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Perfect Pitch for Those Without It
airrage writes "Sometimes technology is a good thing, and sometimes it ends up in a hardware device called an autotuner. Apparently, it allows real-time pitch correction. They are actually being used at concerts. I think we all realize that some singers sound different -- much different -- live than they do on CD's, but this just seems so, so, what's the word: fake?"
It really comes as no surprise that music during concerts is altered to some extent. Most musicians are marketed not for their true musical talent, but for their attractiveness, or whatever other marketable features the record companies can exploit.
This seems like a perfectly natural progression. Technology has long been used to enhance human beings. One example is the use of steroids to make the body stronger. Of course, in that instance, there are negative side effects. Using this auto-tuner isn't going to hurt your body, so why not? Now bring on the bionic limbs!
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
I would prefer pitch correction done on the fly over some asshat lip-syncing to a recording any day. I'm not sure I'd favor it over a real performance, but I'd have to compare the two.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Cummon... almost everyone in the modern entertainment industry owes their life to silicon(e).
The government's moral compass is controlled by GPS.
In times of crises, they alter it to suit their needs.
don't The Simpsons have prior art on this one?
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
I can see using a tool like this to get the perfect studio recording -- especially after getting a great take with just a few bum notes.
Using it during a performance, however, is just cheesy. Learn to sing in tune, please.
A concert where the artist sounds great, or a concert where the artist sounds terrible? If I pay $50 per seat, I'd like to hear something I'll enjoy, whether it is slightly modified or not. Bad music isn't fun.
Apparently, it allows real-time pitch correction. They are actually being used at concerts.
Gee, Antares Auto-Tune has been out now for what, 6 years? I have a demo of it on my old OS9 Mac, and you can get a hardware version.
Usually it's used subtley to "clean-up" vocals but Cher really abused it on that "Believe" song. And also Madonna has used it recently on some song and Squarepusher (Red Hot Car). Like the article says it's used a LOT. So are a lot of other effects like reverb, compression, "aural exciters", etc.
It's just a tool like any other. The big-name recording industry completely abuses and sanitizes every track with endless re-takes, splices, effects, equalization, compression, etc., etc., this is just another way to make the tracks squeaky-clean, bland, and lifeless! If you like that "well-produced" sound this should be no problem.
I love this quote from a producer: "It's satanic.. Digital vocal tuning is contributing to the Milli Vanilli-fication of pop music. It's a shame that people just do it by rote.
Uhm, dude, the whole recording industry is satanic .. have you bought any
records lately? MilliVanilli-fication is the norm! I think if fans knew just
how awful most performers are without the technology, they'd wonder why the engineers name isn't on the front of the album!
PS: "Perfect pitch" to me means "being able to identify notes by ear without a reference" rather than "being able to sing on-key" (though I guess the two usually go together).
If you're going to an arena show to see a display of musicianship, expect to be disappointed.
If you just want to turn off your brain and have fun, then you will be right at home, because this is exactly what that kind of music is crafted for.
Yeah, but they had to rely on tape - which broke in the middle of one of their 'concerts' giving away their secret. This is a device that can make my dying cat sound like Celine Dion.
oh wait...
"A revolution without dancing is... a revolution not worth having"
should be to completely silence Britney Spears. I only wanna see her, not hear her!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
Just thought I'd mention that my shower seems to have a similar effect and the cost is zero since I need an apartment anyway! Add the cost of water and I have a make-shift autotuner for about twenty-five cents an hour....
As somebody who actually HAS perfect pitch, I think these things are awful. But then again, this isn't anything new in the music world; people have been altering pitch in the studio for years, even before "autotune". They just did it manually. This is just the next step.
Is it misrepresenting the abilities of the singer? Perhaps. I think people should just find musicians who have the looks AND the abilities.
There's plenty of good music that comes from people who can't sing. I can imagine technology like this greatly improving the diversity of music because now people who can't sing well naturally can still make good music.
I'd much rather listen to someone using one of these with original, creative music than listen to someone with great singing talent, but singing crappy cookie-cutter music.
So let's start putting this in the hands of the creative people who can't sing.
if(!cool) exit(-1);
Signed,
Lieutenant L. T. Smash
(not spell-checked)
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
They have perfect pitch.. ALL of them... I believe it has something to do with how their language is spoken.
