Most botched Auto-Tune correction you ever heard?

Lately I've been noticing a lot of Auto-Tune botches in songs. I'm not talking about amateur or indy songs, I mean mainstream songs from mainstream artists that were produced by top producers and released by big labels. My question is, what is THE most botched and noticable Auto-Tune correction you've ever heard in a mainstream song? Off the top of my head, I can think of "Angels" by Robbie Williams and "Stay The Same" by Joey McIntire. But I hear these mistakes nearly every day! I couldn't believe that these mistakes made it to an album and eventually to the radio. If there's a perfect way to ruin a song, it is to leave such a mistake in there and assuming that nobody will notice.

the whole Maroon 5 album

I went through a stage of listening to a lot of Latin American pop on one of the Spanish language local radio stations about a year ago; I can't remember any song they played that was dance hall friendly and didn't have terrible autotuned vocals. Really, really awful stuff.

How about Panic! At the Disco?

This is a cool CD but wow, auto tune is really blatant especially at the end of "The only Difference..." Oh yeah and "Nails for breakfast... I suppose they may have intended that one as an effect but yikes!

And than there is Audioslave at the end of "Show me how to live"... but at least that is obviously an intentional effect... and sounds pretty cool.

But with Panic! why not just do multiple takes. I've heard worse on the radio too often, but I can't think of them off hand. The autotune effect is awful and ruins songs. It always reminds me of that annoying Cher song (I think it was called "I believe") Yuck!

Silence Please!

ORIGINAL: Silence Please!
...that annoying Cher song (I think it was called "I believe") Yuck!

Silence Please!

Right, it went Do You Believe in Love (After Love). The worst pivotal moment in pop history, AFAIC. What's hard to imagine is that this robotic, annoying sound has actually caught on as a 'style' (sic) and actually sells. I mean, is this how my dad thought about distorted guitars? At least they (guitars) have tone and expressive melody. But this stuff just grates on my sense of pitch.

Oh, and by the way, it's not just the blatantly botched stuff that's annoying, either. If the correction is done in 'Auto' mode (i.e. 'cheap' in studio time), then mistracking of formants is almoist guaranteed. That's because the current algorithms aren't sophisticated enough to know how the singer shifts their formants with expression. The only way to do it right (currently) is to manually adjust the formants along with pitch, but independently from the pitch adjustment. Don't do that, and you'll hear anomalies in the vocal tone, even if the pitch is Casio-keyboard perfect. If you listen closely, you'll hear it... a lot. When you do, you'll know who scripmed on the Auto-tune budget!

Well there is a big difference between using Auto-Tune as an effect and using it to correct out of tune vocals. The effect I can understand, even though it has been used way too much. But to unsuccessfully use it as a pitch correcting tool and leaving your horrible-sounding mistake in the song is beyond me. These people put their songs under the microscope and yet an obviously clumsy attempt to ajust out of tune vocals is completely ignored and released to the public. The second I hear a botched Auto-Tune job, I can't listen to the song again. If the producer/engineer didn't care enough about the song to fix it, then I shouldn't care enough to listen to it.

I'm loving this thread...I can't say that I know of any tunes where they have done any type of pitch correction (I don't really have any interest in what popular radio 'feeds' the people (sheep)). Firstly, I don't believe in using vocal correction (just life after love ) - if you can't pull it off, please don't try and just re-write your part so that you can sing it comfortably.

As for the Cher music - at least that was totally done on purpose, and we all know that Cher CAN sing (and then some) if need be.

What's the point of aspiring to be a fine vocalist if they are going to 'fix' your voice continually?

Right, it went Do You Believe in Love (After Love). The worst pivotal moment in pop history, AFAIC. What's hard to imagine is that this robotic, annoying sound has actually caught on as a 'style' (sic) and actually sells. I mean, is this how my dad thought about distorted guitars? At least they (guitars) have tone and expressive melody. But this stuff just grates on my sense of pitch.

This is truly weird. Just reading the title I was running through in my mind the point you made about the distorted guitar. Also the idea that this could be an excepted trend. You have a good mind. Outstanding post!
I think that It could become very much an every day part of most pop music.
If the general public has no problem with it then it will mostly likely continue.

Best
John

It has become a style but it's getting old pretty quickly, especially considering that Cher's song was released almost 9 years ago. But this "trend" is a lot less versatile than distorted guitar. Distortion has gone a long way and it will keep changing. The Auto-Tune effect is just one effect than can't really be tweeked beyond "on" and "off". When you tweak it beyond that, it ceases to be an effect and it's just a pitch correction tool. I thought the Auto-Tune effect trend was over until I heard it on the latest album of the purest of today's the old skool musicians....Prince! Of all the people, HE used it! He used it as an effect, mind you (never in a million years would he need or use a pitch correction tool), but still....I was quite disappointed. It's an effect that now sounds way too predictable.

And than there is Audioslave at the end of "Show me how to live"... but at least that is obviously an intentional effect... and sounds pretty cool.

