Autotune This Thread

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We're finishing an album right now and, whoo, what's this? Logic 7 comes with a pitch-correction plugin. I could certainly use some in a couple places (and there's a way to use it subtly, without losing character or going into full-on Cher mode). And yet it feels like overstepping a certain line. I am repulsed by the idea.

Mind you, we're using every other studio/digital trick on this recording - unrealistic guitar overdubs, drum fills edited for tightness, licks flown in from other verses, etc. - and have no compunction about any of it. But something about autotune really bugs my inner rockist.

Your thoughts?

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 10 October 2005 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

Or, in other words, do you belie-hie-hieve in life after love?

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 10 October 2005 22:08 (nineteen years ago)

I see nothing wrong with it. Before autotune people used outboard harmonizers to mess with pitch and before that engineers would even ride the tape speed to fix notes. It's all an illusion anyway.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Monday, 10 October 2005 22:31 (nineteen years ago)

Does Audioslave autotune?

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 10 October 2005 22:54 (nineteen years ago)

Do it, I loves me some autotune. Your inner rockist secretly wants you to fail and die in obscurity too.

― Alex H (Alex Henreid), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 00:15 (nineteen years ago)

i LIKE the cher mode. if anything, the subtle use of it should bug your inner rockist :)

― AaronK (AaronK), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 01:44 (nineteen years ago)

I just really don't like the sound of it. I'd rather hear a slightly flat note.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 02:55 (nineteen years ago)

But if you're going to use it at all, I think it's better to go to Cher-type extremes where it's really noticeable.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 02:55 (nineteen years ago)

Use Macintalk!

― Its morph 'em to pun cute (Matt Chesnut), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 02:58 (nineteen years ago)

Hurting, do you claim to be able to spot even a subtle use of autotune? I sure can't, but the idea that there are people that can is enough to dissuade me from using it!

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:07 (nineteen years ago)

engineers would even ride the tape speed to fix notes

That is awesome.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:08 (nineteen years ago)

Hurting, do you claim to be able to spot even a subtle use of autotune? I sure can't, but the idea that there are people that can is enough to dissuade me from using it!

-- joseph cotten (josephcotte...), October 11th, 2005.

Well, I'm sort of getting myself into dangerous territory by saying that, because there may very well be uses of it that are so subtle that I can't detect them. But I definitely hear uses of it that aren't quite as over-the-top as Cher's but still sound really clearly auto-tuned. It no longer sounds like an "effect" added to the voice but something still sounds slightly computer-generated about the voice.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:11 (nineteen years ago)

I just made that up.
xpost

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:11 (nineteen years ago)

autotune can be very effective if done sparingly. turning it on for a whole vocal take will sound obvious and unbelievably lame

― jimmy glass (electricsound), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:16 (nineteen years ago)

I sure can't, but the idea that there are people that can is enough to dissuade me from using it!

Once you start using it yourself the effect becomes more noticeable in other recordings. After I bought antares autotune 4 I heard that shit everywhere.

― Alex H (Alex Henreid), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:25 (nineteen years ago)

I suppose it's my inner rockist, too that make me dislike it in the way that I dislike it -- the same way in which I kinda like really fake sounding synth-strings but hate ones that almost (but not quite) sound real. It's the same reason I like really trashy paintings but don't like imitation cubist paintings.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:30 (nineteen years ago)

the best way to learn to hate it is to hear what atrocities it commits on one's own voice

― jimmy glass (electricsound), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:33 (nineteen years ago)

But pitch shifting individual notes is ok, right?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 03:52 (nineteen years ago)

of course.

i've heard melodyne uno can do a very good job of pitch shifting individual notes.

― jimmy glass (electricsound), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 04:44 (nineteen years ago)

I've used it a lot - cf. the track on the YouSendIt thread. The subtle settings are nice enough and I've used them on recordings I've done for other people and they've never noticed.

Using it straight out on a lead vocal and it's going to be noticable in one or two places even on subtle settings. My technique is usually to comp two takes of the lead vocal, Autotune one and leave the other as is. Best of both worlds.

The other good use if for times when you've recorded a bass guitar early on and you find it or one string of it is a bit out. There's a "Bass Instruments" setting that's pretty handy.

― On one hand I've got myself to blame (Lynskey), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

I just made that up.
Really? Well, they did have some tricks in the old days. How about when they spliced together the two bits of "Strawberry Fields"?

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 13:32 (nineteen years ago)

Or "Rain," for that matter.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

If you want pitch correction that doesn't sound like pitch correction, you should really check out Melodyne. It's a Godsend.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

Really?

Ha ha, no. I was just being dumb. I'm sure I read about somebody doing that somewhere on rec.audio.pro or something.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

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