This is the thread where we all shit on autotune and give examples

Also, who knows how many records it's been subtly used on? Maybe some of your favorites, Tom!

In fact, there are three things that are often hard to tell apart when you haven't used them yourself, talkboxes, vocoders, and then autotune. Talkboxes route an instrument's sound-signal through a tube into your mouth, where it is shaped as though the "breath" had come from your lungs. Vocoders use the shapes made with your mouth & microphone to filter synthesizer frequencies so as to make the synthesizers "talk"...Air uses hella vocoders. Autotune, on the other hand, quantizes your natural voice in unnatural ways, when used subtly it simply shifts tones up or down to match what it accepts as "pitch"; when fully tweaked, it makes the voice skip notes in really robotic ways (such as that Cher thing).

*not all modern producers, duh

Zapp's voicebox is also, in effect, an autotuner, as the notes are designated not by the pitch of the voice, but by an independent keyboard. Now, if you will excuse me, my breakfast burrito is rapidly congealing.

I retract my opposition to autotuning, Your Honour. It's the songs I don't like. I wish they were dirtier, more real. The autotuning is just one component of an obsessive cleaning up of pop music, and that's the real problem. I think I could actually handle autotuning if some other the other elements were a little dirtier, to compensate, to balance things out, to connect heaven and earth.

As a rule though it sucks big unruly boobs.

-in the spirit of advanced pedantry I shall have to disagree with you there, old chap. The vocoder does not "automatically tune any voice to a designated note". The thing with vocoders is that they don't use the "body" of the voice sound, only the "shape" of the voice's articulation of that sound. This shape is then applied to a synthesiser (or indeed any other) note or chord. So what you are hearing on a vocoder track is not a human voice being altered as much as a human voice being used to alter a synth sound. Soooo, strictly speaking, the human voice is not getting tuned at all, which makes the vocoder an entirely different thing to Autotune.

coder = device added to it to break down voice tones into bits that could be fed into a voder.

vocoder = put them together, voice is broken into basic frequencies and then reassembled.

Wendy Carlos summarizes the early history and basic operation of the vocoder.
(scroll down to bottom half of the page)

And in response to 'fact checking cuz' I think Millar was making a point about Autotune being used as a deliberate effect rather than used as a tool to correct slight tuning problems. Abusing it rather than using it.

-ah, I see. Interesting stuff, I had never read about the history of the vocoder.
I am probably just nitpicking here, but the point I was trying to make before was that the vast majority of vocoded vocals you hear on records are done by combining a synth sound with a voice, rather than by processing the voice alone (as is outlined in part 7 of that Wendy Carlos article). That is certainly the only way in which either of the two vocoders that are in my setup here can operate.

Here is an outline of how contemporary vocoders work from the great Sound on Sound magazine's Paul White:

"A vocoder enables the tonal character of one sound to be imposed on another, quite different sound; the classic talking keyboard effect is produced by using the changing characteristics of the human voice to shape a sustained synth sound. What really happens is this: the vocal signal, which we shall call the modulator, is analysed by a bank of filters that continually measure the signal envelope in each part of the spectrum in exactly the same way as a spectrum analyser does. The more filters in the bank, the more accurate the analysis.

The signal to be modified, known as the carrier, is also fed to a bank of filters, but this time the level of signal passing through each filter band is modulated according to the output from the spectrum analyser section. In other words, the spectral characteristics of the modulating signal are duplicated in the filter bank processing the carrier. Figure 1 shows a simplified block diagram of what's actually going on. If the modulating signal is continually changing in character, as is true of the human voice, these dynamic changes will be passed onto the carrier, giving the synth sound a recognisable vocal quality. So effective is this process that it is possible to pick out intelligible words, even when none of the original vocal signal is present. And because we're analysing the spectral content and not the absolute pitch of the modulating signal, it doesn't even matter if the words are sung out of tune, or even spoken.

Apart from the obvious spectral variations generated by the vocal chords, human speech also includes 'fricatives' -- short, high-frequency sounds present in syllables such as 'S' and 'T' which are formed in the mouth. If these are separated out from the main vocal signal by means of a high pass filter, they can be added to the output to increase the intelligibility of the sound, and because they don't relate to the musical pitch of the vocal, they can be added to any musical output without compromising the tuning."

The thing is that lots of this stuff makes much more sense if you think in analog instead of digital -- like essentially using a voice to modulate a synth tone is running the synth thru the input and the voice through the controller of a bank of transistors, i think. you can also add the signals, switch the feeds, etc.

Is this something that people can hear in its obviousness or do you need some perfect pitch thing going?

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/interviews/c/case_neko-06/

Now for the more subtle uses of it, is that noticable? Reading Neko Case's PF interview, she made it seem that it was obvious who was using it, but I can't seem to tell myself.

xp

People will stop complaining about Autotune once the new version comes out with "bluesy" and "Mark E. Smith" settings on it.

Oh, Neko, marry me now.

Worst autotuning ever: S Club 8's "Automatic High." It's like someone sampled each lead vocal phrase individually much the way people useta sample dog barks in the eighties. This would be totally cool in other contexts, but I like my bubblegum where there is at least *some* empathy with the singers possible.

a) singers often get tuned even when they don't need it. Shania is the painfully obvious example here,

and

b) there are singers who insist on using it as a security blanket and will ask for it by name.

