It's a tool. Do with it what you will. If I could figure out how to make it work and sound "good", I'd use it. Same goes for anything I do.
I don't really see a large difference, (working from the targeted end result of wanting a recording to sound right), between re-doing a vocal take to be pitch-correct, or using autotune on a vocal take to pitch-correct. If you can't tell it's been autotuned, what is the practical difference?
There is none, at least for me.
note:
That said, I've never really been able to do much effective work with Autotune, that wasn't detectable. So I have never used it in a final mix. I suspect tho, this has more to do with my lack of experience using this tool, than the tool itself. I read countless glowing reviews of it, so someone is getting good results with it.
HeuristicsInc wrote:I've used it, because most people tell me my pitch sucks in their reviews.
Sometimes they tell me that after I used the pitch correction. Hmmm....
-bill
Me too Bill.
It will be interesting to see if a world of spot-on pitch results in a general loss of vocal character. Certainly the airwaves are not alight with many distinct voices. Sometimes the progression of technology is unstoppable.
Classical recordings with period instruments are done piecemeal so they can retune, as our modern ears cannot tolerate the authentic 'pitchiness'. I wonder if we will have the same view of all vocalists. Maybe the record companies will have to computer generate them a la Leon?
When I've tried Autotune, it seems to suck the character out of my voice and that's all I pretty much have to start. I suggest we destroy all such technology...
"Some may say I couldn't sing, but none may say I didn't sing" - Florence Foster Jenkins
HeuristicsInc wrote:I've used it, because most people tell me my pitch sucks in their reviews.
Sometimes they tell me that after I used the pitch correction. Hmmm....
-bill
I doubt this applies to your over-critics, but I thought it was funny:
I forgot one odd bit about Auto-Tune that I didn't expect; it tunes to concert pitch by default. So, like me, if you are a guitarist who doesn't always tune to a standard tuner, Auto-Tune will systematically de-tune you from your guitar. Then you have to futz with Auto-Tune to get it in tune with your guitar, or re-tune your guitar to standard pitch and re-record. Or (again) just re-record your damned vocals more carefully. And if you can't sing in tune, can you retune Auto-Tune (or your guitar) accurately?
Nothing actually saves you work. If you want to get something done, you either do the work to do it, or you do the work to acquire, maintain, and use the tool that helps you do it "easier". Or you get someone else to do it for you and then owe them a favor. Or money. Which takes work to repay. And so on.
"We don’t write songs about our own largely dull lives. We mostly rely on the time-tested gimmick of making shit up."
-John Linnell
I use Antares AutoTune in a lot of my songs, and I like it. Is this obsession spawned by pop media in the same way women lean toward eating disorders to look like top models? Well, I don't think much physical harm can come from using AutoTune in songs sent over the Internet.
My voice bugs me. Practice helps, but with AutoTune on top of it, I feel happier with the end product; I'm a lot more likely to listen to it (regardless of what others think.. the song's for me, right?). It also helps me concentrate less on pitch (when performing), and more on feeling and other aspects of the song. I can only retake the vocals so many times before my voice neighs.
Depending on time constraints, sometimes I'll have to AutoTune the vocals in huge batches (only specifying the key), and other times I manually AutoTune small details. This is especially important when the melody slides across notes.
When listening to music (rather than recording my own), I like hearing AutoTune. Yes, this tool can be excessively abused in the same way a $2000 guitar is abused by an amateur, but usually it's done tastefully (that is, staying away from the Cher-like blatant re-pitching). It bugged me less when I wasn't aware that the plug-in existed.
(Side-note: I received an older Graham Colton CD in the mail recently..and SOMEONE horribly AutoTuned Graham's vocals on my favorite song. His voice sounded great most of the time, but when he starts bending the pitch, AutoTune kicks in and totally ruins the feeling. Ugh!!)
Some of my favorite singers (e.g. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder) don't sound AutoTuney at all, in fact, sometimes they seem a little off-pitch, but it's still beautiful. However, many of my favorite SONGs break this rule.
I don't think there's a huge correlation between AutoTuning and musical integrity. Yes, if a singer brags about being totally pitchtastic and you hear their processed mess, that's a problem. But to me, it's just another studio tool, which I'd expect anyone to have access to use (should they choose) when recording a studio song.