Anyone who thinks that notes can and should be limited to the 12 chromatic pitches of the equal-tempered music system is full of crap. Read a good book on the history of tuning systems. I can detect an autotune-processed track within seconds of hearing it, due to the utter piano-like lack of pitch sensitivity and expression.
The saddest of sad is when you hear autotune processing on the voice of an artist who understands how to use the many subtleties of pitch, yet bows to the record company execs by submitting to the autotuner.
Autotuners have been around and in use for a few years now. Aside from the obvious use of being able to correct pitch on a performance, they also have other uses.
For example, autotuners can be used to change pitch during performance in ways that vocalists simply cannot. A good example (well, most people will know it anyhow) of an autotuner and vocoder used in combination is in Cher's song "Believe"
Antares Autotune is probably the most popular autotuner, and is said to be what Cher's track actually used. It's available in DirectX, VST, and several other versions and has a free trial version for anyone who's interested.
My band used an autotuner plugin when we recorded last year. My singer doesn't have a particularly great voice, but autotune allowed us to spend much less time doing take after take until he hit all the notes right. Yes, it's 'cheating', and 'fake'... but so is recording the same vocal track for two days until all the notes are perfect. There were places where the autotune was too much, and would digitize his voice.. these situations required us to go back and have him re record. In the end, it simply polished off our album a bit more, and unless you are an audiophile you probably can't even tell.
It's because we're all downloading MP3's from P2P networks, the RIAA can't afford to pay for artists that can sign in tune!
---
Lousy rotten karmic retribution.
...Don't fake it.
I don't care if people want to "fix" their errors on an album, that doesn't bother me - I can accept an album as a "finished" work of art and enjoy its (presumeably enhanced) merits regardless of the unenhanced talents of the musician (or composer, where that differs from the performer).
However, I go to concerts to see the "raw" work, with no enhancements. If an artist lacks the talent to actually reproduce their work (within reason) in that environment, they should not tour. Simple as that. Selling me the same thing I could have on CD (minus the masses of sweating fans packed in like sardines, $3.50 pints of Aquafina, and idiots who consider a concert a good place for impromptu karaoke) for about $80 less (per pair) does not make me happy.
As an (almost) unrelated aside, another concert peeve of mine - Volume. I went to a concert this past weekend (Tori Amos in Boston) where the performer did well, the set list appealed to me, and the environment in general seemed just about perfect. However, even with earplugs (a must for anyone who actually goes to concerts to enjoy the music), they had the volume cranked so high that the bass completely distorted everything else (as in, I could audibly detect clipping of the vocals at every new bass note or percussive event). This does NOT make for satisfied (much less "happy") concert-goers.
Many singers are not always in tune. Go back and listen to some old Beatles albums like Revolver ... the auto-tuner would have a field day fixing all the slightly out of tune instruments and vocals. But would it make an obvious classic album more classic? Quite the opposite.
Part of the charm of vocals is that they are organic, even more so in a day and age where every single instrument can be synthesized and manipulated. Being in tune is overrated. You can't "fix" a Johnny Rotten scream. There's no point in auto-tuning rap music. Listen really carefully to some of your favorite singers. Not everything is a matter of being in tune. Some of it's confidence, "presence", knowing how to convey emotion through subtle details.
The worst thing that can happen as a result of auto-tuning is people start preferring cookie cutter, perfectly in tune vocals. That they start thinking N'Sync and Britney and Shania Twain are the apex of pop music. Thankfully I don't see this happening.
perfect pitch is NOT the ability to sing in tune, it is the ability to know the pitch of a tone w/o a reference.
rather than to keep the artist in tune it can have it's uses.
I work part time for a small record company as a producer and I don't like using autotune to correct duff notes. If the take is crap I'll get the singer to do it again, and then splice together various different takes to make a final vocal. With a decent mike, nice valve-preamp and a decent (outboard, not software) compressor you can get most takes to sit well with each other. Luckily, the singers we have signed up to us were all chosen on talent first, looks second (they're hot, however) so often the time is taken on getting the feel 100% rather than getting notes in tune.
