Poor Old Autotune!!!!

[kgderrick]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Anarchist?

Anarcho-Capitalist to be precise...not many of me in the business

[weedywet]

fortunately I live where it's not legal to put anything in a bottle, say anything you want about it in an ad, and sell as many as you can before enough people sicken and die before the "free market" closes you down.

That fucked up ayn rand vision has happliy never really been the way it is anywhere. It's a twisted fantasy in which capitalism is somehow intrinsically benevolent.
Whereas in reality it needs government regulation to make it work.





Anyway, as MM said, machine-right tuning isn't even necessarily a worthwhile goal

Taking a crummy singer and making him machine in-tune doesn't make for a better record.
It DOESN'T bring him into the realm of those with talent.


And coversely emotive talents with less than perfect pitch are often compelling anyway. Maybe more so.
Neil Young or Pete Townshend or David Lowrey or Rick Danko or Grace Slick... autotuning would not be improving them. They are FINE as is.


If a line is just a WOW, spectacular reading and I simply don't think the singer COULD beat it, except for a spot of bad pitch- I might autotune it these days. Or at least try.

But I would suggest that if just about every line is being tuned then that's just getting pointlessly sterile.

[kgderrick]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

And while we're on the subject, I'd like to make it my personal mission (if I was qualified) to overturn whatever decision allowed the term "Natural Flavors" to exist.

There is nothing "Natural" about it and it was designed to confuse the public. But I guess you're OK with that. Natural Selection and all.

So I guess the liner notes on some albums should read something like this:

Vocals - Artist Name and Melodyne/Autotune
Drums - Artist Name and Elastic Audio/Beat Detective
Guitars - Artist Name and Copy/Paste
Bass - Artist Name and Elastic Audio

Originally Posted by weedywet

That fucked up ayn rand vision has happliy never really been the way it is anywhere. It's a twisted fantasy in which capitalism is somehow intrinsically benevolent.

Never been much of an Ayn Rand fan...much more interested in Mises, Rothbard, and Hayek...OK enough political talk.

Originally Posted by weedywet

And coversely emotive talents with less than perfect pitch are often compelling anyway.

I couldn't agree more. Along a similar line, just the other night I heard Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill for the first time in many years and I was struck with how thin the album sounded and how her voice is out of key in many parts, but the emotion and vibe is fantastic.

k

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by nobby

Then I'll be prepared to head to the north shore where I can give Kenny the thorough bitch slapping he so richly deserves

The real humor in that post lies in the fact that, with your sense of direction combined with your navigation skills, even if you did find me, you'd be too drunk to bitchslap yourself when you got here.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by weedywet

Anyway, as MM said, machine-right tuning isn't even necessarily a worthwhile goal

Taking a crummy singer and making him machine in-tune doesn't make for a better record.
It DOESN'T bring him into the realm of those with talent.

But it sure confuses the mooks and keeps me from wanting to pry my eyes out with a soldering iron.

Originally Posted by weedywet

And coversely emotive talents with less than perfect pitch are often compelling anyway. Maybe more so.
Neil Young or Pete Townshend or David Lowrey or Rick Danko or Grace Slick... autotuning would not be improving them. They are FINE as is.

Couldn't agree more. That's why I defend the tools. They don't make the talentless great. They just dress them up a bit. The ear is much more perceptive than could ever be measured by the people who build test equipment for a living. We're not fooling anyone that doesn't want to fooled.

I've Beat Detectived probably over 100 drummers and never did any of them sound like better drummers. (most were great - btw) They were just in time.

Time + Tune = Talent is completely false.

Originally Posted by weedywet

But I would suggest that if just about every line is being tuned then that's just getting pointlessly sterile.

Why is "in tune" sterile?

I've worked with singers who NEVER sang out of tune. EVER.

They weren't sterile.

A great performance IMHO can be horribly out of tune.

Just like it could be EQ'd horribly. Dark or Bright with tons of Esses.

If you fix those things it can be great. Same thing with pitch.

