Autotune and its detractors
It should come as no suprise that this is brought on by the Polica album, but specifically the comments underneath the Guardian's album stream here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/apr/24/polica-give-you-ghost-stream?commentpage=1#end-of-comments
Disparaging comments regarding an album stream on a very public website are no suprise, but even for the Guardian it is quite vitriolic (though not helped by their leftfield RnB description). What do people here think of autotune in itself? My view is naturally that, as an instument, it is all in its use. Polishing banal pop RnB to its bone has little or no artistic merit, but when it is used to warp and unsettle (Fever Ray a good example), it is intriguing.
Are these detractors merely drawing too many comparisons with poor autotune use in other forms of music, and assuming the 'indie community' has turned to it almost ironically and fshionably, or is there more to it than that?
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I can't believe Dylan went electric
WHAT A TRAITOR
I've heard that phrase a lot
And for a short, but inescapable period, I used to think that he had gone proper electric, a la synths, drum machines etc. I had always wondered why I had never heard a Dylan song that sounded remotely electric, until I realised it referred to electric guitars.
Do I win £5?
haha imagine dylan went all tubeway army
:D
>
http://www.theonion.com/articles/rock-fans-outraged-as-bob-dylan-goes-electronica,17699/
I think if used right it can sound amazing
If it is used to make acceptable the otherwise off-key singing of a vocalist then no.
why shouldn't someone who can't sing use autotune?
If they do, then who are you actually listening to singing?
well it depends on who sung the song doesn't it. you are hearing the singer's voice fed through an autotune effect.
Why shouldn't someone who can't sing
not sing and get a proper job?
But if my voice fed through the same box would sound the same as yours
Isn't something lost?
I'm not sure of the answer, but it seems to me that when the singers of chart songs are literally interchangeable and indistinguishable then there is a significant reduction in the point of the whole thing.
``But if my voice fed through the same box would sound the same as yours``
but it wouldn't, and even it did, no more is lost than when two different people play the same guitar.
Who are you listening to play guitar if they use an effects pedal?
I think that's different
The effects pedal effects the sound of the note that the guitarist has chosen to play and been able to play - I would still sound very different to Johnny Marr even if I had the same guitar and the same pedals. That's because I'm a very bad guitar player and he's a very good one, and that's fair enough (I'm sure he's practised a lot more than me).
Autotune substitutes (or can)a wholly different note with a wholly different sound. Two singers could quite easily be made to sound exactly the same even if the notes they had sung at the outset were completely different.
It isn't different
``The effects pedal effects the sound of the note that the guitarist has chosen to play``
There are many effects which vary the note itself, in addition to its timbre, amplitude, tone, bla bla bla
``Two singers could quite easily be made to sound exactly the same``
No they couldn't. But even if they could, so what?
have a read of Sound On Sound sometime
in their regular 'how we mixed this song' section, they often have pop songs, and the number of times they tweak the tuning is surprising. Often it's just little tweaks here and there to make something fit, but really, from what I can gather, it's a fairly common practice in the majority of pop songs (particularly with songs with lots of harmonies - if one voice is slightly out, it has the potential to make the rest sound shit).
Like any piece of technology it's only as good as the way it is used
It can be used creatively and is.
Its routine use on 90% of all mainstream pop/r&b at present is completely pointless and anti-creative. Without wanting to sound like my dad it does definitely make almost every record in the charts sound exactly the same, and worse still they all sound really ugly.
Good examples of inventive autotune use?
I mentioned Fever Knife above (so include The Knife too). Polica seem to divide people here but I'm quite a fan.
Aaaand...?
Cher
obvs
Woods by Bon Iver
On a few Radiohead tracks. Kid A, Packt like Sardines..
Um, The Weeknd use it well. The last few minutes of Runaway by Kanye. I'm out.
Of Montreal
Bon Iver's autotuned intro to Kanye West's Lost In The World is amazing
Doesn't Bonny Bear use autotune?
Especially in Volcano Choir.
Yeah, most notably on Beth/Rest
I thought it was most effective though during a song on For Emma...you don't expect it at all so it throws you a bit, in a good way.
yeah but he uses it '''creatively''' [i.e. with guitars]
what an asshole using guitars...
Good cynicism
marred by being wrong.
He's got a point though, for sure.
