NWB - Community Blog

saves loads of time if you need to be quick, in that respect good.

"personally i'm happy for creative people to use anything they want to make a great sounding record"
This. Anything else is snobbery.

I personally believe Auto tune shouldnt be used.
If you cant sing in tune - sorry but you shouldnt be singing.

Neil Young. Bob Dylan. Reasons for auto-tune. lol

if its the difference between spending another £150 quid in the studio on another days recording, i would hit that auto tune button instantly, simples.

Its a fact that ALL the best ROCK singers, sing slightly flat...so for rock, autotune is useless

well............. i use it on vocals on notes at the end of a phrase even if it's just a few cents out just to get the sound perfect

i would never use it live though!

well you shouldn't LOL

My problem with auto tuning is that it is like plastic tits. You can spot them straight away, and you can hear if auto tuning has been used, because it gives the vocal a slightly weird 'bend'.

So you auto tune your crap singer, cubase all your guitar keyboard and drums, and end up with a listenable track - try gigging it!

If you can play it well enough to play it live, you should be able to record it.

As soon as I hear auto tune on vocals, I don't want to listen to the track anymore.

Similarly, I don't want to squeeze bags of salt water - give me the real deal every time!

Alyerit'sallaboutthemusicpal

Surely it depends to what extent the effect is used ... now I've never used one but I would imagine that it can alter "cents" worth of pitch possibly making a "difference" that can't really be heard more felt .. am i making sense??
But the image we have is of these young popsters - i assume (maybe wrongly) that they correct huge differences - because they can't sing.

And didn't Diana Ross find that effect - can't remember what record - when using autotune .... i beliee-ee-ee-eeve was it??

Anyhow ... its a tool ... and as such I would make the same sweeping belief as I have with most other post-recording effects - if you can tell its been used its been used incorrectly! (unless its been used as a "signature" in some way

Willownotatechie

Dearie me Mr Willow...too much Guiness if you're getting Diana Ross mixed up with Cher LOL

ha ha ha ... oh yeah! her!
Willowsweatingguinness

good - for in out of the studio and time saving
bad - because it wont sound 'normal' because nothing is ever perfect. A bit like airbrushing photos.

Just another acceptable studio technique as previously stated, along the lines of delay/reverb/chorus/harmonisers. However, got to draw the line at live usage ( girls aloud/britney/spice girls etc..) Makes a mockery of those who are naturally gifted or spend years training and practicing to be note perfect on stage.

So Steve you admitting that the 'rough demo ' you threw together may have been airbrushed???? shame on you lol!!!!

@catdog (and others)-don't get me started-one of my pet rants is the way SOME so called singers use tit's'n'bums and pelvic thrusts during their performances to disguise the fact that they just can;t sing-gives a totally false impression to the young (usually rather tipsy(?) gurl at the "dog and duck" karoake that anyone can get uo on stage and sing.
to produce a first class studio recording-fine-but with the caveat that the artist needs to have some modicum of talent/skill in the first place-not just some ad man's idea of a perfect vehicle to make loadsa money out of till the next "young hopeful" appears.

While I understand the passion in some of the responses here, I would like to put the argument (Industry COMPLETELY aside from this) that music is an art form to be celebrated.

If Autotune helps someone who can't sing project a melody that they would otherwise have been unable to share with us, I am 1000% behind it.

Bob Dylan said about 12 months ago ghat he hadn't heard a well produced album for 30 years including his own.

I wouldn't quite go that far but I know what he means. The way that records are produced nowadays turn me off instantly. Shame really, I'm sure there's some good stuff out there.

all tricks of the trade

im waiting for the guitar effects pedal that filters out wrong notes and chords

@bad horsie-agree with you in the most part,bro-however-am sticking to my view that it can and is used to foster inapropriate self belief in a lot of so called "artists " of today, who display talents more suited to the sex industry rather than music-which, in turn, influences more young people to aspire to greatness they have no chance of achieving without a great deal of hard work and not a small dose of luck? they learn (wrongly) that all one has to do to become rich and famous is waggle their bits around and sing in a mid atlantic accent (whine?) and the world will come knocking at their door.

@steve dixon-agreeing with your earlier comment re "legends"-could one imagine them "auto tuning" the likes of janis joplin, bessie smith, roger chapman (family), joe cocker, or jim morrison?? don't think so. ;-/

@viking, that's kind of why I took the industry out of the equation to focus my thoughts on the benefit of the tool rather than the vehicle that makes the most use of it. :o)

@bad horsie-yeah-can see that-is most upsetting these days-along with "airbrushing", makes it look so easy for young people to apsire to something they will never achieve-yet, has a usefull place as a tool to help recording artistes. yet-still a problem-what does the artist do when they have to perform live?

@viking, well if it were ME doing it that way, I'd get a backing singer in and introduce the song as "this is the tune that fucked me up in the studio, do this guy is doing the hard bit".

A bit like Coverdale should have done when Glenn Hughes did all the high bits. lol.

Posted by Robert Redfern

all tricks of the trade

im waiting for the guitar effects pedal that filters out wrong notes and chords



isn't that called the overdub?! lol!

and was the dyers eve drum track really recorded one bar at a time? that's astounding!

Mick

I have the Ego Compressor, the Spillmaster and the Talent Boost pedals found on this site:

http://www.angelfire.com/yt3/redtele/redtelectronix.html

mick those pedals are awesome i need all three, was disappointed not to see a "unneccessary widdle preventer" and a "first set applause generator" on there though

lmao.

I think it removes a lot of harmonics you might not necessarily hear yourself from the sound, particularly the voice and leaves it sounding sterile. I noticed an extreme version of this when we were in the studio with my other musicial project. We sampled the singer's voice normally and then sampled it using autotune. When you pitch shifted an autotuned voice, it ended up sounding like a flute or something.

Now that proves autotune ruins vocal samples, which isn't exactly the end of the world but I think it's probably having a detrimental effect on the actual vocals. You can definately spot it a mile off if it's over-used or stretched beyond it's means by a singer's dodgy pitch. Maybe the technology will improve but right now I'm not convinced by it.

@bad horsie(mick) -now that sounds like a plan, bro!! pmsl!!! (bet it's been done,as well!!!) :-D