The Wrong Speed: How a Factory Defect Invented Modern Music

Before Auto-Tune, before Pro Tools, before anyone was trying to 'fix' music, engineers were accidentally breaking it — and the results were extraordinary. This episode traces the strange, largely untold history of speed and pitch manipulation in recording: the malfunctioning tape machines, the cheap varispeed tricks, and the deliberate abuse of playback technology that gave us sounds no human voice or instrument could produce naturally. From Les Paul's homemade experiments in the 1940s to the chipmunk effect hiding in your favorite soul records to the pitched-down 808s that built an entire era of hip-hop, the history of music is partly a history of things running at the wrong speed. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.