The Song Fight Bulletin Board

So, Moboid is insisting that I auto-tune her vocals before I submit our new version of Space Cadet to JB for the children songs compilation he's doing. The problem? I don't have an auto-tune plugin! I used to have Antares, but it was a trial and stopped working and I had issues unistalling it, so now I can't just reinstall the trial version because it thinks it's already on my system and wants me to unistall it first. I fear this means I will never be able to install Antares, even if I buy it. Does any one have an auto-tune plugin that is not Antares that they'd be willing to e-mail me?? Or know of a place on the web I could go get a demo?

Future Boy wrote:So, Moboid is insisting that I auto-tune her vocals before I submit our new version of Space Cadet to JB for the children songs compilation he's doing. The problem? I don't have an auto-tune plugin!

No, the problem is that she wants you to auto-tune her vox. I'd much rather listen to an out of tune singer than an auto-tuned one. All it was ever good for was stupid effects like in that Cher song, and that use was killed to death (though Josh Woodward made me laugh in "Waiting Takes Time"). So if you want your song to sound like a cheesy techno song, (which is possible), then go ahead.

Future Boy wrote: I used to have Antares, but it was a trial and stopped working and I had issues unistalling it, so now I can't just reinstall the trial version because it thinks it's already on my system and wants me to unistall it first. I fear this means I will never be able to install Antares, even if I buy it.

I doubt that very much. I'd even put money on it.

Future Boy wrote:Does any one have an auto-tune plugin that is not Antares that they'd be willing to e-mail me?? Or know of a place on the web I could go get a demo?

I dunno, someone mentioned some software called Kazaa once. They said it was good for getting stuff.

No, seriously, I went to the Antares site, downloaded the demo, ran the installation, was told there was a previous version and would I like to remove it automagically, I said yes, I was told that the file Uninst.isu is missing, which I knew already because when I tried to uninstall Antares 3 a few days ago I ran the uninstallation and was told that Uninst.isu was corrupted or some such thing so it couldn't do it, so I just dumped the whole directory into the trash and manually removed the program from my registry, but apparently that didn't solve the problem because it's still there in the "add/remove programs" control panel. Antares 4 continued with installation anyway, which I thought meant all would be kosher, but as it turns out something is not right because when I try to use it in Sonar the program freezes up. Now, I know that Songfight is not my personal tech support, but there are an awful lot of tech geeks around here. Anybody got a solution? I have a feeling that if I can manage to remove all traces of Antares from my system that installing the demo once more will actually work. Until that time, I can't use it, even if I get a cracked copy.

And fuck Kazaa file-sharing bullshit. Not because I care about the legality, but because it's slow and unreliable.

Have you cleared out your registry? That is probably where it sees that you had installed it on your system. Delete all you cookies, clean your registry, and if you feel comfortable doing it, manually go into it and delete anything that says Antares.

Be well,
Ken

Norton SystemWorks has a thing that will go through the registry and clean up anything that refers to files that don't exist.. i've had pretty good results using this to fix up flaky installations.

-craig

Word, don't have the Norton program. And, yes, the first time I tried the uninstall I went into the registry. Didn't delete cookies, but I'm not sure why that would make a difference. Who knows with all these new fangled tracking methods though.

here's a random thought:

do you have a way to check what direct x plugins are installed?
maybe a nonexistent autotune one is registered or something?

i think analogx.com has a direct x manager...

yes, here it is:

http://www.analogx.com/contents/downloa ... /dxman.htm


craig

can't help but agree with C-hack... i think the auto-tune thing is annoyin' (sept for the song josh woodward did.... but it would be hard to pull that off... and it be entertaining like that)

so ya'll are holding out on auto tune linkage because ya'll don't think it's a good idea for futureboy to use it?

is this an intevention? wait..no..he'd have to already have had a problem...hmmm

give it up... he wants auto tune...not opinions on whether or not *YOU* think he should use it or not...

Autotune is a tool, for better or worse. Like Atomic Power. I don't have a copy of AT handy. FutureBoy, you should hop on IRC and ask there.

Well, the solution so far is that I just installed Sonar and the AT on Moboid's computer. It works like a charm! But I'm going to check out the Direct X manager and see if I can fix mahself.

EDIT: Got the manager. The old auto-tune is just not there, despite the fact that it's still listed in the "add/remove programs" window. What I don't get is that it's no longer in the registry and yet it shows in that window. How do you manually remove stuff from that window is the real question...

I love Moboid's voice and featured Lonbobby/Moboid's Violet in the <a href="http://s87821076.onlinehome.us/icn/arch ... tml">first ICN podcast</a>.

I agree with roymond about Moboid's voice. Since you are using Sonar I assume it came with the vst adapter and that you can use vst effects. If you don't have the vst adapter I recommend going to cakewalk's website and getting it. This is a chain of effects I have found that works good on vocals. all the effects are free and and the presets I'm going to mention are good starting points.

First go to the free plugins thread and go to the link Ken provided for kjaerusaudio.com classics series and get all their free stuff. its all pretty good. For vocals you really want the compressor and eq. Then go to this link http://www.mda-vst.com/vst/mda_vst_fx_win.zip and download their plugin pack. They give you alot of stuff in this zip and alot of it I haven't found to useful. I have delete abunch of the stuff from this pack off my PC. The one plugin I do like is the one called detune. I recommend creating a new folder to unzip this into and then dragging the detune dll to you desktop, open your vst plugin folder and dragging the the detune dll into it. You can check out the rest of the plugins in the pack if you want, but I personally haven't found a use for most of it.

Ok, here is the chain of effects and presets:
1-kjaerhus classic compressor/ preset-vocal
2-kjaerhus classic EQ/ preset-warm vocals
3-mda detune/preset-detune.

the compressor and EQ will help make the vocals cut through your mix and the detune will thicken them and widen them on the stereo spread.

on account of my having a crack of Sonar 2 XL, I can't download the VST adapter, though I'd love to have it.

also, I've got the Waves plugins for Sonar and they have all of the things you have mentioned.

There is a free vst wrapper here.
http://directxfiles.com/
I used it for awhile until I broke down and got the one from Cakewalk.
It worked fairly well. You just don't want to use alot of vsts at once and keep an eye on your cpu load at the bottom of you window. And always hit your save bottom first!

OH, that's awesome, thanks. Prolly the only thing I'll use it for is the vocoder VST I have.