Vocal help (autotune?)

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:24 pm

lightman wrote: Ah, so where does that put alot of artists thease days who cant record, perform and have their songwriting and marketing done for them?

Someone who can't record, perform, songwrite, or market isn't an artist. They may be media puppets manipulated by others, but artists they aren't.

lightman · Post by **lightman** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:03 pm

yes, but the point i was trying to make is thats exactly what alot of new acts are, its not that they can songwrite and not perform, its that the fact that they cant do anything!

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:26 pm

I guess sex sells then. All you have to do is stand there and look cute & confident. It works mostly when women do it. And as long as the audience decides that's enough for them to consume until the next product comes along, the industry will continue to sell fluff.

It's kind of like the hottest girl in town. She might be a total snobbish, gold digger, stuck up bitch but everyone likes the eye candy. Noone cares if she can do anything or say anything important or thinks ahead of time about what they're stuck with when the makeup gets peeled off. It's instant gratification and we all forget about it tommorrow when the next hot chick rolls into town. Trends are becoming outdated faster than the latest cellphone in Japan. Disposeable things are the trend and it's trendy to be disposable. The general public doesn't want to pay attention for more than 5mins anyway.

It's all about supply and demand and you either give in because everyone else is doing it or you have to say "fuck it" and go against the grain, do what's in your heart. That's what finally changes people's opinions and makes them wake up! When they know something is coming from the heart, that's when they will jump off the merry go round of distraction and start listening.

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:30 pm

Although you're right about great tunes and out of tune vocals times have changed and you either stay up or get left behind. There are always going to be exceptions and I can think of a few tracks that made it with pitchy vocals recently but if you really want to be in the game no matter what style of music you're making you have to be current.

I sing, I do not use pitch correction, I don't think I'm utterly strong, but I don't sound utterly horrible either. http://audio.cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/u/t/utenzil2-08.mp3 for a sample if you want to take a risk -- I'm more a 'character singer' than a romantic lead

but I would have to agree with the above, that the amount of polish on pop records today makes you more and more sensitive to slightly flawed vox, to the point where it's a modern 'sound signature', esp pop tunes-- prior to pitch correction are not unpleasant but there is a different quality to the vocals that dates them.

The Offender · Post by **The Offender** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:21 pm

mikemc wrote: I sing, I do not use pitch correction, I don't think I'm utterly strong, but I don't sound utterly horrible either. http://audio.cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/u/t/utenzil2-08.mp3 for a sample if you want to take a risk -- I'm more a 'character singer' than a romantic lead but I would have to agree with the above, that the amount of polish on pop records today makes you more and more sensitive to slightly flawed vox, to the point where it's a modern 'sound signature', esp pop tunes-- prior to pitch correction are not unpleasant but there is a different quality to the vocals that dates them.

good vocals, they sound human, they got kind of a bowie quality to me. if u pitch corrected it however i bet it would kill the vibe of it. perfect example y pitch correction sucks.

horrible singers shoud just learn to sing like in the old days. pop music has never sounded so lifeless as it does today. if one can learn to walk and talk tney can learn to sing, its just everyone wants to be popstars but dont want to put in the work.

trash · Post by **trash** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:22 pm

oh god those vocals make me wanna puke..
along with mr pukes i mean offenders
please lets hear your vocals cos
if you think this is good then you must be awesome..
i mean shite...
dont forget to tell yo dad about the meet tonight,

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:41 pm

The Offender wrote:good vocals, they sound human, they got kind of a bowie quality to me.

trash wrote:oh god those vocals make me wanna puke..

forge · Post by **forge** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 12:17 am

like majestic said, dont knock it till you've tried it.

I've written stuff where I've sat here at 4 in the morning and slurred some kind of drunken drawl into a mic just to get the idea down , then gone over it in melodyne and used it - the last thing it sounds is polished, rather more like a demented freak cyborg, which is always a good thing.

I understand the purist attitude but it's a bit narrow minded, you can do anything with technology these days and we should be trying to push the boundaries always, purist attitudes are fine if you're into jazz (or whatever) where it's important, but I feel I'm more skilled as a producer and programmer than guitar which I've been playing nearly 20 years and I dont think things like melodyne do more to enhance that than hinder.

MrSleep · Post by **MrSleep** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:49 am

nebulae wrote:I have tested both Autotune and Melodyne Uno.

First, Autotune on the PC is only available as DirectX, so you have to use FFx4, found here:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/vb-audio/us/pro ... dxrack.htm

This is one of the few DX to VST wrappers I know of, and it's quite stable in Live. However, this always feels like a workaround.

Melodyne seems infinitely more flexible to me. You can do a ton of magical things, especially with vocals. With Uno, you can only load one file at a time, and because it is another app, you might have to load it via rewire to do your edits.

If I had to choose, I'd pick Uno over Autotune, and I'd get it from AudioMidi.com.

Hope this helps.

I have never been able to get any of these dx adaptors to work, and just tried ffx4, i get some kind of input error. arhh.

lightman · Post by **lightman** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:56 am

my attitude is, you cant sing, tough luck, either learn or do something else. people who need pitch correction are taking away attention and record label places from those who can (and they are out there!).

trash · Post by **trash** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 9:19 am

great attitude but at the end of the day
those chumps who have and use it dont give a fuck what you think
and will carry on spewing out their banal drivellings

conny · Post by **conny** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:50 pm

MrSleep wrote: I have never been able to get any of these dx adaptors to work, and just tried ffx4, i get some kind of input error. arhh.

My AutoTune + ffx4 just get's me a blue screen when activating in Live...
Shit, and I bought AutoTune, not to sing better, but to do funny things with live sounds.

Money back.

// C

MrSleep · Post by **MrSleep** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:02 am

conny, so there is no hope for us then..

dont know how some get it working, but i always look on the brighter side... i crossed from logic not wanting to buy a mac to discover live, im happy to miss out on some of my plugs, its worth it.
but if anyone knows any tricks, please let us know.

forge · Post by **forge** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:35 am

MrSleep wrote:conny, so there is no hope for us then.. dont know how some get it working, but i always look on the brighter side... i crossed from logic not wanting to buy a mac to discover live, im happy to miss out on some of my plugs, its worth it.
but if anyone knows any tricks, please let us know.

I'm the same - never have got it working

I have FLStudio and Tracktion (both of which take DX) so that's one option that costs money - but FL is kind of worth having (free updates for life) although I havent used it in about 2 years!

you just cant use it real time with live

there's another thing called "console" that's quite cheap