Apple Shares Behind the Scenes Look at New Holiday Ad 'The Song'

Over the weekend, Apple released a touching new holiday ad called "The Song," focusing on a woman who found an old record of her grandmother singing a love song to her grandfather, which she then enhanced with her own vocals and musical accompaniments using Apple's tools.

Apple has now released a second video, which offers details on how the spot was created. As explained by the musician who starred the ad, Dana Williams, and vocalist Rhiannon Giddens, a series of recordings were made with a voice-o-graph, a 1940's booth for recording short spurts of audio directly onto a record.


The voice-o-graph used in the spot was supplied by Third Man Records, which is Jack White's indie label. Giddens, voicing the grandmother, sang the "Love Is Here to Stay" audio, and it was then transferred into GarageBand for editing by Williams, who says that she uses the app for recording "basically all of her music." "Anyone who's not tech savvy like myself can just kind of find their way around it," she explains.


"The Song," which highlights both GarageBand and the iPad mini, follows in the footsteps of last year's sentimental holiday ad, "Misunderstood,", which focused on the video recording capabilities of the iPhone.

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Top Rated Comments

Armen Avatar
136 months ago
It's a very touching ad.

But of course every complaining MacRumor user had to come and lay down their negative opinion which has NOTHING to do with the commercial.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
laurim Avatar
136 months ago
So laughably hipster
I've come to the conclusion that everything good in the world is "hipster". The term is thrown around so often I really don't know what's not hipster anymore. But I guess if it replaces the offensive "That's gay" slur I can support the usage.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
laurim Avatar
136 months ago
how about you lower the price to make it not such a hard decision to choose iphone over top line android competitors

Says the guy who spent $140 on Beats headphones when audio professionals I know say they aren't very good if you care about accurate sound. If you like a ton of bass, great. If you want to hear the music as it was intended, no.

Buy a used iPhone if you don't like the price of a new one.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
laurim Avatar
136 months ago
i dont use beats in the studio...
sigh.

1st of all you never mix using just one output medium. second of all i really dont think you've heard the beats solo 2. third, you can brand-name drop all you like but at the end of the day you have no idea what you're talking about. buddy.

yes, buddy is gender neutral, get your political correctness anal retention out of here.

Ok, I stand corrected. I figured if you were so worried about paying for an iPhone you probably weren't really at a professional level and buying a Beats headphone was an amateur move you should be encouraged to rethink.

P.S. Calling a woman "buddy" must be a Canadian thing because it just doesn't happen in the US, at least not in my 50 years. I'll have to ask my Canadian friend who is a professional audio engineer aboot that.

----------

In defense of the person replying to your message, it is not "stalking" when using the forum's tools to click on a user's name to see other posts. In fact, I believe it is a good idea to see who you are dealing with when posting a reply.

To get back on topic... I liked the ad, and I found the "making of" video pretty cool.

Thanks for the defense. Before responding, I pretty much always check a person's history of posts to assess their age, technical knowledge and how they tend to operate on the forums (trolling, non-Apple user just starting arguments, etc.). Then I decide whether I want to engage with them.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
laurim Avatar
136 months ago
cool stalking there buddy. im a recording engineer. professional.
I like the sound of the beats solo 2. it's one of the best if not the best on-ear headphones in existence.

look it up. inner fidelity, headfi, whathifi, whatever. if you actually know what you're talking about.

also, it's nice having earphones that everyone else will be listening on when you're mixing.
Ok, I went on Head-fi and someone asked in the forums what headphones professionals use in professional recording studios. No Beats were mentioned. Sony, Sennheiser, Beyer, AKG, others. No Beats. But if you like them, fine. As long as you never mix for cds or radio play, I'm sure that would be good enough. I would highly doubt a professional would want to mix to a distorted version of their music, burn it and then have it sound bad to someone not wearing the same headphones.

P.S. Did you assume I was a guy when you called me "buddy"? lol
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tankmaze Avatar
136 months ago
Last year ad "misunderstood" is much better then this one. Imo.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)