Slashdot Mirror
The Deceptive Perfection of Auto-Tune
theodp writes "For a medium in which mediocre singing has never been a bar to entry, a lot of pop vocals suddenly sound better than great — they're note- and pitch-perfect. It's all thanks to Auto-Tune, the brainchild of Andy Hildebrand, who realized that the wonders of autocorrelation — which he once used to map drilling sites for the oil industry — could also be used to bestow perfect pitch upon the Britney Spears of the world. While Auto-Tune was intended to be used unnoticed, musicians are growing fond of adjusting the program's retune speed to eliminate the natural transition between notes, which yield jumpy and automated-sounding vocals. 'I never figured anyone in their right mind would want to do that,' says Hildebrand."
As these techniques improve and become more popular, it makes me wonder what music produced twenty or fifty years from now will sound like, and how much authenticity will be left.
People are still making the music, sure it might not be coming from the vibrations of strings and vocal chords but its still authentic music.
As these techniques improve and become more popular, it makes me wonder what music produced twenty or fifty years from now will sound like, and how much authenticity will be left.
What does authenticity have to do with music? If you like the sound, listen to it. It's that simple.
But whenever the artist is live, they end up falling flat on their face. I saw Lily Allen on Johnathon Ross the other night, and she sounds *terrible* live, I've heard schoolgirls singing along to their MP3 player better than that.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I never figured anyone in their right mind would want to do that
And who ever discovered analogue distortion by maxing the signal probably thought no one in their right mind would use that either. They were wrong. However, whoever discovered digital distortion by clipping probably thought no one in their right mind would want to use that ... and they have been for the most part correct.
:)
I'm going to make a prediction that this is going to turn out to be a lot like synth drums in the 80s. They were invented for fast beats that no human drummer could play. Except everyone started using them. On every song--with utter disregard for whether or not a regular drummer could play that. And what we have is a lot of hot fast songs from the 80s with synth drums and a whole bunch of hilariously cheesy disgusting synthesized drum songs. Synth drums are still used today but tastefully and when needed and--most importantly--in moderation.
I predict that we will look back at this vocal manipulation and see it the same way. It will have its place in a studio's toolbox where people want to modulate their voice unnaturally fast for a single song and can experiment with it. But these albums where every song has this applied to it are probably going to look like we resurrected & worshipped Max Headroom to future generations.
One more important thing: you don't know who is doing this. Is it Britney Spears? Does she really have control over her music? Are the fans actually demanding it? If this package is only $600 then why don't we see more bands (even independent) using this stuff? That's within any studio's price range.
I'm going to guess that it's safer for the corporate guys who run Spears & Co to bet on a machine to make perfect pitch. The fans are just told what to listen to by the radio anyway. I still get a kick out of listening to people defend Britney Spears as a talented musician when I'm pretty sure she's just a world class entertainer. Someone else shows her what to sing and how to dance--she's the piece of meat that keeps sales coming. Sad really.
Kudos to Hildebrand for making such a large jump between two completely different fields for the same technology. That stuff is getting more and more rare these days. Unfortunately it's for two of my least favorite industries
My work here is dung.
As a musician and a sound engineer I shun everyone who relies on Auto Tune to make themselves sing in pitch!
If you don't have the vocal ability to sing in tune then you shouldn't be singing.
I think it's disgraceful that AutoTune be used for anything other than correcting minor blemishes and should never be used live. In fact, I usually take the stance that if I can't reproduce the effect live then I won't put it into the song. The audience has paid to see a live performance. Not your studio album played through speakers.
Unfortunately this is becoming all too common nowadays, using digital tools to touch everything up because you can. I weep for music's future.
It is however a downer for smaller groups or actual singers with decent voices, because they have to compete with an altered (potentially 'perfect-sounding') voice.
We'll end up with the same thing as what has happened with photoshopped magazine images - people expect unreasonable perfection, and the people without an army of machines behind them get made to look inferior. We'll end up losing touch with reality at this rate... What's a human singing voice sound like again...?
Hildebrand may have invented the particular algorithm which is used by many musicians, but the ability to electronically pitch correct has been around for quite some time. I have a harmonizer from that period of time which has a perfect pitch setting where it samples your voice and corrects it to the nearest pitch.
