Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate a Cappella Glory by Mickey Rapkin Read Free Book Online Page B

bass, a Pro Tools amplifier, and Auto-Tune. (Backstory: Auto-Tune is a computer program that corrects a singer’s pitch in recordings and in live performance. When Billy Joel sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XLI, some accused him of abusing Auto-Tune. How do you know when it’s too much—be it live, or on Code Red ? Well, the singer sounds like Cher’s “Believe.”)
    Some angry (and likely jealous) a cappella readers wrote into the RARB forums insisting Code Red was a studio project, or that it was unfair to penalize a group that couldn’t afford to record at a place like Long View. John Sears, an ICCA judge, had his own concerns: “The album bores me to tears. It’s more of an album I can pop in for my friend just to say, Look what can be done when you take college a cappella to an extreme level.” But the thing is, the Bubs didn’t just sing those songs live—they killed them. “Every song was a showstopper,” says Dr. Michael Miller, Bubs class of ’74. He singles out Greg Binstock, Bubs class of ’03, who sang “Nothing Compares 2 U,” by Sinéad O’Connor, and Björk’s “It’s Oh So Quiet.” Dr. Miller isn’t exactly in the Björk demographic. “But that song would knock people out,” he says. “The group had such control.” Love it or hate it, Code Red was a game changer.
    The Bubs never went back to Long View Farm Recording Studios. It was too expensive, and frankly, with advancements in computer technology, it was probably overkill for a self-financed a cappella project. Ed Boyer, Bubs ’04, stepped up, negotiating a deal with the group. If the Bubs bought him recording equipment, he said, he’d learn how to make a Bubs album. In the spring of 2004, the group bought Ed an Apple PowerBook G4 for two thousand dollars, a Pro Tools rig for another two grand, and a preamp—later he picked up a Neumann mic from eBay. The Bubs recorded 2005’s album Shedding in Ed Boyer’s bedroom closet. It was an entirely different operation. The Bubs gave up the personal chef and camaraderie of Long View but were spoiled in other ways. Because Ed wasn’t really on the clock like an engineer they’d pay at Long View, they could experiment wildly. They could do fifty takes of the same dim dim bop bass line. A song from a Divisi album might be made up of forty individual Pro Tools tracks layered on top of each other, but on Shedding , each Bubs song was made up of closer to 120 individual tracks (or more).
    But something was missing. While Code Red had a clear mission—imitative, produced a cappella— Shedding was really more of the same. At least to the naked ear. Ed Boyer insists there’s a difference, something about the difference between technology that’s apparent and technology that’s transparent. It’s a valid point—if you’re an engineer. The mortals didn’t pick up on the subtleties. Trey Harris reviewed Shedding for RARB, writing: “Once you release an album like Code Red , it’s hard to follow up. You’ve raised the bar for a cappella covers and production so high that it’s nigh impossible to beat. After a group comes out with an album as perfectly imitative as Code Red was, I’d expect them to move on to different ideals.” Still, it was hard to argue with perfection and Shedding swept the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards, winning Best Male Collegiate Album, Best Male Collegiate Song for “Let’s Get It Started,” Best Male Collegiate Solo for Andrew Savini’s “Epiphany,” and Best Arrangement for “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
    The pressure of the Bubs legacy mounts each year. “With Code Red ,” says Sean Zinsmeister, who graduated in ’06 and shared music director duties with Ed Boyer on Shedding , “we really pushed it as far as we could go in terms of mimicking instruments. ” He talks a lot about “responding to the critics.” It seems Sean graduated at just the right time. “I really wasn’t sure where we could go after Code Red