The eternal debate for/against auto tune.

[la szum]

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.

Michael Jordan didn't hit every game winning shot he took. His fans watched him fail repeatedly, but don't really
remember those moments for some reason.

I feel that this false idol/ideal of "perfection" is so much of what is wrong with this world. First, and most important,
it is unrealistic. Second, it is delusional. Third, people are enslaved to the delusional unrealism.

From teenage girls feeling like they have to fuck themselves up in the face before they have even matured, to husbands
not being able to get off with their wife, because she doesn't look like a photoshopped porn star. The consequences of
this manicured "perfection" are toxic, debilitating, and deadly. And it all starts with a little AT at the local pub.

 

[DrewJD82]

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.

Hahahah I’d want to hear some jazz runs ran through auto tune exactly one time for the comedy then never again.

 

[la szum]

Hahaha! Where's Ella or Etta when you need them?


I suspect a lot of that Jazz and Blues vocal emotiveness is at the core of what Rock singing ended up becoming, no?

 

[TSJMajesty]

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.

Freddie Mercury!

 

[vino_buono]

VERY interesting topic and replies above. I am mostly with @TSJMajesty on this. But I can see the different sides. The way I look at it is that live music is eventually entertainment. But different types of people like different types of entertainment, especially musician vs non-musician.

Me, a guitarist who has listened to a lot of music and played his own share, I want to hear the musicans *just* perform. I am more than open to forgive their mistakes -- everyone can have a bad night or just hit a bad note (if a singer targets a note they just don't have in them, that's a bit different ). I appreciate the musicians performing without a safety net. I don't give a damn about the light show, mega-screen and all that. I like the Springsteen & E-streeet band style, no frills and the mistakes are NOT corrected even on the live record.

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.

^^^^ This, for me. Anything else does not add to my entertainment.

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.

^^^^ This would have gotten me really disappointed. What's more, it would have completely killed my engagement in the show.

On the other hand, I respect musicians who gig very regularly or do this for a living and gets a little help on problematic days. I mean, Sabbath or Bon Jovi do not need to perform for a living any more, most active musicians indeed do. For artists selling tickets, I think I'd like to know beforehand what kind of show I am going to see, and decide accordingly whether to go or not. I fully understand people who mostly want to see the band and hear the music, nothing wrong with that. Me, I want to hear the band play.

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.

^^^^ Now, I believe this works well with most crowds, if not overdone. Most people coming to my cover band's gigs would not realize or care about backing tracks, autotune, ... I am against doing that in my band but I understand there are advantages. So be it. Well, we do play a motorbike roar at the beginning of Born to be Wild, to be fully honest...

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.

This can quickly become a phylosophical discussion. Aside from the ability needed to play to a click, by adding more and more backing tracks, auto-tune, lip-syncing and so on, at some point it a show may become almost the same as listening to a CD with the artist doing all the moves onstage. So, up to what point is this still "honest"? Does it even need to be honest? My daughter would not notice or care about the backing tracks. I would very much have a trio rearrange their covers in an original way using just the few instruments available, rather than adding backing tracks. But I know I have a somewhat rigid stance on this.

 

[Bruce]

VERY interesting topic and replies above. I am mostly with @TSJMajesty on this. But I can see the different sides. The way I look at it is that live music is eventually entertainment. But different types of people like different types of entertainment, especially musician vs non-musician.

Me, a guitarist who has listened to a lot of music and played his own share, I want to hear the musicans *just* perform. I am more than open to forgive their mistakes -- everyone can have a bad night or just hit a bad note (if a singer targets a note they just don't have in them, that's a bit different ). I appreciate the musicians performing without a safety net. I don't give a damn about the light show, mega-screen and all that. I like the Springsteen & E-streeet band style, no frills and the mistakes are NOT corrected even on the live record.


^^^^ This, for me. Anything else does not add to my entertainment.



^^^^ This would have gotten me really disappointed. What's more, it would have completely killed my engagement in the show.

On the other hand, I respect musicians who gig very regularly or do this for a living and gets a little help on problematic days. I mean, Sabbath or Bon Jovi do not need to perform for a living any more, most active musicians indeed do. For artists selling tickets, I think I'd like to know beforehand what kind of show I am going to see, and decide accordingly whether to go or not. I fully understand people who mostly want to see the band and hear the music, nothing wrong with that. Me, I want to hear the band play.