I was going to suggest that the vocoder was much older technology that does the same thing, however more research shows that Hilderbrands implementation actually uses a phase vocoder.
That said, the use of the autotune in the forefront I find absolutely atrocious. To me it's the musical equivalent of applying makeup in order to highlight the mole on your face.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The article is about people using this technology to produce effects, so the word "deliberate deception" no longer seems to apply. In this case it's an instrument, like synthesizer or even a lute.
Scene: 9,000 BC:
Hey, that guy has some gut strings on a hollow log that he makes vibrate, and they're tuned in harmony! He plucks them as he sings, so he can sing in tune all the time! That's deliberate deception!
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I could not care in the least whether the voice on "Circus" and "Toxic" belongs to a young blond woman named Britney Spears or an AI in a basement in Kyoto. It's pop music: flash, rhymes, synth, beat, top hat and just enough cowbell. Ever since MTV it's also been good looks and plenty of skin, and that's fine too. Lemme say it again: It's Pop Music! It's not classical, or jazz, or standards, or any of the genres which mandate legit chops. When I listen to a pop song, I am under no illusion that the person credited wrote the song, is playing the instrument, or sings like that in real life. I don't care about the artist (or his/her politics) I care about the production of the song.
Jeez... didn't The Monkees teach us anything?
AMEN to this.
What the fuck is authentic these days? I'm sick of the notion that creative output needs to have an olympic mentality to it. It is like the guys that can play 64th note riffs on guitars and then act as if anyone that cannot approach their technical ability has no business playing.
In my case, I was a professional musician for a number of years. Toured nationally with a Grammy winning group. Had to get out of it because I developed severe arthritis that impacted my ability to play (it is an autoimmune disease as opposed to just bad technique...put me in a wheel chair for a year bad). I *STILL* compose and play somewhat, and went on to work with the same artist on the next album...some of my work ended up on it as I had left it as opposed to being replaced by other artists. Since I used a sequencer and samples, some would say this is inauthentic. So, if someone is robbed of technical ability (or never had any), their creative output means NOTHING?
Of course, quite a few musicians trade the autotune 'perfect' output as an alternative to creativity...so long as everything hits on the right notes, it will sell. I don't believe in that either. Creativity involves falling outside of the lines occasionally. And sometimes it involves being right on the line. Personally, I don't get the folks that think perfect technique has anything to do with musicality...some of my favorite works come from non-musicians with absolutely no training or technique but had something to say and used ANY possibility they could to get it up there. Far more authentic than most of the instrumental / technique bands I could ever hear...those guys are as coldly robotic as any autotune could be.
...but I refuse to recognize Hip-Hop as music. I mean sure, it's got a beat and you can kill cops to it, but it's still lacking something.
It's poetry with a beat behind it! And guns! They're like beatniks with automatic weapons.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
"using the tool in previously unexpected ways" is innovation, not authenticity.
It is however a downer for smaller groups or actual singers with decent voices, because they have to compete with an altered (potentially 'perfect-sounding') voice.
Nonsense. We already went through this in the 1960s and 1970s, with the introduction of synthesizers. I remember a Queen album that featured this comment on the sleeve: NO SYNTHESIZERS. They were proud of their hard work, complex guitar work, and mixing and engineering efforts. So the next authentic singing group comes around an puts NO AUTO-TUNE on their album. Problem solved.
Authenticity becomes a selling point to those who care. Music lovers can trash-talk Britney because she uses AutoTune. Big deal -- they've been trash talking her for her entire career anyway.
AutoTune changes nothing.
John
And for every trend there is a counter-trend. For "authenticity" buffs there are the indie bands whose voices warble to detuned thrift-shop guitars recorded on audiocasette in a tool shed.
There will always be a Tom Waits, Neil Young, Les Claypool, etc. People with less than perfect voices, but write amazing music. Pop music is a business. Period. The suits are going to find the faces that will sell albums and worry about talent and ability to sing after the fact.