...and if you listen to the pre-mixes leaked before the album was released, (the ones that haven't been steamrollered by Rubin), that effect is there, even though these versions just sound like rough mixes of initial tracks. If you listen closely, to me, it sounds like Chris Cornel is actually hitting his throat to make the mal-autotuned sound.

ORIGINAL: Karim
....Prince! Of all the people, HE used it! He used it as an effect, mind you (never in a million years would he need or use a pitch correction tool), but still....I was quite disappointed. It's an effect that now sounds way too predictable.

So, now it's the Effect Formerly Known As Autotune.

ORIGINAL: Karim

Lately I've been noticing a lot of Auto-Tune botches in songs. I'm not talking about amateur or indy songs, I mean mainstream songs from mainstream artists that were produced by top producers and released by big labels. My question is, what is THE most botched and noticable Auto-Tune correction you've ever heard in a mainstream song? Off the top of my head, I can think of "Angels" by Robbie Williams and "Stay The Same" by Joey McIntire. But I hear these mistakes nearly every day! I couldn't believe that these mistakes made it to an album and eventually to the radio. If there's a perfect way to ruin a song, it is to leave such a mistake in there and assuming that nobody will notice.

I'm not familiar with with either of your two examples... Are you saying these are just heavily autotuned or that there are places with glitches or wrong tunings left in? Is the whole song bad or just a couple of spots?

ORIGINAL: Daddy?!

I'm loving this thread...I can't say that I know of any tunes where they have done any type of pitch correction

Well, that would be anything you've heard on the radio in the last five years. It's done on quite literaly everything now, sad to say. It's looked on as no different than eq or compression. It's even used on singers that don't need it...just to be sure. So, you're probably more familiar with it than you know.

Well, that would be anything you've heard on the radio in the last five years. It's done on quite literaly everything now, sad to say. It's looked on as no different than eq or compression. It's even used on singers that don't need it...just to be sure. So, you're probably more familiar with it than you know.

Well, 'yorolpal', that's just disenheartening. Would that include Rob Thomas? I've always felt he's one of the better pop crooners out there today.

Dunno, but I wouldn't be surprised. I was quite serious about it being used even when not needed. It's just become another "sheen" tool in the pop engineer's kit. Sort of, we CAN do it so we will. Disheartening? Yea, probably. But don't them dang vocals sound nice?!

ORIGINAL: yorolpal

Dunno, but I wouldn't be surprised. I was quite serious about it being used even when not needed. It's just become another "sheen" tool in the pop engineer's kit. Sort of, we CAN do it so we will. Disheartening? Yea, probably. But don't them dang vocals sound nice?!

Twenty years from now Autotune will be sooooo sophisticated that you won't be able to hear a single artifact at all. At the same time you will be able to find software adapters for sale that will allow you to run Autotune Ver 1.0 so that you can still get that "vintage" Autotune sound like they did back in the good old days.


EDIT: I forgot to mention that when this future Autotune version comes out, it will have a water cooled dongle to cool the quad core processor that the dongle has to use to fight crackers.

Twenty years from now?!?! Try now. Waves new pitch correction plug can be made so clean it should be illegal. Seriously, it's scary what sort of low brow nonsense we will have to endure as a result.

would you mind citing a specific part on the album? i love it; i know that it has been processed but it doesn't sound bad to me. so perhaps you could give something specific as a reference?

ORIGINAL: gdugan

ORIGINAL: Karim

Lately I've been noticing a lot of Auto-Tune botches in songs. I'm not talking about amateur or indy songs, I mean mainstream songs from mainstream artists that were produced by top producers and released by big labels. My question is, what is THE most botched and noticable Auto-Tune correction you've ever heard in a mainstream song? Off the top of my head, I can think of "Angels" by Robbie Williams and "Stay The Same" by Joey McIntire. But I hear these mistakes nearly every day! I couldn't believe that these mistakes made it to an album and eventually to the radio. If there's a perfect way to ruin a song, it is to leave such a mistake in there and assuming that nobody will notice.

I'm not familiar with with either of your two examples... Are you saying these are just heavily autotuned or that there are places with glitches or wrong tunings left in? Is the whole song bad or just a couple of spots?

There are glitches left in at a particular part of the song. I don't know if it was left on "auto" mode and the singer went totally out of tune or if a correction was done manually but the singer was so out of tune that it was impossible to fix it properly, but either way there is a specific part in these songs where the Auto-Tuning is obvious and sounds absolutely horrible and I can assure you that it was not intentional. I notice this more and more in songs that were recorded in the past 8 years. I remember hearing a song last week and I noticed the exact same thing, only this mistake was a lot easier to notice because the voice wasn't burried behind the music. It was a pretty simple easy-listening acoustic song that you would never expect an Auto-Tune glitch in. Unfortunately I don't remember which song it was.

I have an album of Brazilian music, in the 'choro' style, by a wonderful singer named Teresa Christina. It's a´lovely album with wonderful musicianship and she has a stunning voice, warm and rich and sweet and full of personality. But I have trouble listening to it because all I can hear is the too-aggressive vocal tuning which makes it sound robotic and sterile. I've heard this woman sing live, and I find it very hard to believe that any pitch correction was really required; perhaps a subtle touch here and there to push an almost perfect take over the edge, but this has the unmistakeable feeling of an engineer so excited by the amazing new plugin that somehow nobody noticed that the music was being ruined by it. I can't put it down to being an effect because this is acoustic folk music, and otherwise quite pristine and well recorded. It's kind of a tragic album for me.