No, I'd refer to my OP at this point
Whether you like it or not, Vernon uses autotune/vocoders to catch the listner off guard rather than smooth over his vocal, so forme it has merit in that sense.
yeah i actually quite like bon iver. but what i was trying to point out is that saying ~i like autotune but only when it used creatively~ is a complete non-statement as (a) it essentially equates to ~i like autotune when it sounds good~ and (b) 'creatively' does not describe the use in any way.
when people talk about how it's good when Polica, Bon Iver etc use it what they basically mean is that it's a benchmark of a band that they like. which is fair enough, but i suspect the reason that people don't like it when a chart singer uses it is because they don't like that mix of 4-to-the-floor dance, r&b and europop which is in the charts at the moment, not because the producer has used auto-tune un-creatively
So what your basically saying is...
People's opinion on autotune is in fact determined by the artist using it? Because that sort of assumption that people don't really know what they like is the sort of thing I couldn't disagree with more.
no, what I'm saying is that people should actually say why they like it when Bon Iver and Polica use it but don't like it when RedOne uses instead of make a bland, meaningless statement like "Bon Iver uses it creatively"
I suspect that you have a point
What I would say is that sometimes Autotune contributes to a record either by being an interesting part of its texture (see Fever Ray, Gayngs or Polica or any number of left field electronica/dance records) or by being surprising in its context (see Bon Iver etc) and giving an unearthly edge to an otherwise organic sounding recording.
When it feels like it is on a record merely because the producers have recognised that it is on every other record in the charts and they want to maximise their chances of getting in the charts as well by sounding the same it has no artistic value at all and merely makes the record sound unoriginal and ugly.
But in the end you are basically right to say it comes down to whether you like the record or not (but doesn't everything?)
i agree with you that it can be a poor production decision. but people were probably saying the same as the wall of sound, reverb plates, 808s, whatever. the popular music of any time has always drawn from a shared sound bank.
Well they were probably right to say so
It's probably always right (and trite) to say that there are a small number of records making innovative use of the available technology and a huge number of records making derivative and dull use of the available technology.
The records in the first category are the ones that tend to last, those in the second sound horribly dated two or three years later.
Woods is the best use of autotune I can think of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzpCKsdyYMw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41P4jHWRYYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqWsTffLWvQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QZN-bm0PP8
First two are vocoder
whoops
I read 'detractors' as 'derivatives'
I love hip-hop
but if the rapper can't hit the notes, he should try something less ambitious in the chorus (or get a guest). I say that not out of some misplaced idea of what real music/talent is, but just because I think its sounds shit the vast majority of the time.
I'd rather hear someone being out of tune. Never did ODB any harm. Everything else did, but not that.
Autotune as a sonic effect is fine
However the ubiquitous nature of it's use in the pop charts has left a large proportion of vocal delivery sounding the same across many songs and so for this reason it's a tool that when I hear it I find myself focusing on this as a sticking point to enjoying the song so for that reason I am generally not a fan of it.
Autotune used because the singer can't sing in tune is cheating. I just flat out hate that.
``Autotune used because the singer can't sing in tune is cheating.``
And which competition does this cheating take place in exactly?
The whole point of a singer is to be able to sing in tune
If the singer doesn't even need to be able to do this what are they actually adding to to song exactly?
i have nothing against the use of autotune in principle
it's just that i really dislike the sound. although this probably has a lot to do with the sort of stuff that i have it mentally associated with.
This is fair.
Best use of autotune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SoJ4VEjVZw
That explains quite a bit ...
I've been finding it very difficult (impossible let's say) to like that Polica album, I could not put a finger to it. It's definitely in the sound. Now,I understand what it is!
Does Chromatics use the same technique on his last album? because, same can't stand the sound of it.
I'm allergic to autotune!! :D
I'd love to see Autotune try and smooth out Greg Dulli's vocals.
Age of Adz
is probably the best use of autotune I can think of, thank you Akon !
http://www.gigwise.com/news/48118/Akon-I-Paved-The-Way-For-Kanye-West-To-Use-Auto-Tune
It is no coincidence that the artists you've mentioned clearly have various talents...
It is those indistinguishable pop stars that really misuse autotune and will be seen as outdated not far down the line.
its ok
though it does my nut on Woods by Bon Iver.
And following on from my above post
I'd love to hear Spencer Krug use autotune, I think he'd make it very very weird. Next Moonface album perhaps?
might, just might
be ok if it's very weird. Good choice of musicians there for the test!