^^^^ Now, I believe this works well with most crowds, if not overdone. Most people coming to my cover band's gigs would not realize or care about backing tracks, autotune, ... I am against doing that in my band but I understand there are advantages. So be it. Well, we do play a motorbike roar at the beginning of Born to be Wild, to be fully honest...



This can quickly become a phylosophical discussion. Aside from the ability needed to play to a click, by adding more and more backing tracks, auto-tune, lip-syncing and so on, at some point it a show may become almost the same as listening to a CD with the artist doing all the moves onstage. So, up to what point is this still "honest"? Does it even need to be honest? My daughter would not notice or care about the backing tracks. I would very much have a trio rearrange their covers in an original way using just the few instruments available, rather than adding backing tracks. But I know I have a somewhat rigid stance on this.

The only time it’s not honest if the band doesn’t show up to play at all. No one is promised a recital. It’s a show. Lights, fog, goofy clothes and a performance.
We started using tracks to not be held hostage by our ex keyboard players work schedule. I put all his parts on tracks and we tried it. After working out the kinks, it went really well. Put some backing vox on there too to thicken things up. It sounds great.
We play some big keyboard songs too. Jump. Huge solo in there. No one, and I mean no one gives a shit there’s no keyboard player on stage. Hell, in half the bands we cover, the keyboard player is often offstage anyway.

 

[James Freeman]

Autotuned vocals, software drums and bass, guitar copy pasted in small riff chunks.
Might as well deepfake vocals if the band doesn't show up.
Fuck it, AI the entire thing.

That's some next level Milli Vanilli shit.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Autotuned vocals, software drums and bass, guitar copy pasted in small riff chunks.
Might as well deepfake vocals if the band doesn't show up.
f**k it, AI the entire thing.

That's some next level Milli Vanilli s**t.

 

[DrewJD82]

The only time it’s not honest if the band doesn’t show up to play at all. No one is promised a recital. It’s a show. Lights, fog, goofy clothes and a performance.
We started using tracks to not be held hostage by our ex keyboard players work schedule. I put all his parts on tracks and we tried it. After working out the kinks, it went really well. Put some backing vox on there too to thicken things up. It sounds great.
We play some big keyboard songs too. Jump. Huge solo in there. No one, and I mean no one gives a s**t there’s no keyboard player on stage. Hell, in half the bands we cover, the keyboard player is often offstage anyway.

The point right after this kind of set up would be my cutoff point. I have a ton of synths/keys in my music but not every song and there’s no way in hell I’m going to find a keyboard player down here that would want to sit out half the songs or that’s even in my age range and would want to play heavy music, so I wouldn’t have a problem putting the synths on tracks. I use a lot of choir/orchestra sections in my songs, same thing for that.

It’s when I start hearing guitars coming through the PA when no one onstage is playing those parts that it starts cheapening the experience for me, or lead vocals. Hahahha I played a gig down in Hialeah on a farm, all brutal death metal bands and the kind of guys who are “trve” metal heads. Last band that played was using tracks for keys and when they bust out my favorite Fear Factory song I jumped right up to the front of the band to throw my horns and be all drunk and happy. Singer automatically turns his back on me and walks away, which was odd because he didn’t move the entire set. He turned around and went to go sing, didn’t get the mic up to his face close enough and the vocal came through the PA. This is not the kind of gig that would be welcomed at and when I went to my buddy running sound and pointed out the vocalist‘s channel wasn’t lighting up, he curiously muted their backing track channel and there goes all the vocals and keys. He just shook his head and kept muting the channel for a second at a time, since the whole band was coming out of the PA, everyone could tell they were using tracks for the vocals. Never saw that band again.

 

[vino_buono]

The only time it’s not honest if the band doesn’t show up to play at all. No one is promised a recital. It’s a show. Lights, fog, goofy clothes and a performance.
We started using tracks to not be held hostage by our ex keyboard players work schedule. I put all his parts on tracks and we tried it. After working out the kinks, it went really well. Put some backing vox on there too to thicken things up. It sounds great.
We play some big keyboard songs too. Jump. Huge solo in there. No one, and I mean no one gives a s**t there’s no keyboard player on stage. Hell, in half the bands we cover, the keyboard player is often offstage anyway.

I get that. For the "promise" part, if a show is advertised as "live music", I like to think it is mostly played live, but you can also read that as "at least someone is playing live". It boils down to individual expectations.