I believe I just got the good bye... I believe I just got the good bye look.
Nice Signature yorolpal... haven't heard that tune in a while... Now, I'll be signing it on my ride home today... Thanks.

You're welcome. After all, I know what happened. I read the book.

Maroon 5's "She will be loved". Especially the word "Rain". I was going back and forth thinking they either went for the robotic effect, or it was a horriby bad "fix". I am still not sure which one it is, but I am leaning towards an unintentional bad result because other instances of the same phrase is less obviously "fixed".

I must say, I can get 100 times better results with my crappy voice and Melodyne (as far as trying to make fixes non-obvious). I don't understand how the "professional" guys can screw it up so badly. My first few tries with Melodyne resulted in similar robotic sounding vocals, but I quickly learned that less is more.

If you have a good take (but maybe off-pitch a little bit), it is only important to move the average pitch to the desired pitch, not flatten the note completely and in the process remove all of its natural properties. For instance, I stopped looking at the pitch curve and how the notes miss the visual pitch, but instead close my eyes and listen until I find something that sounds out of pitch, then move the whole note as a unit. No note snapping, just move it by a small amount until it sounds right, instead of looking right.

SilkTone

That's my first line of operations as well, Silk, whenever I use V-Vocal. You nailed it.

This isn't just a pop phenonmenon... I'm hearing it everywhere... or at least I think I know what I'm hearing after knowing what to listen for...

By "eveywhere" I mean even in Country crossover stuff (which I don't even like). I've heard it there, and not just "glitches" but just obvious pitch-correction kicking in. There's a point at which the twang goes away and it sounds synthetic... like a $10 robot whore from some B-grade futuristic movie...

I mean there's timbre and intonation and vibrato and projection and all that good stuff... then on the other side there's pitch-corrected vocals to the point where all of the former are absent.

ORIGINAL: keith

This isn't just a pop phenonmenon... I'm hearing it everywhere... or at least I think I know what I'm hearing after knowing what to listen for...

By "eveywhere" I mean even in Country crossover stuff (which I don't even like). I've heard it there, and not just "glitches" but just obvious pitch-correction kicking in. There's a point at which the twang goes away and it sounds synthetic... like a $10 robot whore from some B-grade futuristic movie...

I mean there's timbre and intonation and vibrato and projection and all that good stuff... then on the other side there's pitch-corrected vocals to the point where all of the former are absent.

Yep. It's just like compression. Once you learn what it sounds like, you can easily identify the tell tale sound and when it is over used. Which is pretty often now a days.

ORIGINAL: subtlearts

I have an album of Brazilian music, in the 'choro' style, by a wonderful singer named Teresa Christina. It's a´lovely album with wonderful musicianship and she has a stunning voice, warm and rich and sweet and full of personality. But I have trouble listening to it because all I can hear is the too-aggressive vocal tuning which makes it sound robotic and sterile. I've heard this woman sing live, and I find it very hard to believe that any pitch correction was really required; perhaps a subtle touch here and there to push an almost perfect take over the edge, but this has the unmistakeable feeling of an engineer so excited by the amazing new plugin that somehow nobody noticed that the music was being ruined by it. I can't put it down to being an effect because this is acoustic folk music, and otherwise quite pristine and well recorded. It's kind of a tragic album for me.

It really is tragic. Brazilian music is so smooth sounding and it has a charm to it that makes it real. It's like listening to a live band right in front of you, even when it's a studio album. The second I hear Auto-Tune, that's it, I can't listen to it anymore because I either doubt the artist's talent or the engineer's talent. It turns real music into a pre-fabricated and over-produced poppy "let's see what this software does" commercial product. When they try to make it sound TOO perfect, it makes it sound worse than anything!

ORIGINAL: Mod Bod

Twenty years from now Autotune will be sooooo sophisticated that you won't be able to hear a single artifact at all. At the same time you will be able to find software adapters for sale that will allow you to run Autotune Ver 1.0 so that you can still get that "vintage" Autotune sound like they did back in the good old days.

Actually I think in 20 years, waves will come out with a line called the AT series that will emulate the 'vintage' autotune sound
'

ORIGINAL: missword

ORIGINAL: Mod Bod
Twenty years from now Autotune will be sooooo sophisticated that you won't be able to hear a single artifact at all.

Actually I think in 20 years, waves will come out with a line called the AT series that will emulate the 'vintage' autotune sound

In 20 years Sony will introduce "DAT"... the "De-Auto-Tune" software plugin. It will contain a patented algorithm for restoring audio content ravaged by abusive pitch correction from prior decades.

Not missing a beat, Sony will sue itself claiming "DAT" is a registered trademark.

hehehehe.....this thread has some great comments in it.....you guys know who you are....