Where autotune can be used is as a special effect, with a slow re-tune rate and strict tuning you can get the voice to sound somewhat as if it were being put through a Vocoder (though it sounds subtly different, much less harsh and robotic). You can get the voice to do some really wierd things that you know voices aren't meant to do.
If used sparingly and only on the kinds of tracks that warrant that kind of sound AutoTune is the mutts nuts.
Cher's believe wouldn't have been the hit it was if it didn't have that quirky vocal (there's still some debate over whether this was autotune with extreme settings or a vocoder).
I am NaN
Fake Boobs?
.sigs are for post^Hers.
A-ha! That explains King Diamond!!!
Anyone ever listen to that dude? Back in the late 80s? I think he had a vocal 'range' of over 8 octaves..
It was either this device, or some type of testicle clamp..
Blue Man Group's rock concert "The Complex" is a parody of rock concert. At the beginning of the show, a voice comes on like this (I'm paraphrasing):
Thank you for purchasing the rock concert manual. This manual will teach you to how host a rock concert. The most important thing for performers is choreography. Will the advent of autotuners and backing tracks, performers can now focus all their attention on dancing. You no longer have to worry about things like hitting the right notes or showing emotion. Start by loosening your hips. Now, lets try this simple beat...
They performed this on Leno recently as well. It is quite funny how they make fun of all the rock concert cliches.
It would be interesting to take some of those really god-awful American Idol contestants and run their voices through one of these things, see what happens.
If I had one, I'd have to have one with little robot arms that it could throw up in disgust when I tried to sing.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
Here's a related read. It's long, but very entertaining. Of special interest is the hilarious account of how the drum tracks for an entire album were edited at great expense, because the drummer couldn't play the drums to save his life.
It's overuse and misuse. I have a copy of Auto-Tune 3 (yes, a REAL bought and paid for copy) but you'd never know it from listening to the music I record.
Here's a real-life scenario: I'm recording a singer who is pretty good but there's one note that they can't quite hit today. We could scrap the session and do it again later - even good singers have trouble hitting all the notes all of the time - but that will cost the client hundreds of $$$. Alternatively I can fix the one note that's not quite there. I wouldn't try to correct every little shaky bit of intonation in the entire song, just the one that's really sour. What would you do?
Or how about this? Got a great bass player laying it down. Good tone, good part, one note played near the end of the neck is a bit off because the intonation of the instrument needs adjusting. Would you fix the note with Auto-Tune or scrap the session ($$$) and ask the bass player to get the intonation fixed? I'd do the expedient thing - fix the note AND ask the bass player to get some work done on the instrument before the next session.
What drives me crazy is the obvious warbling and perfectly pitched effect you hear on all of the modern pop and Nashville country CDs. Nobody can sing like that, it sounds like a machine. That's misuse of what can be a very subtle and powerful tool.
"Clean up the air and treat the animals fair" - Captain Beefheart
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
I propose that there are two types of performers who use these: The ones with utterly no talent (most of the ones listed in the article), and the ones who may have talent, but are too busy dancing and performing acrobatics onstage to nail their notes. (not that an athletic performance is a sign of talent, but Cher played in town the other night, and I can't write her off as utterly talentless.)
So we have talentless shills, and visual performers who don't focus 100% on their music onstage. Are we REALLY causing any damage with them, or for that matter, are we very interested in listening to the singing from these people?
Somehow I don't see Happy Rhodes using one of these.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
From Antares' site:
Female singer before
and after processing.
Lots more at the product info page.
...in the wrong direction.
Back in the 80's(???) Asia admitted to spending more time dubbing in fixes then in recording the album.
Sammy Hagar admitted that on the VH Fornication album, "Man on a Mission" was the only song sung straight thru.
Ex lead singer from SoundGarden, (name escapes me) now AudioSlave singer says its needed given how hard he pushes his voice every night.
And as for getting what's on the CD, Gene Simmons
admitted to a bit of tinkering on one of their live albums. Seems they upped the crowd a bit.