Or timing. I move great lines around all the time.

I'm still preserving other pieces of greatness.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by kgderrick

So I guess the liner notes on some albums should read something like this:

Vocals - Artist Name and Melodyne/Autotune
Drums - Artist Name and Elastic Audio/Beat Detective
Guitars - Artist Name and Copy/Paste
Bass - Artist Name and Elastic Audio

k

If it were necessary by the FDA, then yes.

But it's not.

Victimless crime. (come on Weedy. I'm setting you up)

[kgderrick]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

If it were necessary by the FDA, then yes.

[otek]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

The real humor in that post lies in the fact that, with your sense of direction combined with your navigation skills, even if you did find me, you'd be too drunk to bitchslap yourself when you got here.

No offense to anyone involved, but that was pretty funny.


otek

[Droolbucket]

Originally Posted by nobby

One of Kenny's bands without oughta toon beet defective and pro pliers

I beg to differ.... at about 1:15 or so, you can clearly see an early analog version of Autotune working on the guitar track. I'm guessing he's set to 'Manual' mode. If he was set to 'Auto', he'd have adjusted the singer's underwear also.

Droolbucket

[6x2]

Originally Posted by weedywet

Anyway, as MM said, machine-right tuning isn't even necessarily a worthwhile goal

No, it really isn't.

And coversely emotive talents with less than perfect pitch are often compelling anyway. Maybe more so.
Neil Young or Pete Townshend or David Lowrey or Rick Danko or Grace Slick... autotuning would not be improving them. They are FINE as is.

As are many less known good singers that keep getting auto-tuned. You don't need to be Neil Young or Seal to get away with being a bit off pitch at times. A certain amount of pitchiness is a natural part of music. Tuning everything takes out more of the magic than what it can EVER bring into the music. Just stating the obvious.

If your singer "has to be" Auto-tuned to sound even half-acceptable, chances are that he shouldn't have been let in the studio in the first place.

I may be very liberal in my political views, but when it comes to this, I'm not. Not every talentless asshole should be let to record, not to talk about releasing their 'works'.

There's a reason why the Japanese invented this thing called "Karaoke" - the pleasure of singing in public for the masses. Small scale, it's cool. Unfortunately some wanker invented reality shows where karaoke singers inflict their terror on the whole world.

If a line is just a WOW, spectacular reading and I simply don't think the singer COULD beat it, except for a spot of bad pitch- I might autotune it these days. Or at least try.

Sure, I'm not going to play hypocrite either. Every now and then, I may want to tune a word or syllable here or there. However, it's nothing I couldn't live without and the abuse of it just makes me cringe.

But I would suggest that if just about every line is being tuned then that's just getting pointlessly sterile.

Indeed.

And no, I will not feel sorry for Mr. Autotune, but I CERTAINLY hope he feels guilty and sorry for the listeners who have to bear the result of his horrible invention.

6x2

[weedywet]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

...
Why is "in tune" sterile?

I've worked with singers who NEVER sang out of tune. EVER.

They weren't sterile.

A great performance IMHO can be horribly out of tune.

Just like it could be EQ'd horribly. Dark or Bright with tons of Esses.

If you fix those things it can be great. Same thing with pitch.

Or timing. I move great lines around all the time.

I'm still preserving other pieces of greatness.

we are going to get into a semantic wrangle I fear...

but you KNOW, Kenny, that I'm no whitegloved purist about recording...

but I think the issue here lies near, at least, how one defines "out of tune" or "out of time".
The machines don't give us a lot of choice but to define it the way they do.
Even in the nomenclature, we get to choose "how much more 'in time' to make the drus" but that doesn't give you a choice but to accept that what it SAYS is "in time' is "in time" and what it says "isn't" isn't.
So people end up FEELING "well, I left the drums a little OUT OF TIME" when in reality all they did was leave them feeling human, and IN TIME to other humans.


