The eternal debate for/against auto tune.

[Bob Zaod]

I just skimmed an article where the creator of auto tune won a Grammy. Kind of poked at the embers so to speak on my feelings about this technology. I think it's a great invention. I use it sometimes. Mostly in recordings to perfect them but also when I have a cold or sinus issues and know I am going to have to sing a dozen or so songs. I don't crank the effect but it is on and it is a great safety net for me. To me it's no different than using a guitar pedal that enhances the sound of your guitar. Sure you can kind of emulate a wah pedal with some toggle switch mastery on some guitars but an autowah does it much better. You catch my drift?

I think (well most here might) most folks don't understand how the "non-hardtune" techniques of auto tune work and how it will not make a bad singer into a good singer. Generally it will make a bad singer sound worse because for it to sound natural (what we need to shoot for) you have to be damn close to the note so it can reel it in properly.

So that's my stance on auto-tune.

the article referenced..

Auto-Tune Creator Wins Grammy Award for Groundbreaking Achievements in the Recording Field

The Technical Grammy is awarded to individuals, companies, organizations, or institutions that have significantly impacted the recording field.

www.ultimate-guitar.com

 

[fretworn]

Tools are tools …

How you use them or when is a personal preference.

 

[Bruce]

If a track needs it, go for it.

Same With vocalign

 

[TSJMajesty]

I don't like it. To me, part of being a musician is the interaction between the notes you produce, and you hearing them to know and be able to make those notes hit the pitch you're aiming for. It helps a less-practiced musician sort of cheat. It dilutes the waters of the ones who can truly sing, and gives the ones who are simply mediocre a leg up on the others.

I don't agree that it's like a pedal, because you still need to hit your pitches; A pedal, of the types that 'enhance the sound of your guitar' aren't filling the void between you not being a good enough singer to hit your pitches, and a tool that makes you sound better than you really are. And I realize that's somewhat of a mixed metaphor, but oh well. I don't think the guitar pedal is a very good analogy.

As a tool, I see it as disingenuous to the audience, and the singers who spent hundreds or even thousands of hours refining their vocal skills.

I also see it as a slippery slope that includes the use of backing tracks, lip-syncing, hired-gun studio musicians, Youtubers who record several parts of themselves playing, then string it together to make the recording, then "lip-sync" play along with the pre-recorded track to make the video..., all the way up to AI. They're all "tools", but where does their use cross over into the realm of no longer being an art form created by a person? Which is one of the most amazing things we as humans can create. But it takes work. I think it chips away at what it is to be a 'real musician', for lack of a better term to describe what I mean. IMHO, you should be playing your music, and not be using "tools" to help you hit the right pitch.

I truly value accuracy and stellar chops, whether it be an amazing instrumentalist, or a great vocalist. But a big reason I have such a deep appreciation for them, is because they put in the time & effort, practicing & learning, to be able to do that. Using something that allows one to achieve similar results, but with less work, just doesn't seem fair to me.

I guess overall I feel that anything that enhances your performance the way autotune does, (kinda like steroids in sports), but not in the way effects can make your guitar sound "cooler", just doesn't sit right with me.

 

[Bruce]

I don't like it. To me, part of being a musician is the interaction between the notes you produce, and you hearing them to know and be able to make those notes hit the pitch you're aiming for. It helps a less-practiced musician sort of cheat. It dilutes the waters of the ones who can truly sing, and gives the ones who are simply mediocre a leg up on the others.

I don't agree that it's like a pedal, because you still need to hit your pitches; A pedal, of the types that 'enhance the sound of your guitar' aren't filling the void between you not being a good enough singer to hit your pitches, and a tool that makes you sound better than you really are. And I realize that's somewhat of a mixed metaphor, but oh well. I don't think the guitar pedal is a very good analogy.

As a tool, I see it as disingenuous to the audience, and the singers who spent hundreds or even thousands of hours refining their vocal skills.