(Source VH1)
Unless you listen to classical, or Jazz, don't expect to hear the CD played live, it just doesn't happen anymore. Which in most cases is really sad.
no, they got caught(well, they could have covered it totally up actually.. and nobody would have noticed EVER if they hadn't been so succesful).
and anyways, if they had actually sang on the record it wouldn't have been a big deal at all, most of such acts do so. the music is already just a recording(so some recording is necessary) and all of the performance is just dancing(that is very physically demanding, so it would make good singing impossible anyways). playback also saves a lot of soundchecking too so a big name artist can make a quickie(pr gig) at some freebie concert easily.
it's a real piece of comedy though, the whole milli vanilli scandal. i just wish more things like that happened.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
From Discover magazine, a biology study indicates the tonal orientation of their languge gives a large number of them perfect pitch. It also indicates that perfect pitch can be learned given the appropriate environment. So while the parent post may look like a troll, the moderator didn't do their research.
ehintz
There's two ways to view things like this. Either as a tool to enhance something (if you can't sing, for example), which is the intended use... Or to be used as an instrument in its own right.
The latter gets my vote a lot more. Before you get upset and hope it never takes off, just think: Mellotrons haven't replaced orchestras, drum machines haven't replaced drummers, and samplers haven't replaced every other instrument in the history of time. They all sound good in their own right, not as clones of other things.
I seem to recall from a behind the music that it was on vinyl, and the record had a scratch, so it got stuck in ~1 second loop. Was kinda funny seeing them trying to play it off seeing the same half line 5 times and then one of them runs off the stage and the song starts going again.
Apparently, it allows real-time pitch correction. They are actually being used at concerts.
Wonderful! About time they came up with something to make pop music marginally more tolerable.
Now if they could just integrate this technology in consumer karaoke machines, I'd be truly grateful.
Since then, the line between musicianship and show business grew a little clearer through the use of recording and visual technology, enabling both poor performers/good singers and poor singers/good performers to have their 15 minutes of fame. We ended up seeing a lot of people noting the differences between live performances and studio albums, often opting to not see their favorite acts live because their performances were mediocre.
Perhaps we experience some conflict over the difference between live performance and studio recording because we expect imperfections in live shows but want flawless recordings. Maybe we don't want "perfect" (sometimes read: inorganic) sounding music in such a spontaneous atmosphere but still want the show to sound like the studio record. The line between musicianship and show business is certainly blurring again, but is it cheating if our expectations have gotten too high?
Blues Traveller.
because his guitar slowly loses pitch during the course of the pieces he plays
As do all musical instruments during a performance. The performer adjusts accordingly to stay in tune. Its called intonation. Woodwind instruments change pitch depending on temperature so the natural pitch of the instument at the beginning of a concert is different to the end. Player compensates by 'lipping' the pitch in the right direction. This is one of the major differences between amatures and pro's. The pros have very good intonation.
I feel that using pitch correction is just compensating for lack of skill by either the singer or player.
When you're singing or playing in an ensemble that's out of absolute tune but in tune with itself, you have the unpleasant choice of staying in absolute tune and going out of tune with the group or adjusting and hearing things out of tune, which is jarring.
For a simpler example, imagine trying to improvize in C on a clarinet and hearing the music in Bb. Now that's jarring.
Unbelievably good relative pitch is required for "absolute mastery" of music. Perfect pitch is just a party trick.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
Only this time, they've decided not to label the new CD with a warning. "We can't put a sticker that says no computers were used in the making of this record," he said. "It'd really make us look like jerks, but there's not going to be any of that."
Why not? Tom Scholz of Boston has been putting the "no synthesizers or computers used" on Boston albums since Don't Look Back, their second album.
Then again, I don't know what exactly he calls his racks and racks of Rockman sound processing equipment, but they sure look like computers to me!
I'd be embarrassed to use this sort of thing. If you can't sing/play on key, on command, you don't belong on the stage. Being a real musician is hard work, and that means you perform when you are supposed to. And you do a damn good job at it, every time. And if you aren't in the mood, or you're upset, or whatever, you do it anyway. If you're going to use a safety net like this, you may as well lip-sync to the studio track.
I know this sounds like a harsh approach, but that's the world of the professional musician. I have to question the work ethic of a musician who would need something like this. If you were the leader a band (especially one wth 12+ members), would you want the singer to have a special little box "just in case" he/she made a mistake? I'd rather get a singer who is confident he/she won't make those mistakes. There are more musicians than gigs, so to make it, you have to be there whenever they ask, and don't fuck up.