Live pitch-corrected songs, on the other hand, totally bother me. It's not too often that I'll hear it, but for example, recently an Avril Lavigne "live acoustic" performance which reeked of AutoTune. An awful, sloppy mess.
At least you can't get AutoTune surgically implanted into your vocal cords yet. Or can you?
When you do huge choral-type arrangements, autotuners can be a huge help. My Hands Up was the only SF entry I used it on, and it was intentionally overdone.
If I do use it on a straight-up choral part, I try my hardest to make sure it's invisible. With Antares, I set everything to be as slow/relaxed as possible. That way, it still corrects errors that would have been noticeable, without... being noticeable.
This shouldn't surprise anyone who's talked to me, but I really don't like my voice. If you listen to most of my songs I'm always either growling or singing artificially high or low to get around the fact that I don't think the singing I do in my natural range is very strong. All this year I have tried to improve my singing without making headway; on the other hand my recording process has improved greatly. One of the things I've tried is AutoTune, and oh man I can't make that program work for me. I've used AutoTune in two of my songs, I've been called on it once, and I've been accused of using it once when I hadn't used it (which was flattering). I have a very bright voice, and when I sing in the top half of my natural range the AutoTune is really glaring, no matter what settings I use.
But, I've found a good use for it. If your soundcard can go down to <5 ms latency just put Autotune on your vocal buss and mix it at 50% volume, with the original signal making up the other 50%. When your vocals are out of tune you will hear 'beating' caused by the difference between the Autotuned pitch and the original pitch; when you are singing more in tune the beating will get slower, and when you're perfectly in tune the beating disappears. It can be disorienting to use because it sounds like you have a randomly modulating phaser on your voice, so I like to keep one ear out to help track pitch. When you've recorded a take with no perceptible beating just turn off the Autotune and voila: pitch perfect vocals, no Cher.
The Sober Irishman wrote:If I do use it on a straight-up choral part, I try my hardest to make sure it's invisible. With Antares, I set everything to be as slow/relaxed as possible. That way, it still corrects errors that would have been noticeable, without... being noticeable.
I would think that choral parts would be an odd candidate for Autotune. If you have an army of autotuned vocals, wouldn't that take away the richness that the slightly out-of-tune parts add?
antares auto-tune sucks balls. try melodyne. its a stand alone program and way way better. you can get a demo at http://www.celemony.com once the demo expires you can just play it back and record it with whatever program you use through the sound card.
"I'd give my right arm to be ambidexterous." - Smalltown Mike
I have been using this new tuner and it works really well, better than even I expected. It tunes MP3 of course, and CDs (obviously) and DVDs which is pretty cool but the very best part is its free.....is is just me or is this tuner better than anything else out there. Check it out and let see what you think. Maybe this could finally be a tuner for everything
i have never used it... if i ever did... it would be to an effect... but i however have no clue what it can do... or what it would do...
i use effects every now and then... but for the most part i stick to reverb everynow and then... and occasionally won't do crap to my recordings... other then the random noise reductions and what not... most of my crap is live recordings...
and or single takes... (probably a bad thing)
"You haven't been really bad in a long time." - jim of seattle
As an effect, I think it sounds OK, but otherwise I think it's a cop out. If you can just run some plug-in to tune up your vocals, you are not going to try as hard to get them in tune yourself when you record them, especially in the SongFight! environment where you are pressed for time. If you need to do more takes to nail your vocals, budget more time for your vocals each week. Use the tricks people have posted, like singing along to a keyboard version of the melody. Do a lot of punch-ins to save time. Find your range, and work within it just trying to strengthen your voice, even if you have a really limited range. Worry about expanding your range later. Etc.
You may find that reviewers' complaints about your vocals will be good motivation to really improve. And unless you're willing to cart your laptop around to every gig you aren't going to be able to auto-tune live, so you should probably try to learn how to sing on key for the sake of any potential future audiences you might have.
joshw wrote:I would think that choral parts would be an odd candidate for Autotune. If you have an army of autotuned vocals, wouldn't that take away the richness that the slightly out-of-tune parts add?
As with most things sound and music related - it depends.