Lets see 'em try & use Auto-Tune on this guy........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8EWUYnNjTU

Ive only just started getting onto pitch correction. Tried out autotune and it just sounded robotic the wohle time. But now i've got v-vocal which i find is much easier to use. First attempt it all sounded robotic, cause i was LOOKING for out of tune vocals rather than LISTENING. I think having the graph there makes it so easy to just go, oh thats out of place IT MUST BE FIXED! Now ive decided to look AND listen. If sometihng looks or sounds way out, i correct it as best as i can, then if i hold the b button for a while, close my eyes then let go, so its randomly bypassed and i do not know whether it is on or off, i then listen and see if i can work out whether its being tunned or not. if i cant tell, then its not worth doing. If somethings way out, i look back through my old takes and find it sung properly.

I have tried to listen for pitch correction in albums and as im only 19, i havent got much experience in this so i could never notice anything.. Im going to have a good listen to maroon 5 now and see if i can hear it. Great thread by the way, i love hearing when the pro's stuff it up, makes me feel like my stuff isnt too bad after all It get excited whenever i hear a mistake in a song!

take thats new stuff.

OMG.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

Wow, maroon 5 is terrible! It's just too perfect! On my first listen i noticed so many problems... Can't believe it!

everyone's a critic...

ORIGINAL: John

Right, it went Do You Believe in Love (After Love). The worst pivotal moment in pop history, AFAIC. What's hard to imagine is that this robotic, annoying sound has actually caught on as a 'style' (sic) and actually sells. I mean, is this how my dad thought about distorted guitars? At least they (guitars) have tone and expressive melody. But this stuff just grates on my sense of pitch.

This is truly weird. Just reading the title I was running through in my mind the point you made about the distorted guitar. Also the idea that this could be an excepted trend. You have a good mind. Outstanding post!
I think that It could become very much an every day part of most pop music.
If the general public has no problem with it then it will mostly likely continue.

Best
John

I know this will offend someone, but this is how I saw rap "music" a few years ago. I thought it was just some weird novelty thing that would quickly go away. I just knew that no one would take it seriously since it was just programmed rhythms and didn't involve any real musical talent or the ability to carry a tune. Man, was I wrong.. And I find myself sounding just like my dad - making the same comments about my daughter's music that he did about mine. I catch myself all the time doing and saying things that put me in the "old man" category!


As far as the overuse of pitch correction, I guess I just have not trained my ear to hear it yet. I hear it on what is obvious to me like the Cher song or the Faith Hill tune where it's an effect, but otherwise, I dont really hear it. Now that it's come up, I will start listening more closely. But I don't think it's the evil thing that some here suggest. I have been a guitarist for 30 years but I use a tuner. Does that make me less of a player? Maybe it does? And I love compression on a vocal. Is that so bad? I like it as an effect and I also like it to control dynamics. Is there a "correct" or "incorrect" way to use it? I don't think so.

Again, I know I'm probably setting myself up to get slammed, but I find it kind of funny how so many here are criticizing the use of this tool, when most here are probably using tons of eq, comp and fx on everything they do in Sonar. That's not "natural"! How many of us just use Sonar to record and dont edit the crap out of it?? Isn't pitch correction just another effect or tool? So, in some cases, to you, it's obvious. Well, isnt it also obvious when you hear a recording with reverb applied? "Man, I can tell they didnt use real world natural reverb (like recording in a tile room instead of using an effect)". Or I can tell they added eq, or chorus, etc. But does that make it wrong? If we want pure organic recordings, they should be acoustic intruments recorded with mics and nothing added or edited. But that isnt what the average person wants to hear. We want to hear processed, edited, artifical sounds!

All that said, I do understand that it is frustrating to hear something on the radio that we feel we could have done better. I hear it all the time. And it's frustrating to know that some pretty people get the deals when they may not be the most talented. But it doesnt mean the music is ruined when you figure out they used pitch correction!?!?? I love the Maroon 5 cd. I never noticed the horrible pitch correction. I may now that it's been pointed out, but it wont take away the fact that (to me) there are some well written, well recorded pop songs on there.



Ok, I am braced for the slamming!!!

A very thoughtful an useful post Stratcat.
I am thinking that we may be just a bit over doing this. After all, we see on this forum lots of posts dealing with Autotune issues. Meaning that some one is using it.
We also have V-Vocal at our disposal if we have Sonar 5 or 6. Roland has amazing technology for doing Autotune like stuff and more. Others here have pointed out that this is becoming as common as compression as far as the number of providers that there are and how many times it is used.
I wonder if maybe we should speak a little less stridently on this and perhaps realize that it is here to stay. How many here will never use V-Vocal? Anybody here have a Roland V-synth?
We are going to have to get use to it in the end.

I really don't know what I think about this yet. If it will help a good artiste be great then fine, I suppose.

Time will tell though.