For the type of shows I like to attend, I'd be fine with the use of tracks for some background keyboard parts, but no backing vocals and no lead keyboard parts as in Jump. But I do realize things are changing and the use of tracks has very little to do with the technical prowess of the players. My former guitar teacher (a hell of a player) plays in a band where they put up a nice show with lights, costumes, backing tracks and all that. Technology enables to create shows that once were not possible; perfectly fine, just not my thing.

 

[Bruce]

I get that. For the "promise" part, if a show is advertised as "live music", I like to think it is mostly played live, but you can also read that as "at least someone is playing live". It boils down to individual expectations.

For the type of shows I like to attend, I'd be fine with the use of tracks for some background keyboard parts, but no backing vocals and no lead keyboard parts as in Jump. But I do realize things are changing and the use of tracks has very little to do with the technical prowess of the players. My former guitar teacher (a hell of a player) plays in a band where they put up a nice show with lights, costumes, backing tracks and all that. Technology enables to create shows that once were not possible; perfectly fine, just not my thing.

I’m in a situation where the tracks:
Play better. My old keyboard player made a lot of mistakes and his sounds were so so.
Look better. The man looked like he was having a root canal done. He was chronically unhappy. Not a bad guy, just the type of person where you can see the storm cloud follow them. This translates poorly for a show. Far worse than tracks.
Availability. My tracks are always ready to play and for free. There just aren’t many keyboard players around here and even fewer willing to play for bar money. We do more than bar gigs but we have many bar gigs too.
So, in our situation it just makes sense. I’m moving to Florida in a year, if they throw tomatoes at me I’ll switch things up. We do have an ad out for a keyboard player, but thanks to how we are doing things we can wait for the right person to come along, if ever.

Edit: a tracks power user can sync their light show to the track. This is something I have not tried yet. I don’t think I can run a daw session off an iPad and would need at least a laptop but the thought intrigues me.

 

[Bruce]

The point right after this kind of set up would be my cutoff point. I have a ton of synths/keys in my music but not every song and there’s no way in hell I’m going to find a keyboard player down here that would want to sit out half the songs or that’s even in my age range and would want to play heavy music, so I wouldn’t have a problem putting the synths on tracks. I use a lot of choir/orchestra sections in my songs, same thing for that.

It’s when I start hearing guitars coming through the PA when no one onstage is playing those parts that it starts cheapening the experience for me, or lead vocals. Hahahha I played a gig down in Hialeah on a farm, all brutal death metal bands and the kind of guys who are “trve” metal heads. Last band that played was using tracks for keys and when they bust out my favorite Fear Factory song I jumped right up to the front of the band to throw my horns and be all drunk and happy. Singer automatically turns his back on me and walks away, which was odd because he didn’t move the entire set. He turned around and went to go sing, didn’t get the mic up to his face close enough and the vocal came through the PA. This is not the kind of gig that would be welcomed at and when I went to my buddy running sound and pointed out the vocalist‘s channel wasn’t lighting up, he curiously muted their backing track channel and there goes all the vocals and keys. He just shook his head and kept muting the channel for a second at a time, since the whole band was coming out of the PA, everyone could tell they were using tracks for the vocals. Never saw that band again.

Yea I’m definitely not into miming any of my parts. I think there are 2 songs total there are any guitars at all on tracks and that’s because both parts are just that important and they keyboard player used to play one of them but it’s ambient shit, not like someone is obviously missing. Is This Love by whitesnake is one of them. That clean guitar is just so important in the choruses. I can’t do both.

Only vocals going on on my tracks are backing vocals. I try to pepper in their volumes tastefully. I also try and match the track itself exactly. I’m considering removing the canned vox and replacing with our own on the tracks as things progress. Doing this video work it’s what I’m doing for the videos now.

 

[Bruce]

Autotuned vocals, software drums and bass, guitar copy pasted in small riff chunks.
Might as well deepfake vocals if the band doesn't show up.
f**k it, AI the entire thing.

That's some next level Milli Vanilli s**t.

On the flip side, nothing better than getting tracks of drums that sound like wet cardboard and the band sending a great recorded drum sound and saying “make the drums sound like THIS”.

Yea, I’m reaching for Slate Trigger.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

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.

I find it weird how nobody ever questions the use of compression on vocals to compensate for less-than-perfecr dynamic control; or the use of EQ on a vocal to make up for someone not having spent the time developing their tone such that it can cut through a dense mix; or reverb to cover up all sorts of technical vocal flaws, but the moment someone reaches for a tuning algorithm, people get all high and mighty about "real musicianship".