Pop stars are obviously a different matter, thought. They are much more glamorous, and typically less talented and don't work as hard as the pro musician. They are tossed into a studio to record the next "hit" written by a room full of boring-looking writers, quickly whisked away to a dance studio where the star is yelled at for hours until he/she can dance like a rock star, then a bus takes the soon-to-be-one-hit-wonder around the country while Clearchannel plays the hell out of the new song. This is the kind of person who needs a safety net like that. This is not the kind of person who spent years writing and practicing, accepting any gig that came along, playing to sometimes empty clubs, sometimes double-booking rather than turning down a gig, and driving for five hours to play a four-hour gig. While that may sound like hell to the non-musicians out there, it is exactly the kind of experience that most real musicians go through, and if it weren't for the genuine love of music, nobody would do it. But through that process, the musician learns a lot of discipline, and is ready to sight-read through forty charts with a band full of strangers. Ask the musician if he/she needs a device like this.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Simply by all of the comments already made. For starters, any real musician who plays every note perfectly on pitch will sound odd. Why? Because such an autotuner will automatically "correct" any tonal variance that is added for musicality, such as vibrato, bending, slides, etc. The cases where one needs completely on tune notes is very small compared to the instances where "out of tuneness" is needed. Such devices are useful for salvaging cases where the recording is way out of whack, but don't think that's it's a matter of setting the machine to "fix this" and that's it. Items like these are used more like code optimizers are, lots of tedious going back and forth. And to use this in a live setting? The machine would truly be a hindrance. There are just too many times when the machine would inhibit the notes that really need to be slightly off.
The only ones who would truly benefit from one of these machines in a live setting are those who are truly bad singers. The artificial sound of the pitch shifting would be an improvement over these persons' naturally bad voice.
I sincerely enjoyed seeing Roger Water's screw up the lyrics to 'Mother' on stage in Indianapolis in '99 or '00. That was fantastic.
I like live performances too. Archive.Org is a great place to get live concert music. Big Heat Todd and the Monsters, Little Feat etc..
As far as this: "P.S. Don't steal music." I disagree in a similar way that RMS would disagree with: "P.S. Don't steal software."
If you don't want us listening to your music. Don't fucking play it.
Otherwise I just might be recording your concert.
--ken
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
Ok, first off, I saw Shania Twain perform at the superbowl last year on TV and I can say she absolutely, positively, was NOT using an auto-tuner. I mean, why use an auto tuner when you're lip synching?
Secondly, they're not the black magic that the article makes them out to be. I've used one many times in a recording setting and they can't make a bad singer into a good singer. They can make a slightly out of tune singer sound in-tune and that's about it. Plus they're hard to use. If you set the tuning speed to fast, they'll flatten out your vibrato. If you set it too slow, bad notes will get through. They have limited usefulness.
PITCH CORRECTION IS MY PET PEEVE ABOUT TODAY'S MUSIC!!!!!
...the newer punk bands, such as Sum 41 and Good Charlottes, would sound awful if they weren't corrected with an autotuner.
(Yes, I was shouting, that's how peeved it makes me.)
I've been telling my friends this for years. I can barely listen to any new artists because they sound so FAKE.
> Mr. Barry said he relies on the autotuner when
> a musician's performance is nearly flawless
> except for that one flat note "that's going
> to drive everyone crazy" or when there are
> time constraints.
That's pretty much my point of view. This should only be necessary about 1% of the time.
>
So, sign bands that can SING AND PLAY instead of pretty boys (and girls) who will look good on posters, t-shirts, and lunchboxes!
AAAARGH!!!
(Me: singer/guitarist)
assert(birth_date<time-86400)
Was at a Who concert way back when Keith Moon was still their drummer. Moon had serious issues, and that night he passed out on stage.