Though these technologies will primarily be used for the sake of making hacks sound passable to the mass audience, there will always be artists out there who will also put it to creative use. Bands like the Residents, Fantomas, Devo, Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, etc. will be drawn to the new toys and use them in unexpected ways.
People need to stop bitching about the quality of pop music. It's been crap since the 70's and only gets worse. There will always be great music if you bother to look for it.
Pooty tweet
I actually agree with what you're saying, but I think you're off the mark in this case - you talk about true creativity falling outside the lines occasionally, but in pop music autotuners are used to turn every vocalist into a robotic, pitch perfect singer. What T-Pain is doing is creative, he's going for an original sound but for the most part autotuners are the antithesis of creativity.
It does seem that music and art, as with so many other things, the vision is what we're there for. Execution has to be good or we get distracted, but it's not what we turn the radio on for. Anything that conveys the full vision more completely, is a good thing.
Does anyone believe Britney has any actual talent outside of shaking her ass? Have you listened to her speak, do you think she's actually capable of stringing sentences together much less composing the lyrics to her songs? Come on. Someone writes her songs for her, composes and performs the music, modifies her voice... whatever. It doesn't change the fact that if you like her music, you actually like the team that creates it.
All this machinery
Making modern music
Can still be open-hearted
Not so coldly charted
Its really just a question
Of your honesty
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
There'll be real-time auto-tune soon enough.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"Personally, I don't get the folks that think perfect technique has anything to do with musicality"
Perfect technique is great to have, but it better not be your only "selling/brag point" as a musician.
Especially so for recorded music. Computers can do "perfect technique" 24 hours a day, with > 99% uptime.
You want the perfect snare hit? OK record a "perfect technique" musician to hitting a few "perfect" snare hits, then you can play them back on demand _exactly_ when you want in the recording.
Go see what artists have done since cameras came about. Hardly any of them make much noise about having "perfect technique".
If all you have to offer is perfect technique, do not be surprised if one day you are more of a curiosity - like one of those savants who can pencil photorealistic images from memory - but cannot create a new and spectacularly moving scene from "nothing".
II think the issue is that people never learn the skills to sing in tune. It's not something one has to inherit, either. Singing in tune is kind of a fundamental skill, for a singer... kind of like how novelists learn to read and write. I've often wondered that... it doesn't very long to learn to read music... yet so many pop musicians can't do it. Why don't they make the effort? It's a good thing Shakespeare and all the other famous writers/poets learned to write. Anyway, 99% of the "music" released today is pretty much garbage, but I guess the target audience is what really matters.
There is some truth to this. I know of plenty of bands that didn't have much money & they had to rely on their own creativity(lyrics, etc) without any extra dough from the record company. The result is their best music. once they get popular, the record company throws horn sections, a popular producer, etc, and it sounds bland and over-produced. ANY new wave band that gets a horn section that never had one before is a guaranteed failure. Devo's "Oh No! It's Devo!" screamed "we're trying to finish out our contract obligations" and was easily their worst.
I don't know how they would have worked in real time. I could see speeding up or slowing down a tape loop, but since the note length would then be different, you'd have to splice in or remove enough tape to make the notes end at the same time.
Mine is digital and works in real time just fine. I only ever really used it for live stuff as in the studio, I would just have all the harmonies sung and recorded individually.
My harmonizer would let you do interesting things like assigning certain tracks as male and certain tracks as female and it would change your voice inflection to match appropriately.
As I mentioned, it also had a pitch corrector. When I first got it, I played around with the pitch corrector as a novelty, but I never used it in a performance or recording. Part of what makes a voice interesting is that it is not perfect. It is a fine line for certain. Too perfect sounds flat and boring. Too imperfect sounds dissonant and terrible. I like Sheryl Crow's voice because it is not perfect and it always sounds like she's just about to be badly off key, but it never happens.
Similarly, in orchestral music, if two perfectly in tune trumpets played, it would sound like one trumpet, which would not be that interesting. Two badly out of tune trumpets playing would sound like two badly out of tune trumpets playing and would sound awful. Two trumpets that are nearly but not exactly in tune gives just enough dissonance to give a rich, full sound.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Keep in mind we're talking about mainstream pop music here. It's not like it was creative before Auto-tune. Big-money pop-music is about identifying trends as quickly as possible and milking them dry before moving on to the next big thing, any creativity is accidental.
it already mainly comes
- not live, but from a piece of plastic
- not "natural", but from artificial instruments/synthetizers
- not as played, but from a careful, non real-time, mix of several tracks recorded separately
- from a performer different than the creator
All of these would have been anathema to snobs at some earlier time. There is stil music I like, and there will still be for a long time.