I also see it as a slippery slope that includes the use of backing tracks, lip-syncing, hired-gun studio musicians, Youtubers who record several parts of themselves playing, then string it together to make the recording, then "lip-sync" play along with the pre-recorded track to make the video..., all the way up to AI. They're all "tools", but where does their use cross over into the realm of no longer being an art form created by a person? Which is one of the most amazing things we as humans can create. But it takes work. I think it chips away at what it is to be a 'real musician', for lack of a better term to describe what I mean. IMHO, you should be playing your music, and not be using "tools" to help you hit the right pitch.

I truly value accuracy and stellar chops, whether it be an amazing instrumentalist, or a great vocalist. But a big reason I have such a deep appreciation for them, is because they put in the time & effort, practicing & learning, to be able to do that. Using something that allows one to achieve similar results, but with less work, just doesn't seem fair to me.

I guess overall I feel that anything that enhances your performance the way autotune does, (kinda like steroids in sports), but not in the way effects can make your guitar sound "cooler", just doesn't sit right with me.

There are distinct differences between an opera house and a rock show in a bar.

One is real music. It’s not even (supposed to be) amplified. An opera house is an acoustic marvel. I want to hear that, completely unadulterated.

The other is a circus.

If you’re in the circus, make it the biggest, out of the world show you can. I’m playing for drunks and people out way too late. All artistic integrity is out the window.

 

[Bruce]

We recently departed with our keyboard player. Whether he quit or got let go depends who you ask. Keyboard players playing for bar money are tough to find around here.
I threw all his parts on tracks. While I was at it, I threw some backing vox on it too. Same parts we sing already just to thicken it up

One person so far cared. You know who?

The Soundguy. Said it’s too millie vannili for his taste. He did say the tracks sound great.

No one else gave a shit. No owners, no followers of the band. No one. No one even asked what happened to our keyboard player. I hope if they put the guitars on tracks next someone at least asks about me. I mean shit, I could be fucking dead or something.

 

[TSJMajesty]

There are distinct differences between an opera house and a rock show in a bar.

One is real music. It’s not even (supposed to be) amplified. An opera house is an acoustic marvel. I want to hear that, completely unadulterated.

The other is a circus.

If you’re in the circus, make it the biggest, out of the world show you can. I’m playing for drunks and people out way too late. All artistic integrity is out the window.

When did I say anything about an opera house??

 

[Bruce]

When did I say anything about an opera house??

You didn't. I drew the point out not all musical performance has the same goals. You can apply the same principal to a concert orchestra or a small jazz club vs a rock show in most typical settings. Your post encompassed all musical settings, and my view is they are all not one in the same.

A show is a show. A recital is different. Different goals and I have different levels of expectations for each. A rock show, I want to see the circus and be entertained. A concert orchestra I want to hear the million dollar Stradivarius in the first chair completely unadulterated.

 

[Bruce]

Some other nuggets for discussion:

I’d argue playing to tracks makes a band better in different ways. Locking into a click live and still being able to perform is a skill set not everyone can develop so easily, especially drummers.

No amount of melodyne is turning mick jagger into Steve Perry. You have to have an exceptional level of talent to sound that way, tuned or not. There’s but only so much you can do.

Melodyne can be made to create inflections that didn’t exist or get rid of ones that are there. Imagine you get a singer in from across the country and he comes and kills it. Great track. The producer wants to try an idea but now the vibrato isn’t working as well as it did before. You can fix that with melodyne. What if the part changed and the vocal phrasing needs to change? Again, easily fixed with melodyne. You can argue it’s cheating, but we can go back down the slippery slope and call any kind of post editing cheating, too. Nudged a note a few samples? Cheating. Virtually any edit can be looked at as cheating. What it really comes down to is presenting the best possible product to the end user.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Some other nuggets for discussion:

I’d argue playing to tracks makes a band better in different ways. Locking into a click live and still being able to perform is a skill set not everyone can develop so easily, especially drummers.