So they asked if any one in the audience could play drums. "You have to be good." Some lucky fan got to live out their dream that night, and played drums for the Who for the rest of the concert.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Most singers have imperfect pitch. I'd go so far as to say *every* singer does. Your brain corrects pitch generally to a Pythagorean scale (perfect intervals at fifths and octaves, with the third exactly one-half way between the fundamental and fifth). If you listen to an accappella choir, they will nearly always gravitate toward this scale. The unfortunate side effect of a Pythagorean scale is that if the tune changes to another key, it sounds simply awful. Choirs can get away with this because they adjust their tuning on-the-fly to still sound good with one another when doing key changes.
Pianos, guitars, and many other instruments have a great deal of trouble with this. You'd have to rearrange the fretboard on a guitar to avoid (nearly) even-temperament, and the piano requires a skilled tuner at least 10 minutes or so to adjust. Thus most people are accustomed to hearing something as "in-tune" only when it is performed to an even-tempered scale.
This fights the vocalists natural ability to judge tune based on harmonic interaction with the rest of the song.
As a recording artist, I make regular use of pitch correction. You'll find that virtually every major artist commercial artist does, as well. The "effect" you refer to is often called the "Cher Effect" from the song, "Life After Love", where they intentionally used pitch correction to the extreme. Most uses are quite subtle, and are most often used to smooth out the rough edges in a once-in-a-lifetime recording.
It's possible to pitch-correct large variations in performance (bringing, say, a C to a G) but they sound increasingly unnatural the further you move the note from reality. The human ear is very closely attuned to variations from normal speech and singing patterns. That's why a sped-up playback of a tenor doesn't sound like a soprano -- it sounds like a sped-up tenor.
Anyway, get used to pitch correction. It's been in common use for over fifteen years on commercial recordings, but only recently has the technology become cheap enough that it's accessible to live performance and lower-end home recording artists. It's no more "BS" than a motion picture studio rigging cameras up for "bullet time", trapeze artists using a net, or stuntmen playing body doubles for stars in a motion picture. It's the ultimate quality of the performance that matters, and whatever you can do to bring the quality up a notch is probably a good thing.
Some artists thrive due to their "natural" sound. That's great for them. The rest of us enjoy technology's ability to make our lives more fun, interesting, and better-sounding.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
Actually, as a musician of 25 years, I'd have to disagree that the only ones to benefit from this are bad singers. I have the software version of Antares autotune and have putzed around with it a little (I haven't actually recorded anything yet, I'm just playing around with all this stuff), and it doesn't work miracles.
The singer would have to be decent to begin with - it can make them sound a little better, but a flat-out bad singer is still going to sound bad. An autotuned bad singer just sounds so artificial, it's almost creepy sounding, and I'm not talking about the infamous "Cher / Believe" effect either.
Good intonation is an important part of a good performance, for sure, but so are the nuances, the inflections, the timbre of the voice, and probably most of all, the emotion put into it. Good singers know how to breath when singing, how to control their volume, when to step back from the mic, etc. Autotune won't help any there either, although a compressor would some, obviously. Antares version does offer a graphical edit mode (obviously not for use in real time) that be used to tweak things like vibrato, to an extent, as well as some control even in the default mode (kind of like a threshold setting), but again, 90% of the performance still depends on the singer.
Like any tool, too much of anything usually defeats it's own purpose. Used judiciously in a recording studio, as mentioned in the article, to fix a wrong note under time or money constraints was acceptable even to the critics. In a live setting, I could see applying it to the backup singers, whose vocals tend to take on a more "generic" (for lack of a better term) tonality.
After all, really strict critics could contend that compression and delay are cheating, if taken to the extreme, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone take that position.
But to have it on constantly, on a lead vocal track, yeah, I'd have to say that's the equivlalent of musical perjury. It reminds of guitar players, who, just because they have a stompbox, like a chorus, think they have to have it on 100% of the time. It usually makes their guitar sound thin and buzzy, like some kind of deranged mosquito.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Well the 'before' sample has an obviously flat note. However, the 'after' sample takes that note and makes it just a bit too sharp. There's a reason people tend to sing flat rather than sharp, it sounds better. If the 'before' sample had managed to get the pitch up just a bit it would have been fine.
I cringed more at the sharpness of the 'after' sample than I did at the flatness of the 'before' sample. So much for perfect pitch! The ideal pitch for that note was just a bit flat. Of course, you can't expect a computer to know that.
