Melodyne > Auto-tune

[Ninja Monkey]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

You are recording a ballad and you hire a very expensive session string quartet. After their flawless execution of your score, you realize you made a mistake in your score and had, let's say 10 wrong notes in the whole thing, including all 4 instruments, so 2 or 3 wrong notes per instrument.

Do you A) rescore it, and hire the quartet again for a full day of recording or B) fix the 10 notes with Melodyne?

whoah whoah WHOAH
stop right there.
...
just kidding.

that sounds like a good example. but why are there wrong notes in the score? shouldn't you have it absolutely where you want it before you hire a string quartet?

to answer your question: it depends. are we doing this for Radiohead, or are we doing this for the flavor of the month?

Singer absolutely NAILS a take, vibe and aggression and feeling wise, but is a bit flat on a single word in the middle of it - a word you can't punch in on. You can spend more time getting him to retrack it until you (and you won't) match the vibe of that perfect take, but in perfect pitch, or you can open up AT or Melodyne and fix it in 30 seconds including buffer/bounce time.

Or, say you want a really huge, 'wall of sound' type vocal for the chorus - you track the guy twice down the middle, harmonies left and right, double the harmonies left and right, and maybe a lower octave of the lead line down the middle. Nobody is going to nail every single one of those, and if the left/right vocals aren't dead on, pitch-wise, they'll through off perception of the lead vocal, regardless of how in-tune it original was. Using AT or Melodyne on a natural setting (not a hard-tune, T-Pain type thing) will get everything gelled and sitting nice with eachother, and editing timing so the syllables match up will make it even better.

um, Kurt Cobain was flat on several words, and Nevermind is one of the biggest selling albums of all time.
/excessive contrariness
I get what you're saying, though. I can definitely see its use in a big harmony kind of setting. The effect it has would seem to be a positive one, and the way you describe it makes me think it would sound like a futuristic version of the female singers on DSoTM. Would that be a generally correct description?

 

[El Dunco]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

I'm really sick of the 'music' on all the big radio stations down my way. Every one of them has a vocal track that has had the following done to it.

1. Run into AT

2. Turn smooth knob all the way off.

Yikes.

Why do people like this crap? It's actually painstakingly obvious little to no effort went into making it. It's minimum effort, maximum profit for the lowest common denominator.

Please take the warnings off foods and power tools, let natural selection take it's course so we don't have to put up with everything sounding like the infamous passage from 'Believe' by Cher.

Thankyou.

 

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

Why do people like this crap? It's actually painstakingly obvious little to no effort went into making it. It's minimum effort, maximum profit for the lowest common denominator.

Actually, the Cher-type AT effect you hear on most rap/hip-hop songs these days is very careful/abusive use of the graphical mode, not at all just turning a knob and leaving it on the track. With a good singer, you can still tell the person has a good voice through it all (see; Imogen Heap, Ellie Goulding, Akon).

 

[El Dunco]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

Actually, the Cher-type AT effect you hear on most rap/hip-hop songs these days is very careful/abusive use of the graphical mode, not at all just turning a knob and leaving it on the track. With a good singer, you can still tell the person has a good voice through it all (see; Imogen Heap, Ellie Goulding, Akon).

The radio stations you have probably play a bit more of a variety of music. Here in Adelaide Australia there's no variety whatsoever, so it didn't take long for me to find it overdone, trite and dated. We're going to look back in a few years time and shudder at the 'auto-tune days'. Like hair metal snare drums. Ke$ha's critics have wondered whether or not she can really sing.

I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to vocals and the Cher type AT just grates me. To me, it just doesn't sound good. It might be my exposure to it, it might be my association with the types of people I know of who listen to it, it might be because the talking heads on the same radio stations that play these songs over and over again are brainless, simpleton hipsters.

I'm sick of it.

It may have once been a careful process, but now there's an iPhone app that can do it.

 

[CapoFirstFret]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

Auto-tune, duh!

 

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

It may have once been a careful process, but now there's an iPhone app that can do it.

You still don't get it. The iPhone app is the automated version, and it doesn't sound as good or accurate as any of the actual songs - that's because the songs are STILL a very carefully calculated (ab)use of the plugin. Nobodies gotten lazy and kept it on auto... that would sound even more retarded.

And once again, you can still tell if a person can sing, regardless of the tuning. Maybe it's because I use the plugin nearly every day and am incredibly familiar with what it sounds like and how it affects vocals, but it really can't turn **** into gold. It can turn **** into passable, and good into great, more or less.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

Painful, yet entertaining.

 

[astrozombie]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

awesome.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

I love my new pluginz too...

