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Old 08-12-2016, 23:01
LaurelandHardy
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Is it just me, or does anyone else get annoyed at the amount of Top 40 chart songs nowadays that have the singing voice auto-tuned? It makes the voice sound "metallic" and I find it hard to listen to.
It seems that you don't even have to be able to sing nowadays to get a chart hit.
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Old 09-12-2016, 00:18
barbeler
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It was ridiculous ten years ago, so still doing it now is doubly pathetic. It seems to have become part of the formula required for getting played as background music in Asda.
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Old 09-12-2016, 00:23
CLL Dodge
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Awful noise.
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Old 09-12-2016, 09:42
mgvsmith
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What makes auto tune any different from reverb or double tracking, they are just recording technologies?
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Old 09-12-2016, 10:02
gashead
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Is it just me, or does anyone else get annoyed at the amount of Top 40 chart songs nowadays that have the singing voice auto-tuned? It makes the voice sound "metallic" and I find it hard to listen to.
It seems that you don't even have to be able to sing nowadays to get a chart hit.
Is it the Auto-Tune software specifically you don't like, or any method to digitally alter someone's voice? Vocal manipulation in music has been happening since at least the 50's.

BIB - hardly nowadays. This has always been the case.
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Old 09-12-2016, 10:32
Inkblot
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Inevitably, if you search for "best use of autotune" there are zillions of results, so it's clearly a topic that has exercised music fans over the years. Here's a good example: http://flavorwire.com/325106/10-auto...that-dont-suck where (IMO) all the songs cited are good and all the songs benefit from intelligent use of autotune.

The textbook example cited in that list would be Woods by Bon Iver, which is a beautiful but slightly disturbing melody made even more unworldly by the judicious use of autotune.
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Old 09-12-2016, 10:48
Dandem
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I quite like autotune as an effect, but obviously a whole song is a bit overkill.

"Tether" by CHVRCHES is a good example of autotune being used really well.
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Old 09-12-2016, 11:44
Charlottesweb
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Vocal manipulation in music has been happening since at least the 50's.
Indeed.

Buddy Holly, Listen to me being one of the first commercial tracks to be written with overdub in mind to create a fuller sound, although Les Paul had been doing it since the 30's.

Every song Lesley Gore released had 3 or 4 versions of her own voice on it in a single track. Gave her a distinctive sound, but it was very different to the live versions.
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Old 09-12-2016, 11:49
gomezz
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I wonder if auto-tuning and the "metallic" sound is responsible for affecting the hearing of younger generations. Based on the radio EQ settings I find when using a shared work van with the treble whacked up to the max into clipping then I suspect so.
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Old 09-12-2016, 14:20
mgvsmith
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Inevitably, if you search for "best use of autotune" there are zillions of results, so it's clearly a topic that has exercised music fans over the years. Here's a good example: http://flavorwire.com/325106/10-auto...that-dont-suck where (IMO) all the songs cited are good and all the songs benefit from intelligent use of autotune.

The textbook example cited in that list would be Woods by Bon Iver, which is a beautiful but slightly disturbing melody made even more unworldly by the judicious use of autotune.
HelloGoodbye's 'Here (In Your Arms) makes great use of auto tune. I just think it's an overly criticised and effectively under-utilised technology.
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Old 09-12-2016, 15:38
barbeler
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What makes auto tune any different from reverb or double tracking, they are just recording technologies?
The big difference is that with auto-tune, you could literally just speak the words into the microphone and they could be turned into a tune, in fact I'm sure this is more or less what happens with many of these fly-by-night 'singers'.

One of my favourite albums of recent years is Night Thoughts by Suede, yet it would have been a lot better without the producer inflicting auto-tune trickery upon it, even if it was comparitively subtle compared to rubbish such as Daft Punk. Just about the only song I can think of where it just about works is in David Bowie's Something In The Air.
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Old 10-12-2016, 07:10
mgvsmith
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The big difference is that with auto-tune, you could literally just speak the words into the microphone and they could be turned into a tune, in fact I'm sure this is more or less what happens with many of these fly-by-night 'singers'.