Best
John

Well, the difference between a, say, compressor (or eq, reverb, etc...) and pitch correction is that while it can make a singer sound fuller, richer and cut through the mix it cannot make a bad singer a good singer. That's what is called talent or ability. With pitch correction almost anyone can pretend to be a real honest-to-God-hum-dinger-of-a-singer. And while this may be a sort of democratization of the music industry it IMHO is just one more step down jackass hill. And I use pitch correction all the time on my singers. Because it is a great, useful tool. But like any great new digital tool it can (and is, and will continue to be) be misused. So what? That's the way it goes. So go with the flow. But it should be OK to feel just a smidge of enui, shouldn't it?

I think pitch correction can also be used to help make a better singer. When you record your vocals you can look at the graph of the pitches and see easily where you sang out of key, fix it, and then hear what it should sound like if it were in key. You can then practice this and re-record it if the pitch correction software wont fix it very well or you are against using it. For people like me who aren't the best at noticing slightly off key notes it can be a good help and i think using it correctly will help me to be a better singer.

Also it saves time in the recording studio. If you do a few notes slightly off that you know you can do, then a bit of pitch correction could be faster then recording it a few more times. And time is money

Probably the most important thing is just to make sure it doesn't get missused i guess.

I was actually working on developing a VST plugin that is a sort of "vocal tuner". I got the idea from this software. I bought the software and found it extremely useful for warming up exercises and generally teaching yourself how to have much better control over your voice.

While the software I linked to is kind of corny and very amateurish, I thought it would be an excellent idea to have a more professionally aimed VST plugin that did something similar. I was able to come up with a very fast, accurate detection algorithm but it was taking a lot of my free time and I have not been working on it for some time now.

The advantage of this type of plugin would be that it does not try to fix your mistakes, instead it teaches you how to sing in tune. You can see the result of your singing in realtime as a graph, and then experiment until you find out how to prevent that bad pitch slide to occur in the first place. You can visually see where you overshoot the pitches, and you can practice in realtime to see how to prevent it. You would be able to enter "target notes" (similar to the Singing Coach software) and you can then practice until you hit all the notes. For myself, I found that after I played around with Singing Coach, I was much less dependent on Melodyne, and that should be everyone's goal.

Anyway, I am just wondering that if I go ahead and finish the plugin, if there would be a market for that kind of software? What do you guys think?

SilkTone

ORIGINAL: yorolpal

Well, the difference between a, say, compressor (or eq, reverb, etc...) and pitch correction is that while it can make a singer sound fuller, richer and cut through the mix it cannot make a bad singer a good singer. That's what is called talent or ability. With pitch correction almost anyone can pretend to be a real honest-to-God-hum-dinger-of-a-singer. And while this may be a sort of democratization of the music industry it IMHO is just one more step down jackass hill. And I use pitch correction all the time on my singers. Because it is a great, useful tool. But like any great new digital tool it can (and is, and will continue to be) be misused. So what? That's the way it goes. So go with the flow. But it should be OK to feel just a smidge of enui, shouldn't it?

I do understand the discomfort - I really do get it. It feels unfair to misrepresent someone as a great singer when they are not. I sing in a live band that plays in clubs regularly and we work hard on our vocals. Our harmonies are pretty darned good and we use no pitch correction!! I am not convinced that any tool can make a bad singer sound great. There is so much more to vocal tone than just pitch correction. There is tone, presence, phrasing, etc that cannot be easily fixed if the original take is bad. Frankly, I use eq, a little touch of delay and a great pa to make me sound a lot better than I really am (compared to how I sound singing "naked" with no mic). So I dont think anything will make a bad singer sound great, but we all use things to make us sound better. It that wrong?

My daughter "made" me go to a Maroon 5 concert and I enjoyed it. And the singer sounded very good, played guitar pretty well and put on a heck of a show. Maybe he was using realtime hardware pitch correction in concert? It sounded very good to me and I was quite entertained. At the very least, he is a talented singer - maybe not a virtuoso, but pretty good.

Yes, the discussion is going in a direction that I was thinking about this morning. You know, back when MIDI sequencers first came out in the 80's, everybody got excited about quantization. Naturally, it got overused to the point of oblivion.

But eventually, folks started to figure out that they were sucking all the life out of the music. So, by the early 90's most were pulling back on the quantization, or even abandoning it altogether. Quantization did give rise to robotic styles that are 100% quantized, but they all galvanized into their own genres, while everything else went back to 'normal'. Finally, sequencers starting sporting features like 'percent quantization' and 'shuffle', providing for more flexibility and control, and making quantization more of a natural editing tool than a de-facto process.

I'm thinking (hoping?) that vocal retuning will take on a similar life cycle.

Two points I feel like making:

1) Bob Dylan didn't use pitch correction.

(Of course, this leads into a separate discussion of whether a Bob Dylan or a Joni Mitchell or suchlike would ever be "discovered" today and make it big. Interestingly, I think this is more likely today with YouTube and suchlike than it was 5 years ago...)

2) I work on my own in my home studio. I only started singing my own songs when I realised I was never going to meet a singer who could magically render what I heard in my head. I used to record 10 vocal takes and then laboriously select the best version of each phrase. (I hated doing this because I'm not a fan of my own unprocessed voice but I had no choice. Not terrible singing, but I'm always sharp or flat somewhere.) I've never been happy with the result but I didn't have the time or patience to do another 10 takes...