 

[Gearzilla]

Rush used triggered samples, and I’ve seen Steve Howe roll with backing tracks instead of having other musicians on his solo tour.

…and it was fine.

I don’t hold all singers to the same standards so if someone is using pitch correction I pretty much know that’s there thing.

As far as guitarists go they should be able to play their own material all the way through.

 

[vino_buono]

I find it weird how nobody ever questions the use of compression on vocals to compensate for less-than-perfecr dynamic control; or the use of EQ on a vocal to make up for someone not having spent the time developing their tone such that it can cut through a dense mix; or reverb to cover up all sorts of technical vocal flaws, but the moment someone reaches for a tuning algorithm, people get all high and mighty about "real musicianship".

Just my opinion, but we routinely use compression, eq and reverb on guitar for exactly the same purposes, and I doubt many people would find it unnatural. Now what if the guitar player used some auto-tune because they can not bend a note properly? I tend to look at that as if a computer were playing the instrument; if it gets to the point where the musician is irrelevant, it becomes just a show, not a concert.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Autotune yes/no brings up (at least it should):

- MIDI Sequencing yes/no?
- Multitracking yes/no?
- Digital multitracking/sequencing yes/no?
- Sampling yes/no?
- Punch, cut, copy, paste yes/no?
- Quantizing yes/no?
- iZotope Ozone yes/no?

Plus maybe several others.
If any of the above is fine with you, Autotune would be something you could not be against, at least given any logical stringency. It's just another tool from pretty much the same category. Alternatively you'd have to draw a line. But where? Sequencing and multitracking is fine but quantizing isn't anymore? EZ Drummer making real drummers jobless is fine but Autotune (making decent singers jobless, kinda at least, you get the idea...) isn't?

For me, in the end, it all boils down to taste. I usually just can't stand noticeable Autotune "artefacts" (which they even aren't as they're enhanced intentionally). But I also can't stand, say, all those overproduced metal drums with everything moved to the grid and being replaced by samples. And if I was to record an album on my own (read: originals), I would ask a real drummer, a real bass player and real everythings whenever realistic sounds are what's needed.
I do however like certain electronic genres a lot and absolutely don't mind listening to (and creating) music that could likely not performed by humans. And it's also fine to mix and match everything.
As said, it comes down to taste.

And well, calling Mr. Obvious: Especially these days, in the entire music business (or what's left of it), time is money. Hence Autotune = money. So there's that, too.

 

[Bruce]

And if I was to record an album on my own (read: originals), I would ask a real drummer, a real bass player and real everythings whenever realistic sounds are what's needed.

And you can get named players for reasonable money these days too.

 

[Orvillain]

Yes it's a tool.

But it's also cancer.


A cancerous tool.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Just my opinion, but we routinely use compression, eq and reverb on guitar for exactly the same purposes, and I doubt many people would find it unnatural. Now what if the guitar player used some auto-tune because they can not bend a note properly? I tend to look at that as if a computer were playing the instrument; if it gets to the point where the musician is irrelevant, it becomes just a show, not a concert.

Why do we find it unnatural? If an acoustic guitar player (or singer) doesn't have dynamic control and requires compression, he's never going to be able to sit in on an acoustic jam or accompany a singer acoustically, no matter how good their pitch/bend control is.

I've done pitch correction much worse situation than simply fudging a slightly out of tune bend. I had three takes of a guitar solo we were trying to choose from. One I actually ended on a fret different than I intended, but otherwise it had more energy and drive than the others. "You're going to hate me for this, but imma use that first one and pitch shift that last note and use it". I told him I was actually in complete agreement. Why NOT use the take that most clearly makes the artistic impact we were shooting for?

Have you ever taken vocal lessons? My experience has been that at least as much time is spent focusing on each of tone, dynamic control, and projection, as on pitch. Those are hugely important parts of being a skilled singer.

Loads of singers have such bad dynamic control that engineers have to go in and clip the vocal take up into snippets and gain adjust each one BEFORE they even get to compression.

We frequently use signal processing to make up for technical limitations of performers. Folks overdo it with all of them - compression to the point the life is taken out of a vocalist's performance; EQ to the point they sound like they have ice-breath, pitch adjustment to the point that you miss the singer no longer has personality at all. But I don't see why subtle use of any of them is any better/worse than the others