billboard article on autotune...

[benton netty]

forgive me if this has already been posted...i looked and didn't see it anywhere on here. it's a billboard magazine article on autotune. apparently, NPR did a "morning edition" segment on it, and how it's affecting modern music. kinda interesting, even though i've never touched the stuff in my own recordings as yet.

http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/artic ... 1000731494

[nacho459]

Before everyone starts bashing Antares let me say It's the artist's / engineers fault not the box / software.

I use Auto tune about 40% of the time and it's only when the singer simply can't stay in tune and it hurts my ears. If I have a rockin song and a less than perfect vocals that are killing the song you better bet I'll patch through the ATR-1a. On the other hand if I have an "super indie" singer that goes off key but still rocks I'm not going to mess with that.

[Mark Alan Miller]

They re-ran the SNL with Ashlee Simpson last night. Yes, this is on-topic.

[nicksense15]

NPR had a piece on this too the other day.

Nick

[maz]

NPR had a piece on this too the other day.

Nick

um...


nevermind!

[cgarges]

Yeah, I think NPR did something on this.

Chris

[mrufino1]

http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php ... 8-Nov-2004
Here's the audio

[Stephen]

It is so easy to blame a dearth of inspiration and creative integrity on a piece of technology. However I look at this the opposite way. For those of us who appreciate sincere effort as well as music's occasional imperfections, the music that is not autotuned to death remains wonderful and stands in great contrast corporate product spew. King Crimson would be brilliant no matter what. This makes me enjoy their efforts doubly so. People will always buy crap no matter how it is produced and some folks will always seek out the good stuff, what ever that might be. Also let's makes it really clear right here right now. There has never been a golden age where all popular music was homogenously good. What do you think the the biggest selling single song of 1966 was? Something by the Stones or by The Beatles? Well Billboards top song of that year was Sunny by Bobby Hebb... Get the picture here? Yeah singers who overuse autotune suck. But they don't suck because they can't sing, they suck because they suffer from a dearth of creativity. That will always be so regardless of any form of technology.
YMMV.
Pax, Steve

[leigh]

apparently, NPR did a "morning edition" segment on it, and how it's affecting modern music.

That's cool. Also, the other morning, I heard something about autotune on NPR.

Leigh

[Knights Who Say Neve]

Yeah singers who overuse autotune suck. But they don't suck because they can't sing, they suck because they suffer from a dearth of creativity. That will always be so regardless of any form of technology.
YMMV.
Pax, Steve

Technologies have consequences.

The Cotton Gin made slavery more profitable, thus greatly increasing the scope of the slave trade in the American South, and dashing hopes that the South would "grow out of" needing slaves, as many of the founding fathers had hoped. As the South became more dependent on slaves, they dug their heels in politically and, eventually, the American Civil War was the result.

Technologies have consequences.

Autotune makes it easier to push marginal talent that looks good in a video. It makes it easier for giant corporations to manipulate public taste in favor of overproduced mindless crap. The public taste is being manipulated further and further away from the kind of music they could make themselves, and further and further towards mindless, content-free corporate drivel. You could say that's not Autotune's fault. And you could say that the booming slave business in the 19th century American South was not the Cotton Gin's fault.

But you'd be wrong.

Technologies have consequences.

[Dan Phelps]

Auto-Tune is bad enough when used to cover a struggling singer's ass. What irks me more is a situation where people want to tune a perfectly lovely vocal performance. For my ears, that kind of "perfection" isn't actual Perfection. Emotion is in the intonation, and when you "correct" that what do you have left. Some words and a melody, but not a performance. Some people just don't know when to stop.
Given the opportunity, I prefer to work hard and get what I need from the vocalist on tape or hard drive.
I'm not against it as a tool...I have a lot of funky instruments, and a bunch of them are out of tune with A 440. So thank goodness for pitch shifting. I wouldn't be against fixing a word here or there if I couldn't get it from another take or get the singer to do it again.

More reality, please.

Dan

[Moon Unit]

Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla




bla.

[cgarges]

Technologies have consequences.

Well-put.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[rimbaud234]

I love Autotune.
There.
I said it and I feel better for having said it.

[Mark Alan Miller]

Once in (hopefully not a long) while one gets to work with a singer who can get most of it in a take or two, with feeling, attitude and musical intonation.


Lovely day today was. When she didn't get it on the fist pass, the second or third did the job.
No Autotune for her - and I smile at that. Make your own assumptions from there...