 

[ksmith63]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

I love my new pluginz too...

hahahahahahah! That made my day.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

The thing is, I don't like pitch perfect.
I'm weird, I have this thing where I get paranoid over being musically lied to.
Immature? Maybe. But it's just a quirk of mine.
Overly perfected recorded music seems to lose the emotional power that more "organically" recorded music has, at least in my weird little head. I'm all for electronic instrumentation, but I just feel uneasy about a guitar, voice, or piano that's pitch perfect to 1/100th of a cent. I like live music. I like hearing mild imperfections.
There's no such thing as a bad note, just one you don't like. I like the notes other people don't like. Don't ask me why, I wouldn't know.

I really like this post and can, in many ways, relate.

I never really grew out of a desire for authenticity.

The again, most of the music I listen to is so many miles away from your typical tuned/quantized/triggered/lacquered/prefab/modular/plasticized popmetalcountryrockhop record that autotune (or its ilk) just have no place in the same building.

I'm OK with that.

 

[El Dunco]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

You still don't get it. The iPhone app is the automated version, and it doesn't sound as good or accurate as any of the actual songs - that's because the songs are STILL a very carefully calculated (ab)use of the plugin. Nobodies gotten lazy and kept it on auto... that would sound even more retarded.

And once again, you can still tell if a person can sing, regardless of the tuning. Maybe it's because I use the plugin nearly every day and am incredibly familiar with what it sounds like and how it affects vocals, but it really can't turn **** into gold. It can turn **** into passable, and good into great, more or less.

But I DO get it... What you don't get that I find it irritating because they play it non stop on work radio. They even say 'no repeat workdays' and it's nothing but AT warbling. So at that point, I no longer care how calculated the (ab)use is. All I know is that I hate it. It's the annoying gimmick of this time period and I can't wait until everyone gets over it.

 

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

But I DO get it... What you don't get that I find it irritating because they play it non stop on work radio. They even say 'no repeat workdays' and it's nothing but AT warbling. So at that point, I no longer care how calculated the (ab)use is. All I know is that I hate it. It's the annoying gimmick of this time period and I can't wait until everyone gets over it.

You being annoyed with it has absolutely nothing to do with you assuming that since there's an iPhone app that the effect takes no effort, but whatever. You get it, you're awesome, you get a cookie. Cool story, bro.

 

[El Dunco]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

You being annoyed with it has absolutely nothing to do with you assuming that since there's an iPhone app that the effect takes no effort, but whatever. You get it, you're awesome, you get a cookie.

That's not even what I meant. But if I hear anyone using the app within earshot of me, they're losing their iPhone and are not getting it back. Also don't offer me any biscuits ever again. No biscuits. In fact no foods whatsoever.

How would you even get it here before it goes stale?

I'll take an iPhone though. But don't install the T-Pain app.

Cool story, bro

ERROR: improper use. $20 fine (can be paid in full with stale cookies)

Ok. How about this.

Would you be so kind as to enlighten me and demonstrate a tasteful application of the keyboard-like AutoTune effect?

 

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

Would you be so kind as to enlighten me and demonstrate a tasteful application of the keyboard-like AutoTune effect?

Since I never at all defended the artistic merits of the Cher effect, sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Navl4fYI-Zk#t=3m00s

Lead vocal in the last chorus - tasteful and effective, at least IMO.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMX3qv1N37s

Lead vocal in the entire song is hard-tuned, with artifacts all over; entire album has a very atmospheric/space-like/futuristic/whatever vibe and ambience, and the vocals being slightly inhuman really adds to it IMO.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHQWpOrT9yk#t=0m20s

Obviously tuned/glitched/effected vocals to kick off the song.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNGCJzPzAp0

Almost every clean vocal that Cynic does is effected - hard tuned and doubled by a pitch-shifted version of the vocal, one octave up, and one octave down.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

I have never been keen on electronic pitch correction. The problem is that the process that shifts the pitches also shifts the formants.

That Reason parody rack should be renamed the Simon Cowell-iser.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

Can it fix this?

 

[RushOfBlood]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

i love my new pluginz too...

want

 

[sosomething]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

For or against, easy or hard, here's the truth:

Noticeable autotune, super-triggered-sounding drums, and MEGACOMPRESSION are the gated reverb of today.

In ... maybe as little as 5 years... people will laughing at it.

And in another 5 or so, they'll be using it ironically.

Just sayin'.

 

[James Rock]

Re: Melodyne > Auto-tune

For or against, easy or hard, here's the truth:

Noticeable autotune, super-triggered-sounding drums, and MEGACOMPRESSION are the gated reverb of today.

In ... maybe as little as 5 years... people will laughing at it.

And in another 5 or so, they'll be using it ironically.

Just sayin'

Yeh they'll be saying "that sounds so 2010" in the same way we say stuff sound so 80's