No amount of melodyne is turning mick jagger into Steve Perry. You have to have an exceptional level of talent to sound that way, tuned or not. There’s but only so much you can do.

Melodyne can be made to create inflections that didn’t exist or get rid of ones that are there. Imagine you get a singer in from across the country and he comes and kills it. Great track. The producer wants to try an idea but now the vibrato isn’t working as well as it did before. You can fix that with melodyne. What if the part changed and the vocal phrasing needs to change? Again, easily fixed with melodyne. You can argue it’s cheating, but we can go back down the slippery slope and call any kind of post editing cheating, too. Nudged a note a few samples? Cheating. Virtually any edit can be looked at as cheating. What it really comes down to is presenting the best possible product to the end user.

Ok, I get that I'm taking a pretty hard stand, and yeah, even I would draw the line regarding what's ok in a recording session at maybe a different point. I just feel that correcting pitch is a bridge too far.

Recording...., it's fine to use tools to make it sound as good as possible, as long as it's not allowing a musician to be more than they truly are. It just feels like cheating, yeah that's the word you used, and that is pretty much how I look at autotune. It's like, and this is taking it way down that slippery slope, I'll admit...., but suppose an artist stitches together a bunch of riffs he can not actually play, then sped them up. So he cannot cover them live. Now the product he sold is not the real thing.

I just think autotune is a version of that. Especially used live.

I mean, when I learned that Joe Perry didn't play the solos on Train Kept A Rollin, yeah I felt like, WTF?? It's one of the reasons I don't like certain genres of music, like some C&W and contemporary pop. It's put together by professional composers and producers, so they can sell records. Abba, for example, was the real deal. It's probably why EVH hated doing all those cover tunes on Diver Down. But I'm getting off topic in trying to explain myself. Like I said, it's just a tool I feel is crossing a line. That's all.

And to take the other side of your rock show vs. a symphony..., I want to see that rock show also unadulterated. Matt Bellamy regularly makes mistakes, and I don't think he even gives a damn. Their performance more than makes up for it.

 

[Bob Zaod]

Ok, I get that I'm taking a pretty hard stand, and yeah, even I would draw the line regarding what's ok in a recording session at maybe a different point. I just feel that correcting pitch is a bridge too far.

Recording...., it's fine to use tools to make it sound as good as possible, as long as it's not allowing a musician to be more than they truly are. It just feels like cheating, yeah that's the word you used, and that is pretty much how I look at autotune. It's like, and this is taking it way down that slippery slope, I'll admit...., but suppose an artist stitches together a bunch of riffs he can not actually play, then sped them up. So he cannot cover them live. Now the product he sold is not the real thing.

I just think autotune is a version of that. Especially used live.

I mean, when I learned that Joe Perry didn't play the solos on Train Kept A Rollin, yeah I felt like, WTF?? It's one of the reasons I don't like certain genres of music, like some C&W and contemporary pop. It's put together by professional composers and producers, so they can sell records. Abba, for example, was the real deal. It's probably why EVH hated doing all those cover tunes on Diver Down. But I'm getting off topic in trying to explain myself. Like I said, it's just a tool I feel is crossing a line. That's all.

And to take the other side of your rock show vs. a symphony..., I want to see that rock show also unadulterated. Matt Bellamy regularly makes mistakes, and I don't think he even gives a damn. Their performance more than makes up for it.

I respect how you feel about it. I will say that if you came to one of my shows you would have no idea I was using it if I hadn't told you. I have recorded myself with and without when I wasn't feeling up to par and and I only heard a difference twice in the 4 songs I recorded and it was spots here and there. Has nothing to do with ability for me. I get severe sinus problems and ear issues sometimes and those don't care that I have a gig tomorrow. I also don't have an issue with using tracks if they are for song accuracy and to enhance a performance. I do draw the line at a certain point. I wouldnt pipe in backing vocals or lead guitar or something that we'd have to mime to. The AT tech that I use is old and to re-iterate if I am not close to a note it will sound horrid. I have never had AT tune the wrong way cos I was far off. I don't "need" it per se, I use it as a safety net.