I'm sure an untrained ear wouldn't notice but having played in an Orchestra and sung in a choir, I know how important pitch is. Most instruments allow you to 'bend' the pitch half a tone or more. In an orchestral setting, it's the rule rather than the exception to do just that.
If you put autotuners on instruments in an orchestra, you'd create an abomination of sound. What makes singers any different?
Link
I knew there would be several of these "this is what is wrong with music today" posts on here. Having worked with pitch correction directly during student projects, everyone is blowing this way out of proportion. Pitch correction does not remove the "soul" from music. Yes, much of the "talent" portion of the music is gone from mainstream music, but that soul has nothing to do with pitch correction.
I used to know a guy from a fairly popular hardcore band in Boston, name removed to protect the innocent. When we laughed about the pitch-correction microphone in front of him, he told us that his lead singer really wanted one. In those small clubs, with little ventilation, in the middle of summer, it gets hot. You sweat. It becomes hard to perform. Especially if you're in a hardcore band fronting a heavy mosh pit. The pitch correction mic helps keep the technical aspect from sounding completely like shit just because the atmosphere is wearing you out.
What's more, a lot of music these days uses synthesizers rather than analog music. Against a completely techno-created production, pitch correction is almost a necessity. "Real" guitars and pianos can't hit perfect pitch right on the dot, no matter how well tuned, but a synthesizer usually has a mathematically-created perfect pitch. If the vocal is the only part of a track that sounds out-of-tune, then it can be hard to make the vocal match the track without a bit of pitch correction. For that matter, many dance tracks abuse and overuse autotune correctly, making a vocalist's voice sound robotic and mechanical to match a similarly electronic and mechanical dance beat. This is not to say that Cher's "Believe" is a great track, but it's not the autotune that keeps it from being interesting. Check out the underground "synthpop" revival, like Freezepop and the like, for other points of note.
And much as the parent poster mentioned, you people do not actually want an album with mistakes on it. How many of you kids would actually enjoy a terribly off-pitch album? If the players are having an off day in the studio, a bit of autotune is cheaper than another day of recording. Besides, most of the "good musicians" you people claim to like will probably be more inspired by the live stage than by the studio anyway.
Much like compression can help make tracks more tangible, but pop producers are abusing it to crush pop tracks with an L1, pitch correction is not destroying music. Pitch correction can bring a bit of technical expertise to a heavy performance, or can be used as a robot-ish effect, popular on pop dance tracks and other brands of synth pop. Shitty production, uninspired lyrics, and repetitive beats are killing music. Wait a minute... who said music was dying? Maybe if you'd all get your ears out of Clear Channel radio and check out local and indie artists, you'd notice that there is a vast area of music that is NOT being ruined by anything.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
One only has to compare Avril Lavigne's live performances (absolutely bloody awful) with her CDs (not much better but at least on-key) to realize how much tweaking some of these so-called "singers" need before they get anywhere near the right note.
A key change sounds awful when using a pythagorean scale because the intervals between the notes will not be the correct intervals. This is why we use an equally tempered scale. Every twelve semitones the frequency doubles, and each semitone is larger than the last by an unchanging ratio. Each semitone the same size. This means that we can start at any point in this sequence on semitones, and the scale we play will be reasonably in tune. It is equally in tune no matter what key you play in, but it's also equally out of tune. The scale is called 12 tone equal temperament, or 12TET
The pythagorean scale does not have equally spaced notes. As I recall, the notes will be slightly sharp after you go up an octave. The farther you go, the sharper you get, making the scale play out of tune over large intervals.
A choir sings in tune because each singer adjusts their pitch slightly to make the current chord in tune.
Pianos and guitars have a hell of a time playing in tune, because they can't make minor pitch adjustments like a singer can. A piano tuner tunes the low strings slightly flat and the high strings slightly sharp (that may be backwards) to compensate for the imperfect intervals inherent in 12TET. A guitarist can't adjust, since that would require different fret spacings for each string and rule out frets that go straight across. It would be hard to play, and bends would be out of the question.
He's probably heard it called the "Cher effect", otherwise, why would he have said it. Maybe you just haven't heard it called that.
