Charlie Puth Makes a Beat Using Kitchen Appliances

Hello, sir. Hello.

This camera? Okay. Yeah,

everything is gonna be in this camera.

Always looking right here.

Hello, I'm Charlie Puth,

and today I am in the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen.

And I'm gonna make a track out of everything

that's around me because my whole goal is to just show

that anything can be made into music.

I want to inspire people to create music

with whatever they have.

[piano melody]

Let's find some instruments.

Do we have a [vocalizing] blender?

A Vitamix? Will it blend?

Remember that? No. Okay.

[blender whirring]

[Charlie vocalizing]

[blender whirring]

How does it get a...

Is there only one speed?

Oh variable, here we go.

[blender whirring]

Hold on a second. Do we have a microphone?

Okay, when it goes all the way up,

it's hitting a G [vocalizing].

[blender whirring]

I wanted it to be [vocalizing]

minus three, so I'll just...

[blender whirring]

I'll just do some [beep].

[Charlie vocalizing]

[blender whirring]

[Videographer] Is that a pleasant sound to you?

No, not at all. But I'm gonna make it...

I have something stupid in mind.

I'll get to why I recorded that blender.

So here...

[blender whirring]

That's what we recorded.

I pitched it down a little bit, put a little reverb on it.

[blender whirring]

So it sounds like it's in, you know, like a concert hall.

Let's cut this up. I just wanted just like a little...

[Charlie vocalizing]

[blender sample echoing]

Just a little like a pizzicato string like [vocalizing].

Let's take some highs off the blender reverb.

So it kind of sounds like it's underwater.

The EQ bend is gonna go [vocalizing].

[blender sample echoing]

So it sounds like you've walked outside of a building now

and this is what the blender sounds like.

[blender sample echoing]

And there's this great plugin for all my

music producer nerds out there called Lossy.

It kind of just degrades the audio

and makes it sound like you downloaded it off BearShare

or LimeWire or Kazaa.

Never used those.

[blender sample echoing]

You can kind of hear the artifacts a little,

you know what I mean?

Like... [blender sample echoing]

[Charlie vocalizing]

And now that resonance that's like kind of above like

six to 10K above there.

The [vocalizing]...

[piano melody]

It's kind of fun because you can put a...

Let me... [vocalizing]

[upbeat melody]

That's from the blender.

And then you put this little pattern together

and then just drop everything down a third

and then have the start of DtMF by Bad Bunny

who just played the Super Bowl.

Such a good song. Okay. All made from a blender.

Do we have a... [vocalizing]

I can't whistle, but like a tea kettle.

Ah, they put it right here for me.

Cool.

How does this work? Is there water in it already?

We're gonna wait for it to boil.

I'm actually terrified of setting off the fire alarm,

so I don't really turn on ovens too much.

I'm not a very good cook. I'm kind of good at one thing.

Oh, no.

Sounds kind of startle me anyway.

But I have a baby on the way

and I have to get used to certain noises, that's for sure.

I'm not opposed to making music with weird sounds in it.

I just didn't do it for this album.

It was more about put the life experience first

and then find music that happens to go along with it.

It was less about like find the interesting sound.

This is just saved for you guys.

Any minute now.

Oh, finally. [kettle whistling]

All right. Anxiety. Okay.

Just to review, this is what we produced from the blender.

[upbeat melody]

It came from this.

[blender whirring]

And now we have this.

[kettle whistling]

Gonna pitch it a little lower.

[kettle sample whistling]

A little lower. [kettle sample ringing]

A little lower. [kettle sample humming]

Y'all can hear that? The low sub. Okay.

Little lower. [kettle sample humming]

[chuckling] I'm gonna make it super low.

I'm gonna use this plugin called decapitate

to distort it.

Make it sound really fuzzy.

[kettle sample warbling]

Before. [kettle sample humming]

This is after. [kettle sample warbling]

So now you kind of have the start of a base.

[kettle sample warbling]

And what we're gonna do now is we're gonna take the sounds

that we produce outta the tea kettle

and put 'em on top of the blender.

Ooh. [vocalizing]

[piano melody]

So I'm gonna make...

[Charlie vocalizing] [piano melody]

And you put it all together.

[upbeat music]

[Charlie vocalizing]

Okay. So we need some... [vocalizing]

That's the last thing we'll do.

So I need a spoon.

For what?

To make this melody.

[piano melody] [Charlie vocalizing]

So any spoon will do.

What are the smaller spoons?

Can I slap 'em together? Yeah.

Oh, this is fine.

Ooh, Challah.

I can just do it right here.

[spoons tapping]

I'll do a couple.

Can I get a bigger spoon, actually?

[spoon tapping]

No.

Still a tiny spoon, but I'm just gonna hit it on something.

Maybe a glass. Can I...

[glass clanking]

oh, that'll work.

[glass clanking]

[Charlie vocalizing]

Oh. [glass clanking]

This will work. Is this someone's water? Sorry.

[glass clanking] [Charlie vocalizing]

No, no. Keep that tone.

Sorry. Yeah, true.

That was not slick.

So... [glass clanking]

But it sounds like there's like

[piano melody]

two notes in there.

So we're gonna Melodyne out.

[glass clanking]

Amazing.

[Charlie vocalizing] [piano melody]

Pitch it down low. [glass clanking]

It's like a different tonality if there's like

artifacts on it.

[glass clanking]

I think any instrument you can hand make

it doesn't sound so perfect.

And there's pitch variations

and it just sounds like you yourself made it.

It feels very human.

It's very important to be human nowadays.

[glass clanking]

Pitch it a little lower.

[glass clanking]

Kind of sounds like the Teriyaki Boyz,

but that's not the song we're making.

[glass sample donging]

So you have a blender, the tea whistler and the spoons.

[upbeat music]

I love Bad Bunny. It was so chaotic backstage.

We didn't get to see each other,

but now I've just recreated one of his great songs

with this kitchen. [upbeat music]

Isn't that great?

Oh, nothing...

[all laughing]

They're huge fans.

Calm down.

And that's how you make a Bad Bunny song

with some kitchen appliances from the test kitchen.

Just cooked up a beat or part of a beat.

What's this? What is this fun cake?

It's an Aperol Spritz sheet cake.

[Charlie] Really? So there's alcohol in it?

There is. There is apparently.

I'll take a tiny bite. You can just go at it.

Really? Yeah.

[Charlie] I'll just take this really big dagger.

Oh my God, that's amazing.

Wait, how the [beep] did you make that?

I didn't make it. Yeah.

Wait, that's so good. This is amazing.

Oh God. Oh, that could have been the kick drum.

Okay. Thank you everybody.

Sorry for being weird.

[upbeat music fades]