This Janet Jackson BASSLINE breaks laptops

0:00 Intro
1:49 Part I - Musical Analysis of Rhythm Nation
4:57 Part II - Mechanical Resonance
7:24 Part III - Varispeed

Raymond Chen’s blog

Dave's Garage - Janet Jackson can DESTROY your harddrive

Vibration of Main Components of Hard Disk Drive

(⌐■_■)

⦿ Adam Neely T-shirts! ⦿

⦿ SUPPORT ME ON PATREON ⦿

⦿ FOLLOW ME ON THE INTERNETS ⦿

⦿ Check out some of my music ⦿

Peace,
Adam

[TonyChungLive]

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

[maxjahnke]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[alexclark]

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

[boondoggle]

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!

[busardr]

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.

[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.

[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.

[kenrowan]

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

[renzellous]

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

[Aaron]

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.

[Bombtrack]

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.

[wolfloveralphamale]

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.

[heatherr]

It breaks laptops? That is total badassery

[tompw]

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)

[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.

[IM-qymf]

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.

[ccocking]

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