Since SONAR 5 my process has changed - I now track 4 takes, maximum, and choose the ones with the best tone or delivery, not focusing on whether it is in tune or not which used to be the only criteria that mattered. A quick pass with V-Vocal - judiciously, not automatic, just correcting the worst of the off notes - and I end up with something that sits well, sounds great in the mix. This doesn't make me an artificial artist like {insert name here} anymore than using a POD 2.0 instead of a "real" guitar amp does.

By the way, I highly recommend the documentary Before The Music Dies, about the music industry today and how it manufactures artists.
You can view excerpts here: YouTube Search Results

I'm sitting here listening to Maroon 5...

The use of autotune seems, to me, to be completely for aesthetic reasons - it's used as an effect. A very effective one too - it helps to acheive that slightly surreal sheen to the vocal. I don't see there's anything wrong with it... It's just like using any other effect such as reverb or compression, it's just used here to create a different effect.

I know this will offend someone, but this is how I saw rap "music" a few years ago. I thought it was just some weird novelty thing that would quickly go away. I just knew that no one would take it seriously since it was just programmed rhythms and didn't involve any real musical talent or the ability to carry a tune. Man, was I wrong..

Stratcat,

Please tell me that you have not entered the 'other side'...that being that you are a 'rap music fan' now. Please say it ain't so - I don't want my image of you and your fine posts over the years tarnished for me. I'm quite sure all the Jay-Z's of the world couldn't sit around a campfire and make good 'music' that actually had chords and harmony and get this...a modulation to a new key, etc.

I believe that hip-hop/rap's prevalence in music today does NOTHING to encourage our young people to pick up a legitimate instrument and learn how to create on it. If this trend continues, in 30-50 years (possibly less), there will be no 'songs' to sing, just 'dope beats' to 'bump' to.

Aside from the mega cash that rap generates, I honestly believe that if these 'rap artists' had real legitimate 'musical talent', they'd earn their initial money off of the rap and then quickly move onto something more challenging and musically stimulating - I've yet to see this. A lot of the decent rock guys seemed to get tired of the basic major/minor scales and needed more stimulation, thus moving towards jazz, etc. Those guys seem to be in it for the right reasons: music and the stimulation generated by creating it, not the Benjamins generated by selling it to the sheep.

Rant off!

Hope I didn't offend anyone - I just think it's important that we try to create good songs and not rely on samples and programming too much. I believe our songs should largely transfer decently around a campfire.

I don't have an auto-tune product but I wish I did. They're currently too expensive for me.

I'm not interested in taking vocal lessons and I have no illusions of becoming a good vocalist. But, I sure like writing chord changes and melodies and lyrics and harmonies etc. Sure wish I had auto-tune.

IMO - AutoTune has it's place like everything else. I think it's a great tool for showing a vocalist where they are going out of pitch, and also like was posted before just to subtly bring a good vocal to be even better. I personally like what it does when used in small amounts, but when i start to hear that tell tale wobble it produces i back it off until you cant hear it any longer. I use it just to clean up the vocal, and sometimes i dont use it at all, but number 1 rule is if i can hear the wobble it goes, and either i drop the correction rate or the track get's re-cut.

And yes you can hear it all over today. You can hear it on American Idol winner Carrie Underwood's album, especially on Jesus take the Wheel, and like you guys I thought to myself "All of these high dollar guys in Nashville and something like that makes it on her debut CD" ?? what the **** I imagine a room full of producers having meetings on comped vocal tracks deciding which of the 5 phrases sounds better for this line.

With a background in bluegrass and gospel, I can really appreciate the effort and talent these folks really have. These folks would perform a capella on stage, around a single mic, and hit every note in four-part harmony. Today, the industry can manufacture an artist (as stickman393 alluded to in the documentary "Before the Music Dies" - which I highly recommend). I understand why a tool like Autotune is so popular. For me, the problem is when it is used as a crutch, and not a band-aid. When the 'looks' of the performer outweigh the talent, cause they can 'correct' the voice.

On my way home today, I saw a bumper sticker that kinda sums up how I feel; Bluegrass - Acoustically Correct!

Mandolin Picker,

You are my new hero! Bluegrass artists don't have to hide behind anything.

Way to go, Mate!!

ORIGINAL: Daddy?!

I know this will offend someone, but this is how I saw rap "music" a few years ago. I thought it was just some weird novelty thing that would quickly go away. I just knew that no one would take it seriously since it was just programmed rhythms and didn't involve any real musical talent or the ability to carry a tune. Man, was I wrong..

Stratcat,

Please tell me that you have not entered the 'other side'...that being that you are a 'rap music fan' now. Please say it ain't so - I don't want my image of you and your fine posts over the years tarnished for me. I'm quite sure all the Jay-Z's of the world couldn't sit around a campfire and make good 'music' that actually had chords and harmony and get this...a modulation to a new key, etc.

I believe that hip-hop/rap's prevalence in music today does NOTHING to encourage our young people to pick up a legitimate instrument and learn how to create on it. If this trend continues, in 30-50 years (possibly less), there will be no 'songs' to sing, just 'dope beats' to 'bump' to.