One of my favourite albums of recent years is Night Thoughts by Suede, yet it would have been a lot better without the producer inflicting auto-tune trickery upon it, even if it was comparitively subtle compared to rubbish such as Daft Punk. Just about the only song I can think of where it just about works is in David Bowie's Something In The Air.
Auto-tune doesn't actually create tunes, it simply corrects slightly off tune pitching. So why is this a big difference? This is the art of making recorded sound. All the instruments are treated and balanced why shouldn't the voice be as well?
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Old 10-12-2016, 21:08
gomezz
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Surely in this day and age they can auto-tune a voice without making it sound peculiar into the bargain?
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Old 11-12-2016, 04:08
scrilla
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What makes auto tune any different from reverb or double tracking, they are just recording technologies?
I think many people latch onto the singer / vocal on a track. Sometimes a person would complain about programmed drums instead of a live drummer on a track but even more of the listening public relate to the vocal, the lyric and the image projected by the vocalist than the entire backing instrumentation and arrangement. So, this could mean that autotune would particularly grate with large amounts of people who wouldn't bat an eyelid at a gated snare or synthesized horn section.

I'm very much into singers as opposed to vocalists (although I do listen to music by people who aren't wonderful singers too!) and to apply autotune to many of these voices would be sacrilege. It's a sound that really grates with me but which rarely effects music I'm interested in, fortunately. I remember hearing a Michael Rose (ex- of Black Uhuru) single about ten years ago where his voice had been autotuned and I was livid.

Despite this, I enjoy Roger Troutman's, Herbie Hancock's and Stevie Wonder's adventures with vocoders... It works well with that style of Funk for me. I wouldn't to hear James Brown autotuned though. Some Hip Hop records use very pitched up vocal samples and that can be hit or miss for me. Works well at times, sometimes makes me think about chipmunks.

Autotune would take me straight out of the mood of a song, just as CGI and ott lighting effects draw me away from a film, or obvious and excessive photoshopping make my eyes reject a photograph. I think I am of an analogue generation.

It's quite a pop thing really, is Autotune - gets used on bright, commercial sounding current music (which I tend not to enjoy) and I can see it fitting in with other many other genres too well. I does get used quite a bit in contemporary Jamaican Dancehall but its not really spoiling all that much that would otherwise have been 'my thing'.

I suspect if a producer were to autotune the vocals of most people I listen to, the artist would go into meltdown. I'd be right with them on that.
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Old 11-12-2016, 04:12
scrilla
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Surely in this day and age they can auto-tune a voice without making it sound peculiar into the bargain?
Always could but it's being used as a signature / effect rather than for pitch correction as originally intended. Perhaps it's addictive like sugar. I haven't developed any taste for it though. I wish to remain prejudiced.
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Old 11-12-2016, 04:34
scrilla
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All the instruments are treated and balanced why shouldn't the voice be as well?
It can be and it is, of course but people make an emotional connection with a voice. Autotune is going to strip away character, soul, flaws from voices that are interesting, compelling or beautiful to listen to.

Gregory Porter, Anita Baker, Dianne Reeves... autotuned? There'd be riots. Skinny wee popstars that are hired to look right in videos and followed by kids; not so much.

I mentioned Herbie / Stevie / the late Roger Troutman re: vocoder usage. All these guys are/were hugely talented; made fantastic music without vocal trickery. What I forgot to mention is that these guys are responsible for their musical output - they are not puppets. Someone doesn't steer their careers like a barely capable pop star.

It may be elitist but people who are musically impressive aren't having their vocals drowned with autotune.
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Old 11-12-2016, 07:49
Heanor_Man31
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Beverley Knight used Autotune in the song In Your Shoes and instances like that are fine because she can sing and it added an interesting effect to the song (in the parts Beverley used it).

My problem with autotune is "singers" who aren't all that great live; because they've used it so often their live performances sound ten times worse.
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Old 11-12-2016, 08:30
tiv
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What makes auto tune any different from reverb or double tracking, they are just recording technologies?
Not quite, reverb, double tracking, echo and even the choice of the recording venue have been used for years to enhance the recording but still require the vocalist to be able to actually sing. Auto tune is used to make someone who can't sing sound as though they can. I agree it does also have 'creative' uses in deliberately distorting voices but even that gets tiresome if used to often.
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Old 11-12-2016, 09:34
mgvsmith
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I do take onboard the idea that some great singers are valued/listened to for the quality of their voice (Gregory Porter, Anita Baker as mentioned and many others). I like virtuoso musicians as much as anyone, be it singers or players.

