Rhythm Nation 1814. I found it a weak follow up to "Control"... The arrangements are so complex they muddy up very quickly at high volume, some of the slow numbers will put you right to sleep, and all the skits and interludes made for a tape you couldn't really just leave in the car. And yes, the recording did sound unnaturally sped up and the entire album never feels like it really hits the floor. "Control" shakes your guts. There were a couple bangers.. but so many incredible albums came out in 89, Pretty Hate Machine, Loc-ed After Dark, Pump Up the Jam, Three Feet High... Rhythm Nation was to me like, the weird new artsy thing from Michael's sister. Something your mom and dad might get into. Maybe they'd think "ain't no acid in this house" sends a wholesome message. Not that I *didn't* leave it in the car.. it was pretty much in there all winter. But I had In No Sense? Nonsense! in my car once... both albums prompted my friends to ask, "what the hell are we listening to?"

[@OxBlitzkriegxO]

There aren't too many people who will agree with you. The whole album was a huge success, not just the song itself. It had seven songs that peaked at 5 or higher and the album itself had enough staying power to produce #1 single across three different years.

[@tiawilliams5690]

New Jack Swing! I generally liked Rhythm Nation better than Control. Partly because she was way more comfortable in her own skin and it showed. That said I think Velvet Rope is her best album even though it didn't do as well.

[@jasondawson92]

Dude New Jack Swing R&B was very popular and hip-hop ish in the 80s Even Marvin Gaye etc had that drum machine charge

[@alvarocostaalves]

@@jasondawson92 I think they meant, the album was too "artsy", and not easy to consume, nothing to do with the genre itself

[@deeganpoores1652]

One point I would add to the varispeed section is that the foundational single of funk, James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”, was varisped up. It’s so obvious listening to the 2 versions on the Star Time box set. Loved the video, I was so glad when I saw this video cause I knew you’d thoroughly explain what was going on where the vague articles didn’t 🙏🏻

[@GL-zi2rr]

"a guy" is Brendan Gregg. He's an awesome engineer. Being able to see the effect vibration has on HDD performance was kind of interesting to engineers. It was "quality content" 😢

[@janminor1172]

Yep, Brendan and the good ole Solaris days. His dtrace scripts were part of my toolbox!

[@marzabarza4910]

Absolutely incredible video, as a musician I still struggle to understand some of these concepts, it really helps to have it delivered in this way. Thanks.

[@silvenshadow]

This is so sick. I tune to 445 on guitar because it just sounds awesome to me and less clashy on some weird chords I like. So amazing to see you exploring this territory.

[@leopoldbluesky]

Which is great until you want to jam with other musicians tuned to 440

[@silvenshadow]

@@leopoldbluesky unless they are cool with tuning up too

[@MichaelCsikos]

I tune my piano to 444.

[@leopoldbluesky]

@@silvenshadow Yeah, of course I was only kidding! I just had a vision of you turning up for a jam and the guy with the Steinway says "hang on a bit while I call my piano tuner" 😁

[@leopoldbluesky]

And then Michael turns up with his piano almost in tune with your guitar! I think the triangle player may be out of luck though.

[@ExperimentIV]

i loved dave’s video on this, but wished there was a more musical analysis too. thanks for this one, adam!

[@KeritechElectronics]

Interesting stuff. Looking closer at it, it would take several factors working together to damage the drive: 1. Frequency response of the whole audio system, from the source to the speakers, with all the modifications done in the digital and analog domain. Hi-fi and PA systems will generally be able to carry that 87.5Hz no problem, but don't expect that from a mobile phone, laptop speakers or a bluetooth speaker. It may be audible but way too attenuated. 2. It's never really clear 87.5Hz as non-linear distortion and products of intermodulation will give you a pretty blurry spectrum. 3. The laptop's construction should dampen the drive to some extent to prevent vibration and pesky noise. Some laptops are better at it than others, depending on how they're designed - for example, Thinkpad T40 through T520 all have rubber shock absorbers on the sides of their HDD/SSD caddies for that very reason. This would determine how much sound pressure level you'd actually need to do anything to your HDD. Experimentation ideas: First I'd do some pure sine wave tests in an anechoic chamber on a series of hard drives to correct for possible differences between individual drives, then use the same model drive in a laptop and try again and see if the laptop/drive combination is still susceptible, then finally do some tests with music rather than sine wave. "Tear down the wall!"

[@MaragiMusic]

9:35 it sounds thicker with the varispeed but without it sounds thinner.

[@illestvillain1971]

This is an amazing story, and your explanation and enthusiasm makes me love the intricacies of music that much more. Just great videos keep it up!

[@EarthWindFireSkye]

Reminds me of the part about records in Gödel, Escher, Bach. Would love to hear your thoughts on "slow + reverb" in light of nightcore, vaporwave, chopped & screwed, and/or remix culture and accessibility

[@rebane2001]

Would be rather amusing and also pretty interesting to see a serious take on those, +1

[@therainman7777]

@YouStink And you’re definitely a tool, regardless of what decade of your life you’re in.

[@EarthWindFireSkye]

@YouStink and is this a problem for you?

[@mihailmilev9909]

@@EarthWindFireSkye lmao

[@mihailmilev9909]

@@rebane2001 for real

[@drvp1996]

Adam, thank you for finally covering a Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis-produced song on your channel. Their compositional and production motifs and techniques from music like Janet's seem unique to pop (esp. their love for the key of D-flat major), I'd love to see more!

[@daleplatino]

This is more educational than a degree at a fullsail recording Academy.