Aside from the mega cash that rap generates, I honestly believe that if these 'rap artists' had real legitimate 'musical talent', they'd earn their initial money off of the rap and then quickly move onto something more challenging and musically stimulating - I've yet to see this. A lot of the decent rock guys seemed to get tired of the basic major/minor scales and needed more stimulation, thus moving towards jazz, etc. Those guys seem to be in it for the right reasons: music and the stimulation generated by creating it, not the Benjamins generated by selling it to the sheep.

Rant off!

Hope I didn't offend anyone - I just think it's important that we try to create good songs and not rely on samples and programming too much. I believe our songs should largely transfer decently around a campfire.

You definately read something into my post that was not intended!! I hate rap "music". And before anyone calls me names, I dont hate the "artists", I just do not consider it music. I do think there is some skill involved in the creation of these sounds, but that is what they are - sounds. They are rhythms, and some of the rhythms aren't half bad, but it's usually because it's been ripped off from a talented artist!! I use samples to create music, but it's samples of single notes that I then manipulate into music (drums samples, piano samples, etc) not performances of another musician playing.

From the view of a real musician, no, I do not care for it and do not consider it music.

What is really sad to me is watching my 12 year old daughter. She took piano lessons for a few years and was quite good. But now she has no interested at all. She listens to rap and some new rock (Panic at the Disco, etc). She had a breif interest in Maroon 5 when that cd was big and I thought there was hope, but now they are old news to her... It's funny, to her anything 6 months old is "old"!!! I guess I feel a little disappointed that I am probably in the best band I have ever been in right now and my daughter has zero appreciation for it. This is what the media has done to the next generation...

But I do think there is hope. We play mostly classic rock and it amazes me that some places we play college kids show up and love what we are doing. It's kind of like back in the 70's when "oldies" from the 50's were cool.

Regarding Auto-Tune, this post has made me re-think some things. I need to develope a better ear for hearing the apprent over-use of it! Then again, maybe I don't want to know!?!? Someone mentioned Carrie Underwood's abuse of it, and I actually thought she was a very talented singer - now I'm wondering...

BUT, I have to go back to something I said before. There is more to a great vocal track than just perfect pitch. You've got to be able to project, have good tone, good phrasing, dynamics, etc to pull it off..........right?

There is more to a great vocal track than just perfect pitch. You've got to be able to project, have good tone, good phrasing, dynamics, etc to pull it off..........right?

Absolutely right...you have to be able to sing. I'm quite honestly staggered at the number of new bands I hear with a vocalist who quite plainly cannot hold a tune. At the risk of sounding like a BOF (which I am anyway!), I can't think of one band that I grew up listening to who had a sub-standard singer.........(insert your exceptions here)

James

ORIGINAL: jamesg1213

There is more to a great vocal track than just perfect pitch. You've got to be able to project, have good tone, good phrasing, dynamics, etc to pull it off..........right?

Absolutely right...you have to be able to sing. I'm quite honestly staggered at the number of new bands I hear with a vocalist who quite plainly cannot hold a tune. At the risk of sounding like a BOF (which I am anyway!), I can't think of one band that I grew up listening to who had a sub-standard singer.........(insert your exceptions here)

James

Hmmm... I think back then, if you couldnt sing, it was obvious because there were no tools to fix it. But there were some sub-standard singers that got radio play (at least in my opinion). Bob Dylan is at the top of my list!

Stratcat,

Thanks for confirming that my post was a result of 'reading too much into' yours. You've no idea how relieved I am.

Actually, your clarification puts us SO close on opinions on this topic that I'm going to have to offer up some pizza & beer, Mate! Of course, you probably only live about 12-15 hours away, but if you're ever around Chicagoland, let's do it!

My apologies for jumping to conclusions, I just hate when we lower our standards of musicality for convenience and marketability to the sheep out there.

Enjoy the holiday season!

Cheers!!

True, and Dylan, Tom Waits, Van Morrison are the exceptions that proves the rule...it just grieves me that it now seems to be 'I'm going to sing because I want to be the singer' rather than 'I want to be the singer because I can sing'.

Mind you, I'm using Paul Rodgers as my yardstick to measure by, so I'm never going to be satisfied

Daddy?1 - Chicago is only about 4 hours away (depending on exactly where you are and how you drive) from Edwardsville, IL, where I live, which is 27 miles from St. Louis, where I work... Depending on just how many beers you are offering, it might be worth the drive!!

jamesg1213 - Paul rogers rocks. That's a big yardstick.

ORIGINAL: Daddy?!

I know this will offend someone, but this is how I saw rap "music" a few years ago. I thought it was just some weird novelty thing that would quickly go away. I just knew that no one would take it seriously since it was just programmed rhythms and didn't involve any real musical talent or the ability to carry a tune. Man, was I wrong..

Stratcat,

Please tell me that you have not entered the 'other side'...that being that you are a 'rap music fan' now. Please say it ain't so - I don't want my image of you and your fine posts over the years tarnished for me. I'm quite sure all the Jay-Z's of the world couldn't sit around a campfire and make good 'music' that actually had chords and harmony and get this...a modulation to a new key, etc.