After working with a singer helping them train their voice and learn to interact with a microphone, I start the music track. If it's a good take I give them a Thumbs-Up and we move on to the next line in the song. If it's a poor take I give them a Thumbs-Down and they re-sing it. After a while of that I take the best vocal takes out of the recording session, process them in Melodyne, then mix them with the rest of the song. This illustrates pretty well what I use pitch correction for.
This is the pure, unedited vocal take sang by yours truly, and I feel it's pretty much good enough to just drop into the song as-is...
The Sober Irishman wrote:If I do use it on a straight-up choral part, I try my hardest to make sure it's invisible. With Antares, I set everything to be as slow/relaxed as possible. That way, it still corrects errors that would have been noticeable, without... being noticeable.
I would think that choral parts would be an odd candidate for Autotune. If you have an army of autotuned vocals, wouldn't that take away the richness that the slightly out-of-tune parts add?
That's exactly what I was thinking. I've been thinking about trying out Antares or something like it, just to save myself the work of re-recording every damn phrase a dozen or more times. But I wouldn't use it for background at all. When I record the background vocals, I never have to re-record, partly because they are usually longer sustained notes and also because I know I'm overlaying a bunch of tracks together to give it the 'choir' sound (ABCD Puppies has a virtual choir of nine of me), so slight variations in pitch on any one track don't matter and can even add to the sound. Why do string sections sound so different from a single violin? Because violinists don't play in tune. Every string is slightly off, and the aggregate effect is that rich buzz.
Has anyone ever heard a song called "I Pity Inanimate Objects" by Godley & Creme? It's from the early 80's, but they do something on there that sounds a lot like auto-tuning. I've lost my copy of it, or else I'd link it.
Southwest_Statistic wrote:Before and after examples
I like the original much better. First off, I can hear the processing on the sustained notes, and can REALLY hear it on the little runs. The auto-tuner made it sound phony, like "Case of undying attachment" (:08 - :10) and lots of other places. This one example has made me pretty much decide not to waste my money on pitch correction. I don't really mind singing every line a dozen times...
Statistic: You have a very, very nice voice, which suprised me. Because you rely on pitch correction so heavily I assumed you had a really terrible voice, or maybe you were an inexperienced singer. Live and learn.
Puce wrote:Statistic: You have a very, very nice voice, which suprised me. Because you rely on pitch correction so heavily I assumed you had a really terrible voice, or maybe you were an inexperienced singer. Live and learn.
Southwest_Statistic wrote:
This is the pure, unedited vocal take sang by yours truly, and I feel it's pretty much good enough to just drop into the song as-is...
i liked this one much better. but also we heard the before and after. so because its not in a mix and knowing whether or not its had processing on it makes it hard to be objective. i like pitch-correction as a tool. but your examples obviously only needed minor minor correction. maybe one or two words instead of the whole track.
"I'd give my right arm to be ambidexterous." - Smalltown Mike
Southwest_Statistic wrote:
This is the pure, unedited vocal take sang by yours truly, and I feel it's pretty much good enough to just drop into the song as-is...
I like the 1st one way better. The pitch is fine -- who cares if you're off a couple cents in one or two tiny bits? You're human, that's what being a human is all about. You're missing the forest for the trees. The 2nd one sounds like Cher, or a boy-band.
Puce wrote:Statistic: You have a very, very nice voice, which surprised me. Because you rely on pitch correction so heavily I assumed you had a really terrible voice, or maybe you were an inexperienced singer. Live and learn.
Thanks.
One of us is being too subtle. What I was saying is that I (and maybe other people) automatically assume you have a poor voice, or that you didn't bother doing more takes. That's not a good thing: the first assumption will cost you your street cred (if that is something that matters to you. I'm sure someone will respond with a single line post saying that a true artist wouldn't care); the second assumption will cost you votes (if that is something that matters to you. I'm sure someone will respond with a single line post saying that a true artist wouldn't care ). But if a fight comes down to you or Josh Woodward, Josh is getting my vote because I know he has a great voice (Of course, now I know you have a great voice as well, so that levels the playing field).
Preliminary Rebuttal: Yes, I reward people according to merit. And yes, I realize that makes me Ayn Rand.
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). But if a fight comes down to you or Josh Woodward, Josh is getting my vote because I know he has a great voice (Of course, now I know you have a great voice as well, so that levels the playing field).