Take one of those perfect pitched singers you mention and run the whole thing through autotune set way up and you mean to tel me it won't find ANYTHING to 'correct'????
I don't believe it.
Music isn't perfect.
Even the tempered scale we work to isn't perfect.
No piano, no guitar is EVER really in tune.
But it's in 'in tune' becasue we SAY so and it sounds okay to us.
That's all.

The danger, as I see it, is to start to look at it all as wrong and in need of correction.

I know a first hand story of a producer recording a high-priced, world-famous well-acknowledged to be GREAT drummer and then saying to the engineer "I don't even want to HEAR the playback until it's all been Beat Detectived"

THIS is insane.

that's fear talking.

[weedywet]

oh... one more thing

I don't believe for a second that it's the PUBLIC that asks for or demands autotune or beat detective.
or brickwall limiting for volume.

it's a tail chasing industry


I don't know a single 18 yr old kid without Led Zep and The Beatles on his/her ipod... without any 'corrections' to make it acceptable.

[Fulcrum]

Originally Posted by 6x2

If your singer "has to be" Auto-tuned to sound even half-acceptable, chances are that he shouldn't have been let in the studio in the first place.

Thank you.

[dwoz]

Originally Posted by kgderrick

Never been much of an Ayn Rand fan...much more interested in Mises, Rothbard, and Hayek...OK enough political talk.


k

I've got to say, that the Austrian school has been the basis for some of the most ugly and ultimately harmful economic ideas in this century or any century.

We'd be SO MUCH BETTER OFF without them.

dwoz

[weedywet]

that's only because you're stuck in the reality based community

[Pimp-X]

For what it's worth, I use vocal tuning to remove the ugly - but only the ugly. Waverings, slightly flat highs, no problem - unless they're actually sounding really ugly.

Pretend it's a woman. If you need to use concealer on the ENTIRE FACE to make the woman beautiful, it might be a man.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by 6x2

As are many less known good singers that keep getting auto-tuned. You don't need to be Neil Young or Seal to get away with being a bit off pitch at times. A certain amount of pitchiness is a natural part of music. Tuning everything takes out more of the magic than what it can EVER bring into the music. Just stating the obvious.

Define "tuning everything". I only tune the notes that sound bad to me. A good singer would "naturally" sing those notes in tune so the most "natural" thing to do would be to tune those notes.

What happens when you have a singer that sings perfectly in tune. Do you force a few notes out of tune to make it more "Natural"?

Originally Posted by 6x2

If your singer "has to be" Auto-tuned to sound even half-acceptable, chances are that he shouldn't have been let in the studio in the first place.

Nice!!! I'll tell that to my mortgage payment. Ooops. I mean client.

Honestly, I disagree. I've worked with plenty of singers with pitch issues that wind up with great performances thanks to AT.

Can you hear me up there on your high horse?

Originally Posted by 6x2

I may be very liberal in my political views, but when it comes to this, I'm not. Not every talentless asshole should be let to record, not to talk about releasing their 'works'.

Great. And whom may I ask sets this threshold?

Originally Posted by 6x2

There's a reason why the Japanese invented this thing called "Karaoke" - the pleasure of singing in public for the masses. Small scale, it's cool.

And that reason has nothing to do with your point. In fact, it's closer to mine.

Originally Posted by 6x2

Sure, I'm not going to play hypocrite either. Every now and then, I may want to tune a word or syllable here or there. However, it's nothing I couldn't live without and the abuse of it just makes me cringe.

So I should be forced to live in your world?

Originally Posted by 6x2

And no, I will not feel sorry for Mr. Autotune, but I CERTAINLY hope he feels guilty and sorry for the listeners who have to bear the result of his horrible invention.

6x2

My point exactly. Poor Mr. AT.

[AxeSlash]

If they can't sing, what the FUCK are they even doing in a band, let alone being in a recording studio high enough up the scale to have autotuna?

If I had a 'pitched' singer in my band (we have a growler at present), he'd be kicked out if he didn't sort his pitch out pronto.

Unfortunately I fear that I am in the minority here.