Ahhh.... Now on to musical differences. I do agree that pich correction is a lazy cheat. It's a way to avoid the mountains of practice required to obtain skill. Those years are important, because in them, you learn much more than how to sing the right pitch. You get a lot more out of them than mere technical skill.
Huh? I thought the Pythagorean scale was based on whole-number ratios: An octave is 2:1, a fifth is 3:2, a fourth is 4:3, etc. But if you do the math, 3/2 * 4/3 == 4/2 == 2/1, so the octaves are still in tune.
Actually, brass instruments naturally hit notes on the pythagorean scale (if that's what this is) becaues they actually do use harmonics; thus to play in tune with a piano (or with another instrument using another fundamental note) they have to adjust slightly based on what harmonic they're using. Thus I remember my HS band director telling the trumpets to 'lip up' their E's, because the instrument tended to make them flat; in other words, 'just temperment' 3rd ratio is smaller than the 'even-tempered' 3rd ratio. But all the open C's on a trumpet, no matter what octave, are always perfectly in tune with each other (as long as the musician's lips are in good shape).
I think what you may be talking about is when you tune a piano using only one interval -- i.e., tune the C; then tune the G to be a perfect 5th to the C, tune the D to be perfect to the G, tune the A to be perfect to the D, etc; in that case, when you finally get around to C again, you'll have an awful howling, because the just tempered 5th (i.e., 3:2) is a tad too large; even temper makes it a bit flatter, so that it all adds up.
It just seems strange to me, that things are this way... in order to be able to play in all keys, you have to make all keys sound slightly out of tune (or adjust on-the-fly, if you can). I'm sure there's a moral there somewhere...
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
It appears you've never done harmonic analysis of choral music, or tried to match an accompaniment to an in-tune choral arrangement when said piece was first performed a cappella. Any competent digital piano will allow you to change tunings (note: NOT change pitch, A=440 all the way here) to match the harpsichord needs of pre-Baroque pieces or gain the sweet sound of a perfect Pythagorean chord.
If a piano is tuned to the Pythagorean scale in, say, the key of B flat, trying to play a piece in C major on the same piano without retuning will sound horrible. This is perfectly well-understood in the music community. If you wish to play an even-tempered instrument in multiple keys, you accept a slight dissonance across all ranges of the keyboard in exchange for the flexibility of playing in any key without unbearable dissonance. It is perfectly possible, and often done even today with harpsichords, to tune a keyboard instrument to a non-even-tempered scale in order to provide "perfect" consonance in playing pre-Baroque period pieces.
Now on to the rest of your nearly-coherent rant:
Baloney. You can be a good singer with good relative pitch. "Perfect Pitch", as inexpertly named for this article, is a totally different thing from singing in tune, or having good relative pitch. Given that I mentioned "imperfect pitch", above, I stand by what I said: all singers have imperfect pitch. They will not always nail the note perfectly, particularly at the end of an exhausting recording session. There will be times that pitch correction is welcomed as a practical measure in many vocalist's lives. There are, of course, purists who will raise holy hell if someone were to pitch-correct them.
If your instrument is even-tempered, key changes within a piece do not sound awful, although there is a slight dissonance to this tuning. If you are using a natural temperament or other alternative, sweeter tuning, it will sound awful in other keys, particularly if those keys don't have a fundamental on the major fourth or fifth with few accidentals versus the primary scale.
Since you are obviously a complete novice to the understanding of tuning systems, allow me to recommend checking out this brief talk on "Math and Music". These days, we've taken the even-tempered scale a bit further by using logarithmic tuning devices rather than simply dividing octaves by 12, but even those tuning devices are not quite "perfect" when tuning a piano. You need to stretch the octaves on the upper regions of the piano in order to avoid perceived dissonance on the part of the listener, and that is a skill that takes a long time to master.
OK.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
"but not (c)RAP 'artists', we all know they can't sing anyway."m
Sing? Half of them have trouble even talking in sentences of more than 3 words that doesn't have a swear word in it and with words of more
than 2 syllables. Then for the music they simply rip off someone elses track and put their "vocals" over the top along with some
cheap Yamaha bassline. Truly rappers are the dictionary definition of the word "talentless".