However, I think everyone has to accept that much of their engagement with music is music in its recorded form and by definition there is an inextricable linkage between technology and music. For example, you simply wouldn't have those extensive record collections without technology.

There has always been this debate about whether records should be as close an analogue for live performance as possible. In the early days of recorded sound that made sense as most people's experience of music was through live performance. But through time, music has been increasingly mediated by technology. Some forms wouldn't exist without electronic technology (electro-acoustic, electropop, ambient, rock music, and much hip-hop which relies on sampling etc.)

Since the 1960s producers have been using the recording studio itself as the musical instrument and I don't see why a technology like auto tune shouldn't be used as part of that bank of technologies. I would like to hear more albums like Kanye's '808s and Heartbreak' or songs like Daft Punk's 'One More Time', Bon Iver's 'Woods' etc.

To answer the original question. Is auto tune used too much in the same way? Yes, maybe it is, so let's hear it used more creatively.
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Old 11-12-2016, 10:28
Inkblot
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I mentioned Herbie / Stevie / the late Roger Troutman re: vocoder usage. All these guys are/were hugely talented; made fantastic music without vocal trickery. What I forgot to mention is that these guys are responsible for their musical output - they are not puppets.
I love Herbie Hancock as a pianist but that fusion stuff with vocoders is really not my cup of tea. A bit like Patrice Rushen, I first heard her playing piano with Jean-Luc Ponty and was quite shocked by how unadventurous her soul hits were. But as you say in both cases those are serious, trained musicians who earned the right to make commercial pop (and in Hancock's case sing into a horrible vocoder) by playing much more demanding music first.

But then Kanye West makes brilliant use of autotune, and his training is as a painter!.
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Old 11-12-2016, 11:41
mgvsmith
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I love Herbie Hancock as a pianist but that fusion stuff with vocoders is really not my cup of tea. A bit like Patrice Rushen, I first heard her playing piano with Jean-Luc Ponty and was quite shocked by how unadventurous her soul hits were. But as you say in both cases those are serious, trained musicians who earned the right to make commercial pop (and in Hancock's case sing into a horrible vocoder) by playing much more demanding music first.

But then Kanye West makes brilliant use of autotune, and his training is as a painter!.
And Brian Eno is one of the most creative (non-) musicians around and he also trained as a visual artist. Ever heard of transferable skills?
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Old 11-12-2016, 12:15
gomezz
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Sometimes a person would complain about programmed drums instead of a live drummer on a track
I hate synth drums except for occasional use for special effect. One reason I dismiss the 80s as the decade music forgot.
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Old 12-12-2016, 22:11
DaisyBill
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What makes auto tune any different from reverb or double tracking, they are just recording technologies?
Don't mind a bit of reverb or double tracking, as long as it's not too obvious and 70's ish. They make the voice sound fuller and deeper.
Auto tune gives a sort of flat metallic tone, IMO which I don't like. It's just a preference.
The one that really comes to mind for me is Rhianna. I want to like her records (she has some great songs and I like her) but the tone of her voice is unpleasant and it just kills it dead for me.
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Old 12-12-2016, 22:46
barbeler
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And Brian Eno is one of the most creative (non-) musicians around and he also trained as a visual artist. Ever heard of transferable skills?
What makes you think Brian Eno is a non-musician? His keyboard skills are self-taught in the same way that probably the vast majority of pop/rock guitarists are self taught. He also has a very fine voice (in its own way), which doesn't require boosting or modifying by trickery of any kind.
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Old 13-12-2016, 01:05
mgvsmith
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What makes you think Brian Eno is a non-musician? His keyboard skills are self-taught in the same way that probably the vast majority of pop/rock guitarists are self taught. He also has a very fine voice (in its own way), which doesn't require boosting or modifying by trickery of any kind.
The non-musician thing is Eno's own designation, not mine. Eno sees the studio as his instrument and he has 'treated' all sorts of instruments including the voice throughout his career. His latest piece 'The Ship' being as good an example as any. Eno has written and presented extensively on this area, I'm simply endorsing his view. I'm something of an Eno fan.

If you want something really authentic, just go outside and listen to the unmediated sound of the natural soundscape. That's as good as it gets.
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