I just recently had to tell someone I was recording that he was more than good enough to sing without it. This guy had a great pop voice, but was used to hearing himself tuned on his records.

Anyone else just had the same mental image of some guy in a pharmacy?

Or, alternately, a trenchcoated dude in an alley with stacks of pirated software:

"Psst! You wanna buy some... y'know??!!! For the.... (motions to throat)...."

also, from what i understand that cher tune actually has no autotune proper at all, just straight vocals mixed w/ vocoder

Yes. Melodyne is definitely starting to replace Auto-Tune as the pitch-corrector of choice. It's way less noticeable in the mix, and you can do really cool things like generate harmonies from a lead vocal.

I initially grumbled about the Melodyne interface, but the newest version has gotten rid of about 75% of the guesswork. It always used to feel like it was going to crash, but that's no longer a problem.

also, from what i understand that cher tune actually has no autotune proper at all, just straight vocals mixed w/ vocoder

That's what the producers wanted everyone to believe. They admitted later that it was Auto-Tune applied full-strength to specific words on the chorus.

These Gregory Brothers autotunes are pretty amazing. This one might wind up in my top ten singles of the year:

The players in the news opera include:

Andrew Gregory (my big bro). You can also find him here: http://andrewgregorymusic.com/

Ruth Marcus on gay marriage
Kiran Chetry on marijuana
Sean Hannity and Hillary Clinton on pirates
Katie Couric on melting ice

Lyrics:

RM: This was a pretty remarkable week on the gay marriage front
First of all, to have a state like Iowa
MG: Whatchoo tryna say about Iowa
RM: Not the east coast state
MG: East coast
RM: Not the left coast state
MG: Left coast
RM: In a decision written by a republican appointee
MG: shawty, now you sounding so fine
Give me your number, we can bump and grind
Talkin about politics all night
Leavin the club in the mornin light
If we get carred away
We might get gay-married today

KC: We just heard from some of our viewers who strongly support legalizing marijuana
MG: Shawty, 5 of those calls was from me
KC: Do you think we should legalize pot alone or all drugs, including heroine, cocaine, and meth?
MG: My brain says no, but my body says yes!

AG: I'm an angry gorilla. I heard you needed me (ooh ooh ah ah)
SH: Now that Captain Phillips has been successfully rescued
The president has decided to step in front of the spotlight
AG: Ooh, I'm angry! You can't see it, but my forehead's veiny
SH: And even take some credit for the rescue
AG: Well, don't you worry, baby boo
You'll always have an angry gorilla to be angry with you
That's what I do. Just ask Donkey Kong. He's in my crew

KC: At the North Pole, new satellite photos show arctic ice is melting so fast
AG: Oh snap, how fast?
KC: Many scientists now believe it will be gone within 30 years
AG: Surely you jest! I'm under cardiac arrest, shawty
KC: Some researchers think it could disappear in just six
AG: Shit!
KC: Without it there could be a snowball effect
AG: Oh
KC: With temperatures rising even faster
If we all don't take bold action and take it fast
AG: Yeah,
Both: We will find ourselves on very thin ice

MG: Tell em, Hillary, pirates on very thin ice
HC: These pirates are criminals
They are armed gangs on the sea
MG: That means the ocean
HC: The United States does not make concessions
Or ransom payments to pirates

...

MG: Hello, shawty, we can meet up at the mall
Browse around at the bookstore
Mentally ball until we fall

From wikipedia:
On a Sunday morning, April 25, 1999, Roger Troutman was found shot and critically wounded outside his northwest Dayton recording studio... In remembrance, Roger's nephew Clet Troutman sang "Amazing Grace" through a talkbox at his funeral.

I wouldn't say I have a great ear for autotune and that, but:

Are the vocals on "Glee" massively autotuned?

And isn't that (supposedly) against the spirit of the whole thing? Aren't we supposed to go "wow aren't they talented singing students" or something?

Are the vocals on "Glee" massively autotuned?

yes

And isn't that (supposedly) against the spirit of the whole thing? Aren't we supposed to go "wow aren't they talented singing students" or something?

no. and no.

Why?

Because it's a fictional drama not a talent show.

a lot of the members of the cast are legit broadway ppl, but the show is not there rly to showcase their pipes imo.

OK.

kind of weird to hire irl singers then autotune them

Some seem to get less autotune than others but y'know zany show

Natalie Wood not singing has never really spoiled West Side Story for me. Whereas ironically Johnny Depp singing Sweeney Todd = please stop

Well, I guess then they'd 'upstage' the notsogood ones. (xposts)

I guess in the 'college football' scenes, chances are the 'mazing quarterback doesn't actually receive/catch/throw the ball 60 yards to himself for the touchdown, it's all done in the edit.

Just seems to me a bit reductive to show all these USA 'talented' singertypes in a kind of "you will never be as good as this" presentation.

but by making it so blatantly autotuned, they tell me 'yes u can do it, like this' *computers*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXypB4tOlOc