When I went to see Black Sabbath on The End Tour, I heard Ozzy's autotune kick in a bunch of times during the night BUT overall I had a great time because those little glitches I could hear (none of my friends that went heard it) didn't faze me because the end product was much better than it would have been without it. For me I don't want to hear bad messups or out of tune singing. I have seen/heard some of music's greatest singers go way out of key on stage. Doesn't mean they can't sing. It means they had a bad night. I just eliminate that for me.

 

[TJontheRoad]

It's a tool but not a craft. Prior to autotune, raw talent was the greater path to musical success. Now, autotune allows those who with better industry connections and marketing savvy to have an advantage. Both were always a part of the game, but now raw talent has much more competition and resources being dedicated against those who don't have the same predisposition.

I'm not against it as much as I think the general listening public should be more conscience of it's use and support those who's talent comes first.

 

[Sleezy E]

Ahh.. the age old, "Is it art" debate

Kids these days..

 

[DrewJD82]

The extent of my use of it is when I’m trying to record vocal harmonies and I can’t find the exact pitch I’m going for, I’ll slap WavesTune on and drag the notes up and down until I find the right pitch, then sing that pitch. I absolutely despise the sound of pitch correction. Even when used lightly and it’s something I wish I could unhear because once you know what it sounds like, you hear it on f*cking everything.

It can be used to where I can’t tell; Devin Townsend uses it all the time to fix a note here and there and unless he’s intentionally using it as an effect, I can never tell. But take Killswitch Engage, it’s on all the clean vocals, even subtly, but just enough to let me know it’s there and I find myself listening to those albums far, far, far less than I used to.

But I’m a glutton for punishment. The same way I go for full takes of guitar tracks from start to finish, I’d rather sing something 100x and nail it than just say “F*ck it, slap the auto tune on”. It’s definitely a pride thing that really only I care about because people just don’t care that it’s being used as much as it is, much like backing tracks. My passion for creating/recording music doesn’t really allow for me to take the easy way out. I don’t do it for other people, so if *I* know I took the easy way out and I hear it on a recording, it’s going to bum me out over and over. But I also leave a ton of mistakes in my recordings intentionally, because you just don’t hear it as much these days. All my favorite music has imperfections in it, AIC records are full of vocals that might be just a tiny bit off, harmonies that are imperfect, triple-tracked guitars not dead nuts in time with each other, but they’re so f*cking great regardless. And though I listen to some bands/musicians known for perfection, that’s not the reason I listen to them.

Getting a bit esoteric, I feel there’s an aspect of emotion lost when one is letting auto tune do the hard work; without it a singer is going to put more focus on their intent, delivery and pitch, but give them a safety net and they can go through the motions because the auto tune is going to fix it for them.

I definitely do not see it the same as a wah pedal. That’d be more like chorus/ADT/delay on vocals or using it for the auto tune Cher/T-Pain effect. Effects pedals don’t fix a wrong note. There’s absolutely a line that can be crossed with backing tracks and auto tune where they’re being used as a crutch or to fake a performance and once things cross that line, I’m out.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I think you are going to be hard pressed to see a concert in this day and age without some sort of technological help. It's inevitable.

We don't run any tracks and it's a weird sort of pride. Mainly because I'm proud I am still getting out of doing it because I would be the one it would fall on. Also proud because you can have an adult soda induced sidebar without a trainwreck if you aren't playing to a click gone wrong. But I digress. It's also the reason why I am always bolting some abomination on an otherwise nice guitar. Much like Bruce's situation; our keyboardist/horn section supply basically doesn't exist where I am. I really only dislike painfully obvious autotune on music I don't already like. AKA modern rap music.