I believe that hip-hop/rap's prevalence in music today does NOTHING to encourage our young people to pick up a legitimate instrument and learn how to create on it. If this trend continues, in 30-50 years (possibly less), there will be no 'songs' to sing, just 'dope beats' to 'bump' to.

Aside from the mega cash that rap generates, I honestly believe that if these 'rap artists' had real legitimate 'musical talent', they'd earn their initial money off of the rap and then quickly move onto something more challenging and musically stimulating - I've yet to see this. A lot of the decent rock guys seemed to get tired of the basic major/minor scales and needed more stimulation, thus moving towards jazz, etc. Those guys seem to be in it for the right reasons: music and the stimulation generated by creating it, not the Benjamins generated by selling it to the sheep.

A few weeks ago I heard the most ridiculous quote from Kanye West. He said "When I want to make new music, the first thing I do is go to the record store and find a good original track I can sample".

That's sort of like saying "When I want to bake a home made pizza, I go to the pizzaria, buy a pizza and put it in the oven". I was once in the studio with a local rapper. This was a studio that excusively recorded rap/hip hop. It was quite an experience. It was the first time that I ever saw a song being sampled, tracked and mixed all in one night. It goes to show you how "hard" they work to have a perfect product at the end. I had always thought that everyone tracked and mixed songs in two sepeprate stages over a period of a few days. They just put everything together in a few hours. That seems to show the rapper philosophy. "Record as much as you can as quickly as you can so we can get the cash as soon was we can." R&B artists are starting to have the same phillosophy. Back in the 70's and 80's, albums were recorded over a period of months and every sound was carefully tracked to get its own sound. Today it's all done ridiculously fast with no care whatsoever. Beyonce recorded her new album in less than 2 weeks.

Mind you, I'm using Paul Rodgers as my yardstick to measure by, so I'm never going to be satisfied.

Actually, I've enjoyed all the Bad Company vocalists they've used: Paul Rodgers, Brian Howe, Robert Hart - all great! Not sure who they are currently utilizing, as I believe Rodgers is still getting rich on that Queen tribute.

Not sure how that Queen thing can work, but apparently it does and I'd imagine Brian May is pleased as pie to work with such an R & B fan that is Mr. Rodgers.

ORIGINAL: Daddy?!

Mind you, I'm using Paul Rodgers as my yardstick to measure by, so I'm never going to be satisfied.

Actually, I've enjoyed all the Bad Company vocalists they've used: Paul Rodgers, Brian Howe, Robert Hart - all great! Not sure who they are currently utilizing, as I believe Rodgers is still getting rich on that Queen tribute.

Not sure how that Queen thing can work, but apparently it does and I'd imagine Brian May is pleased as pie to work with such an R & B fan that is Mr. Rodgers.

Which singer was it on the album with One Night Aint No Loveaffair?? What a great tune!! We did that one in band years ago - cool voice.

ORIGINAL: Daddy?!

What is really sad to me is watching my 12 year old daughter. She took piano lessons for a few years and was quite good. But now she has no interested at all. She listens to rap and some new rock (Panic at the Disco, etc). She had a breif interest in Maroon 5 when that cd was big and I thought there was hope, but now they are old news to her... It's funny, to her anything 6 months old is "old"!!! I guess I feel a little disappointed that I am probably in the best band I have ever been in right now and my daughter has zero appreciation for it. This is what the media has done to the next generation...

But I do think there is hope. We play mostly classic rock and it amazes me that some places we play college kids show up and love what we are doing. It's kind of like back in the 70's when "oldies" from the 50's were cool.

First off, keep on playing, and make sure your family is involved. As she gets older, she will begin to get an appreciation for your music. My daughter went through the same thing. She is now 26. She now plays guitar and sings lead in our group. For a kid growing up, bluegrass (especially gospel) was not the most "cool thing" to listen to. Now as an adult, she can appreciate it. Her primary music of choice is Country, but is starting to listen to some of the older stuff and is realizing the difference between todays "country" and the genuine article.

The recording industry (notice I don't refer to it as the 'music' industry) has done a true injustice to musicians and their audience in their quest for quarterly profits. They have always been a greedy lot, and that has really gotten out of hand (legislation, law suits, Clear Channel, etc). The technology of today allows them to do this. Where I find hope is that the same technology is being used against them. The fact that we can get a studio up and running for pennies is powerful. The ability to post it on the internet for anyone to hear is a boon to the independent artist. In the end, good music will always make its way to the top. People will find it.

One last thought for you. As a parent, there is nothing more satisfying than playing music with your child, regardless of their age. Even my granddaughter (who will be four in January) comes up and 'plays' with the keyboard and autoharp, and is now starting to sing and make up her own songs. That is a joy that money can't buy, and one the 'suits' can't take away.

Just some rambling thoughts from an old man...

ORIGINAL: Karim
A few weeks ago I heard the most ridiculous quote from Kanye West. He said "When I want to make new music, the first thing I do is go to the record store and find a good original track I can sample".

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry at that one!
Wow.