[SHOWCASE] HYBE’s newest artist Midnatt utilizes latest technology in first single

HYBE’s newest artist Midnatt may be the new Iron Man of music — a human made powerful through the aid of technology. Midnatt, the new persona of former ballad singer Lee Hyun of coed trio 8eight, presented his new synth-wave track “Masquerade” in ...

HYBE IM President Chung Woo-young, left, singer Midnatt, center, and BigHit Music President Shin Young-jae are pictured at Midnatt's showcase for his first single ″Masquerade″ Monday at the CGV Yongsan branch in central Seoul. [HYBE]

HYBE’s newest artist Midnatt may be the new Iron Man of music — a human made powerful through the aid of technology.

Midnatt, the new persona of former ballad singer Lee Hyun of coed trio 8eight, presented his new synth-wave track “Masquerade” in a way never tried before in any music market. With the help of the latest voice-edit technology, the track was released in six different languages — Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and English.

“We have always thought about how to combine technology with music in order to broaden the horizons of music and provide a wider range of experiences for fans,” said Chung Woo-yong, president of HYBE IM, the gaming and tech subsidiary of HYBE that took the helm of bringing Midnatt’s music to life, in a press conference held Monday in Yongsan, central Seoul.

“We have come to the conclusion that technology expands an artist’s imagination and ultimately opens up a new world of music to the fans. That’s how we came up with Project L.”

Scenes from the music video for ″Masquerade,″ a synth-wave track by HYBE's new artist Midnatt [HYBE]

Scenes from the music video for ″Masquerade,″ a synth-wave track by HYBE's new artist Midnatt [HYBE]

Scenes from the music video for ″Masquerade,″ a synth-wave track by HYBE's new artist Midnatt [HYBE]

Midnatt's participation was announced for the first time earlier this month with details kept hidden from the public, except that his work would be part of the artificial intelligence (AI) "Project L" that HYBE founder Bang Si-hyuk mentioned last month in an interview with Billboard.

In the interview, Bang said that HYBE had started a collaboration with Supertone, a start-up specializing in the use of AI to replicate human voices, and that the results of Project L would be revealed in May.

The press anticipated the project would create an AI-generated artist, following other virtual stars that have already debuted in Korea. But Midnatt turned out to be a tech-savvy human who utilized technology to release his music in a plethora of languages.

Lee Hyun debuted in 2007 and released many hit R&B and ballad tracks in the late 2000s but has not had a major hit since 2011.

Singer Midnatt, formerly known as Lee Hyun of coed trio 8eight [HYBE]

The two foremost voice technologies that helped him make his big comeback with “Masquerade” are language transformation technology and voice design technology.

The transformation technology helped change Lee Hyun's recordings in foreign languages and make the pronunciation clearer so that he sounds closer to a native speaker, while the voice designing technology gave birth to a womanly voice based on the singer to join in on the song as if it is a featured artist’s voice.

“It truly felt amazing to hear my voice turned into a womanly voice,” Lee Hyun said during the press conference. “It really sounded awesome to hear how my voice can be changed, and I knew that this could let me try a lot of new things as an artist. Maybe in the future, I can sing on my own and have it sound like a duet.”

Using the technology, HYBE could potentially collect the voice data of its artists and create music from scratch. The company did not specify whether it had any plans to do so or not, only saying that it is “looking forward to the results of this project" and will think of expanding into other projects in the future.

Specific details of cost, time or how much more efficient the technology proved to be, were not shared during Monday’s event.

Chung Woo-yong, president of HYBE IM [HYBE]

Shin Young-jae, president of BigHit Music [HYBE]

“It’s true that Bang Si-hyuk has been talking about ‘the crisis of K-pop,’ but it comes down to making our content better in such a competitive market,” said Shin Young-jae, president of BigHit Music, a music label under HYBE that manages acts like Lee Hyun, BTS and Tomorrow X Together.

“We believe that this technology will allow us to try new things. But at the end of the day, it comes down to the quality of our content and how we promote it so that the music reaches a wider range of fans in diverse languages. We believe that using technology to make our content better could help make K-pop more competitive.”

Midnatt will take part in the 2023 Weverse Con Festival in June, planned to be held at KSPO Dome and 88 Lawn Field at Olympic Park in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on June 10 and 11. His live performance will be enhanced by technology to bring his music to the offline realm, including technology to make his voice sound womanly even when he sings live.

“There was a time when we were confused about how to think about music with the advent of auto-tune,” Lee Hyun said. “But just as that settled down and became a new culture, I believe that this is a change that will one day be recognized just the same way.”

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]