 

[Bob Zaod]

It's a tool but not a craft. Prior to autotune, raw talent was the greater path to musical success. Now, autotune allows those who with better industry connections and marketing savvy to have an advantage. Both were always a part of the game, but now raw talent has much more competition and resources being dedicated against those who don't have the same predisposition.

I'm not against it as much as I think the general listing puplic should be more conscience of it's use and support those who's talent comes first.

I'll say (tooting my own horn a bit here) I had a personal relationship with Brad Delp when we were neighbors for a few years. One of rocks greatest all time singers. I have jammed with him a few times. I have been to a ton of his shows when he was still with us whether it was his Beatles Tribute or RTZ or with Barry Goudreau and seen him go off key more than a few times. I think to myself sometimes that if he had used auto tune there wouldnt be any evidence of that. Brad was as perfect a human being as they come and I don't say that because he's dead. It's the plain truth.

For someone who had never seen him sing live and they attended a bad night for him, they'd think he wasn't so great when in fact he was.

 

[TJontheRoad]

I'll say (tooting my own horn a bit here) I had a personal relationship with Brad Delp when we were neighbors for a few years. One of rocks greatest all time singers. I have jammed with him a few times. I have been to a ton of his shows when he was still with us whether it was his Beatles Tribute or RTZ or with Barry Goudreau and seen him go off key more than a few times. I think to myself sometimes that if he had used auto tune there wouldnt be any evidence of that. Brad was as perfect a human being as they come and I don't say that because he's dead. It's the plain truth.

For someone who had never seen him sing live and they attended a bad night for him, they'd think he wasn't so great when in fact he was.

I remember seeing The Who just after Daltrey had throat surgery. He was clearly struggling and they skipped over some songs that were in the upper end of his range. AT would have helped but I appreciated he kept it real.

Again, I'm not against it and I use Melodyne in my recordings when needed.

 

[metropolis_4]

Maybe I’m weird, but I love imperfections on old records. To me, they add character and something that I would miss if it wasn’t there.

I’m not a fan of auto-tune, or quantizing, or any other tricks used to try to create perfection. It’s a personal aesthetic preference.


I once went to a quilt exhibit at an art studio (long story) and there was one wall I always remember where they had a quilt done by an Amish woman next to a quilt done by a woman who was a slave on a plantation.

One was meticulous mathematic/geometric perfection.

The other was lopsided, uneven, not even the same length on each side.

Both were absolutely beautiful.

Personally I preferred the one done by the woman from the plantation, but I could appreciate the merits of both and completely understand why some would like the one done by the Amish woman better.

 

[Bruce]

Some other nuggets for discussion:

I’d argue playing to tracks makes a band better in different ways. Locking into a click live and still being able to perform is a skill set not everyone can develop so easily, especially drummers.

No amount of melodyne is turning mick jagger into Steve Perry. You have to have an exceptional level of talent to sound that way, tuned or not. There’s but only so much you can do.

Melodyne can be made to create inflections that didn’t exist or get rid of ones that are there. Imagine you get a singer in from across the country and he comes and kills it. Great track. The producer wants to try an idea but now the vibrato isn’t working as well as it did before. You can fix that with melodyne. What if the part changed and the vocal phrasing needs to change? Again, easily fixed with melodyne. You can argue it’s cheating, but we can go back down the slippery slope and call any kind of post editing cheating, too. Nudged a note a few samples? Cheating. Virtually any edit can be looked at as cheating. What it really comes down to is presenting the best possible product to the end user.

After

Ok, I get that I'm taking a pretty hard stand, and yeah, even I would draw the line regarding what's ok in a recording session at maybe a different point. I just feel that correcting pitch is a bridge too far.

Recording...., it's fine to use tools to make it sound as good as possible, as long as it's not allowing a musician to be more than they truly are. It just feels like cheating, yeah that's the word you used, and that is pretty much how I look at autotune. It's like, and this is taking it way down that slippery slope, I'll admit...., but suppose an artist stitches together a bunch of riffs he can not actually play, then sped them up. So he cannot cover them live. Now the product he sold is not the real thing.

