Autotune or not...?

[Ynot]

Now, apologies for the content of the Flootube vid here (I can't be the only one to be fed up to back teeth with Frozen songs!) but this was linked on a FB status, and someone else posted "The Auto-tune - it burns!!!".

 

I'm actually not quite sure how much of this, if any, IS actually auto-tuned, but then noise isn't my strong point :)

There are singers whose natural vocal range can sound a bit like it's been tuned when it's just their natural ability/training - so any of the noise geeks out there - opinions??

Just for curiosity's sake, that is.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyPnciiznR8

 

For some reason my 'insert' capabilities are compromised, so you'll have to make do with a link

 

 

 

 

 

[whisky-zulu]

Certainly amazingly, and annoyingly poorly dubbed. To me, listening to it there are hints of autotune in there/ pitch shift.

[J Pearce]

If that's not auto tuned I'll eat my sister's cooking.

[Bobbsy]

A ton of "Autotune"...so much so that it's an effect in it's own right.

 

My suspicion is that they deliberately uses the "Create Vibrato" effect at too high a setting because they decided they wanted it to sound that way.

[paulears]

Bucket loads - on the 'aggressive' Craig David setting.

[sam.spoons]

Yup, even if I hadn't listened I'd have said yes because there's no way that stuff would be released without aggressive Autotune, it just doesn't happen http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif

[Judge]

Hopefully sometime soon the Geneva Convention will recognise the use of Autotune as Cruel and Unusual punishment and it will be banned and all use it prohibited. It will be recognized that if you think you can sing, but actually could not hit a note if your life depended on it, then you in fact should not be allowed to record anything and be banished to a soundproofed bathroom, the better to keep your awful tuneless warbling and screeching to yourself.

[S&L]

it's in pretty widespread use on certain sorts of music these days and yes I can hear it on this clip. I read somewhere a while ago that the reason it was used on the 'Glee' tv show and recordings so much is not that they can't sing in tune (some of them can) but that they have very little production time and it's faster to get a passible take and then tune to suit, rather than go for the perfect take, in whole or line by line.

If used to excess it's unpleasant to the older ear but I also read somewhere recently that a few bands use it because that sort of vocal sound/shimmer that comes with autotune is expected.

from the view of my kids, many may not be fans but they don't see the difference between using autotune in the studio (one of them records) and dropping a vocal in line by line - is this 'cheating' any more than meatloaf's bat out of hell recordings being dropped in a line and word at a time?

My eldest who is recording across town as I type has no issue with recording vocals in a way that cannot be replicated live in a bar (think evernescence) and while he isn't a fan of autotune its because of the type of music it represents rather than the actual act of 'cheating'. to the under 30's at large, the argument has been had and lost - autotune is an exceptable sound to her much like some nauseating 80's synthesizers, just part of the musical production.

I think we have to accept that it's here to stay. whether we choose to listen ourselves or use it is no longer ethics but a matter of personal choice.

[sam.spoons]

The problem to my mind is that we've (i.e. the 'public' as opposed to SEs) become used to recorded music being perfectly in tune so we no longer tolerate slight tuning imperfections which, back in the day, would have beed seen as adding character to a voice (listen to Errol Brown singing just slightly sharp all the time, it adds a sense of urgency to the vocal). I'm recording a singer at the moment, she is good and has some good songs but her pitching is sometimes slightly dodgy (though she's getting better all the time as we go through the recording process). Ultimately I'll go for a great performance and auto tune the worst imperfections rather than accept a flat performance that happens to have good pitching as I feel it'll give us a better final result than dropping in line by line.

[WiLL]

My response to that entire video is 'What's the point?'

The audio is blatantly auto-tuned, and not very convincingly dubbed.

The 'perfect, friendly youngsters' were clearly bred in a Disney branded vat somewhere.

The entire video is so sickeningly sweet that it actually brings me out in hives.

Disney are just purveyors of false perfection, they really should stick to what they know, which is letting Pixar do what they want while they sit back and wring millions out of people who want to go on rollercoasters.

[laolu]

I don't know what you are hearing, I thought it doesn't sound so bad. It's not my style of music, but still... Maybe it is because I have to listen to so many horrible (student) singers during my work hours, that I found this one quite good, hehe. :blink:

 

Not directly related: there are superstars ot there (Bob Dylan for example) who can't sing either, in the strict sense of the word.

 

Norbert

[Bobbsy]

Have a listen to the dark haired girl singing the word "snowman" at 33 seconds then again at 35 seconds. That "warbly" sound is the autotune playing with the frequency she's singing. You can hear the effect throughout, but that's an easy one to hear.

 

Edited to add...as I said above, I think this was deliberate for the effect rather than simply trying to fix bad pitch. A good Autotune operator can be far more subtle on simply fixing bad pitch (and I assume Disney can afford the best) so I have to assume that, for whatever reason, they decided they actually LIKED that sound! It's happened many times before.