All of that said, there is some shit being pushed around the radio over here that is fucking WAY out of tune (and hasn't been autotuna'd), and has absolutely NO redeeming features.

Should said tracks have been autotuned? Would it have made them any better? No. They're still all irrititaing repetitive junk that's been written (and I use that term loosely) purely to sell as many copies as possible.

Given that the average listen-to-music-as-a-background-activity punter can't fucking TELL in-tune from out-of-tune, there's no need for it there.


So what it all boils down to is that we are autotuning shit purely to save time for ourselves, the artist, and the motherfuckers who are paying you to do it.

We're not ACTUALLY making the record any better in any recognisable way for the punters who buy the damn thing. For the most part (when it comes to pop at least) they don't give a shit. In tune, out of tune, to them doesn't matter as long as it is vaguely catchy, is marketed well, and has the same boring-ass dance beat underneath it as every other song on the fucking radio.




So what am I getting at here?

Basically the only reason we do it is to 'save time'. And end up with both an inferior product and a business that EXPECTS that level of correction as a result. I'd argue that it's probably had little to no effect on sales figures (although that's another argument altogether); it's just had negative effect on musical talent.

It's a sorry fucking state that music is in today.


As for beat defective...it's almost a thing of the past these days anyway. Records featuring real drummers are becoming rarer by the day, and those that do make it have drummers who play such easy shit that a couple of days practice outside of the studio should sort out any timing problems.




IF however, we're talking about artists lower down the food chain, it's a different story altogether. If you've got a band playing some seriously complicated shit, and the odd beat is out here or there, it's gonna need fixing. Why? Because the people who listen to that stuff are WAY more critical of it than your average pop listener. Same goes for serious vocalists. It still doesn't negate the need for the band to have their shit sorted before they set foot in a live room, but used sparingly for the 'odd mistake' that ruined an otherwise flawless take it's fine.



The other thing is that at the lower level of artist, it's a vicious circle when you've got a returning client - you autotune/BD their shit, and they go away with album and think they sound in time and in tune. Thus they're not going to work on making it better, they're just going to assume they sound like that. Then next time...same shit again. And again. And again. If you give them an 'honest' record, they know they've got shit they need to sort out, and will hopefully DO something about it.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by weedywet

but I think the issue here lies near, at least, how one defines "out of tune" or "out of time".
The machines don't give us a lot of choice but to define it the way they do.
Even in the nomenclature, we get to choose "how much more 'in time' to make the drums" but that doesn't give you a choice but to accept that what it SAYS is "in time' is "in time" and what it says "isn't" isn't.
So people end up FEELING "well, I left the drums a little OUT OF TIME" when in reality all they did was leave them feeling human, and IN TIME to other humans.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by weedywet

Take one of those perfect pitched singers you mention and run the whole thing through autotune set way up and you mean to tel me it won't find ANYTHING to 'correct'????

Of course it will. But I would never go that far. My goal is to make the pitchy singers sound as good as the great. Nothing more than that. Notes can slide from note to note very naturally if done manually or using auto mode more relaxed than the default.

Originally Posted by weedywet

The danger, as I see it, is to start to look at it all as wrong and in need of correction.

The bad ones do.

Originally Posted by weedywet

I know a first hand story of a producer recording a high-priced, world-famous well-acknowledged to be GREAT drummer and then saying to the engineer "I don't even want to HEAR the playback until it's all been Beat Detectived"

THIS is insane.

that's fear talking.

I totally agree. This used to happen with click tracks too. I don't believe in automatically using a click track. Some guys did it no matter what. Some guys needed to listen to playback with the click on to tell if it was in time. That is ludicrous to me. No one is gonna hear that click later.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by weedywet

oh... one more thing

I don't believe for a second that it's the PUBLIC that asks for or demands autotune or beat detective.
or brickwall limiting for volume.

it's a tail chasing industry

I agree. It's us Producers (or just me) that wanted it.

That's because we (or I) refuse to put out a bad product.

So my vocals have always been in tune. I just had to kill the singer to get that performance more in tune.