I just think autotune is a version of that. Especially used live.

I mean, when I learned that Joe Perry didn't play the solos on Train Kept A Rollin, yeah I felt like, WTF?? It's one of the reasons I don't like certain genres of music, like some C&W and contemporary pop. It's put together by professional composers and producers, so they can sell records. Abba, for example, was the real deal. It's probably why EVH hated doing all those cover tunes on Diver Down. But I'm getting off topic in trying to explain myself. Like I said, it's just a tool I feel is crossing a line. That's all.

And to take the other side of your rock show vs. a symphony..., I want to see that rock show also unadulterated. Matt Bellamy regularly makes mistakes, and I don't think he even gives a damn. Their performance more than makes up for it.

heres one to ponder. I’m a BIG fan of Eventide’s quadravox plugin. Gives quite realistic harmonies on my guitar lines.

I didn’t play the harmony. I could have and sometimes I do, but when I get to the mixing or even still in the compositional stage and I put the guitar down, maybe not playing the harmony is disingenuous?

Does any guitar player perfectly intonate every note? I know I don’t and I’ve pitch corrected more than a couple bends in my lifetime. I COULD of course retake the bend only and do a nice clean edit, or I can just correct it. Truth is either way I’m correcting it. 2 means to the same end with one way considerably faster.

 

[la szum]

The extent of my use of it is when I’m trying to record vocal harmonies and I can’t find the exact pitch I’m going for, I’ll slap WavesTune on and drag the notes up and down until I find the right pitch, then sing that pitch. I absolutely despise the sound of pitch correction. Even when used lightly and it’s something I wish I could unhear because once you know what it sounds like, you hear it on f*cking everything.

It can be used to where I can’t tell; Devin Townsend uses it all the time to fix a note here and there and unless he’s intentionally using it as an effect, I can never tell. But take Killswitch Engage, it’s on all the clean vocals, even subtly, but just enough to let me know it’s there and I find myself listening to those albums far, far, far less than I used to.

But I’m a glutton for punishment. The same way I go for full takes of guitar tracks from start to finish, I’d rather sing something 100x and nail it than just say “F*ck it, slap the auto tune on”. It’s definitely a pride thing that really only I care about because people just don’t care that it’s being used as much as it is, much like backing tracks. My passion for creating/recording music doesn’t really allow for me to take the easy way out. I don’t do it for other people, so if *I* know I took the easy way out and I hear it on a recording, it’s going to bum me out over and over. But I also leave a ton of mistakes in my recordings intentionally, because you just don’t hear it as much these days. All my favorite music has imperfections in it, AIC records are full of vocals that might be just a tiny bit off, harmonies that are imperfect, triple-tracked guitars not dead nuts in time with each other, but they’re so f*cking great regardless. And though I listen to some bands/musicians known for perfection, that’s not the reason I listen to them.

Getting a bit esoteric, I feel there’s an aspect of emotion lost when one is letting auto tune do the hard work; without it a singer is going to put more focus on their intent, delivery and pitch, but give them a safety net and they can go through the motions because the auto tune is going to fix it for them.

I definitely do not see it the same as a wah pedal. That’d be more like chorus/ADT/delay on vocals or using it for the auto tune Cher/T-Pain effect. Effects pedals don’t fix a wrong note. There’s absolutely a line that can be crossed with backing tracks and auto tune where they’re being used as a crutch or to fake a performance and once things cross that line, I’m out.

Totally. It feels like a Pop Music Production standard that people want to paste on top of all kinds of music.

Few consider that Jazz and Blues singers don't use AT (pretty much not at all), because sliding into and out
of notes is what they do. Their artistry and skill is antithetical to what AT does. They need to start under a note
and slide up to pitch, or fall off of a note and use their voice like it is a fretless bass, enriching the vocal
performance with those embellishments. Kind of like Synth or Horns with the Glissando thing. Great
vocalists also Glissando. AT no likey.