So, next to get the "improve" treatment is the vocal part. How is that different from the rest ? WHo cares ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
For example, I do however take exception to the way some bands use synthesized loops in live performances. If you're preforming a song live you look just look stupid standing around waiting for the recording to get to the bit where you actually play (I'm looking at you Pete Townsend). But The Who was really all about showmanship rather than musicianship anyway. And that's okay... if you want to be a whore you go right ahead.
Is a person who doesn't have the skill to use a drill or a hammer a carpenter? Is someone who creates a little javascript using a wizard in an HTML editing program a programmer? By slashdot's standards on musicians, I'd say yes.
By authentic, we're referring to the humanity of the music. What you describe is authentic musicianship. Compare that to a band that goes into a studio and records a verse, a chorus, auto-tunes it all, clicks in some MIDI drum notes, then copies and pastes those parts multiple times to fill out three minutes of a single. That's pretty different from what you're talking about where you actually "make" the music.
My personal opinion is that popular music has no real future and that we're entering an era of smaller, more distributed successes through MySpace, iTunes, and whatever else is coming. Instead of a few big-name acts, there will be lots of small-name acts who come and go depending on the iTunes top ten. This will further lead to an assembly-line process for making music, but thankfully it will be easier to find the authentic stuff amongst the crap.
Most of the big-name acts today are either established acts from previous eras or reality show stars who will eventually be forgotten. This decade has been remarkably bland and lacking in direction, and I think it's a sign of the future and of our deadened culture.
It really depends on the artist in question. Take, for example, "Tag am Meer" (actual song starts at 1:20) by German Hip Hop band Die Fantastischen Vier, an extremely relaxed song about spending a day at the beach. Granted, the band is known as a rather artsy Hip Hop band but there's plenty of bands like them.
Most probably you only know gangsta rap as Hip Hop because that's what dominates the media in the States (whereas Germany used to be dominated by Fanta Vier and the fun-focused Hamburg rap scene). There's a lot of different English stuff available, as well; for a particularly nerdy example MC Frontalot, who is responsible for things like the Penny Arcade theme. The fact that his page proudly displays an endorsement by Noam Chomsky says a lot about him.
Sure, your post might have faked ignorance but hey, it's not like additional information has never hurt anyone. (I'm not delusional enough to not put that 'n' in front of "ever".)
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
It always makes me laugh when people praise "guitars" over synthesizers. An electric guitar/amp combo is nothig other than a very primitive analog synthesizer which uses oscillating wires as a wave-gen.
I disagree. Two instruments (trumpets, in your example) that are nearly, but not exactly, in tune, sound like... two instruments that are not quite in tune. Maybe tolerable in some cases, but mostly not.
If two trumpets, played by two different people, played the same note exactly in tune, you'd never mistake them for only one instrument. There will always be differences and variations between two different players/instruments (timbre, vibrato, etc). Any of these differences will cause the sound to be recognizable as coming from more than one trumpet.
In the 50s and 60s, you were cutting often in one take, with no second chances. Your voice was your voice. Your shitty picking couldn't be edited out after the fact, or punched over. Your awful rhythm couldn't be corrected in post production.
The rise of digital audio recording has allowed a lot of great bands to go their own direction without the backing of a label, and in response those same labels pour money into two or three tracks lead by someone who is more photogenic than talented in order to make it pay off.
No one practices as much as they need to. They don't listen to other bands. Their live performances are bullshit, if they're live at all. The Beatles and the Who and the Stones sounded good because they played all the time. The Beatles had performed their own songs hundreds of times together before they ever got past the small club level.
Multiple takes are not "fake." It represents a performance that is a direct copy of their abilities in reality. Almost no mainstream performer could ever duplicate any part of their own record. They're simply not that talented.