Can we discuss pitch correction without arguing?

[marqueemoon]

Let’s find out.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. One of the bands I play in has a considerably more polished sound than the others and we wanted a more “professional” sounding recording. What this has meant is some Melodyne and some editing of performances for time. Honestly I don’t hate it, and I can say because I was in the room for most of the takes that it’s not a turd polishing situation.

Our singer has more of a “character” voice, so deciding what if anything to tweak is critical. The engineer we’re working with gets this though. It’s not going to sound like Maroon 5.
It’s definitely there though, and what surprised me the most is that in the context of these mixes I EXPECT to hear it.

I’ve thus far avoided committing to it with my voice on home recordings, but what’s built into Garageband is pretty primitive. I have fairly good pitch, but like many singers if I have an issue it’s with getting from one note to the next, but that’s where at lot of expressiveness come in. I’ve put it on a few instruments for kicks. Bass in particular is fun.

Another eye-opener was listening to a friend’s album. She very obviously used pitch correction as an effect in one track, and there were other instances where it was obvious things that could have been fixed were not, and a lot of stuff that plain sounds great that I didn’t give much thought to one way or another as far as what or wasn’t done.

I used to be more hardline opposed, but I feel a little differently these days. It’s ubiquitous now, and it seems like where I dislike it on a vocal it tends to be one element of general over processing.

Still, it’s a bit disheartening to think that it’s an expected part of a “professional” recording, as I think it’s perfectly possible to make compelling recorded music without it.

Curious to hear others’ thoughts and experiences.

[Telliot]

I'm curious how this discussion goes. I find those who are purists tend to conveniently forget their favorite artists have always used studio techniques like tape splicing, punching in/out, etc. to piece together the best takes. I've always been a fan of using the studio as a lab, seeing what is possible and (hopefully) lasting.

While I prefer not to use pitch correction (usually in an effort to push myself to do better), I have used it subtly when I either lacked time or was trying to polish up an older performance that I was otherwise happy with and didn't want to re-record (or worse, tried to re-record but couldn't match or improve the performance -- usually the former). Sometimes it works great, other times the artifacts are really apparent, which forces me to make a decision. More often than not I'll try to find a way to match my original signal (usually recorded on completely different gear, see also: GAS), then blend in the offending passages without it being too obvious it wasn't the same take. All that is of course much easier when I am using my home studio and don't have deadlines or a clock ticking away precious minutes.

Using it as an effect is cool in the right circumstances, but in those cases I almost always wish they had used a vocoder instead; the stricter tone matching and synth tones being more pleasant to my ears.

[seenoevil II]

Messing around with pitch correction and really dissecting a vocal take really makes you understand what a vocal performance actually is. The amount of time we spend actually on any particular pitch is pretty small. Even seemingly simple performances are very gestural and stylized. It can really drive you nuts trying to get something to be perfect.

As a rule, I typically don't mess with time. If the time is off, do another take. If it's consistently off, pick another interest. The only exception being drums if they're isolated and some sideways fill is messing with the whole damn groove.

With pitch, I only really mess with the marrow of a note. That breif instant that you nakedly established the pitch before wavering into vibrato or breaking into breathiness or fry. And then, only when it's really off will I nudge it on pitch.

I've noticed when comping vocal takes, that the least pitch accurate takes are usually the best performances concerning feel and vibe. When your on take 5 or 6 and you're in your head about hitting every note, I'm usually left with pretty uncompelling performances that despite their pitch accuracy are nonetheless "flat."

In pop music, it's pretty much expected that a vocalist simply provides the waveform for a vocoder. In more organic, less electronic music, it's a bit cringe to notice pitch correction. You'll find that most distinct singing styles people cultivate are expressly to hide pitchiness. Patti Smith/Tom Verlaine's jive voice, Lou Reed's sing/talk, Bowie/Bolen's extreme vibrato. The more enunciation, the less pitch accuracy you need. That's why you can never understand what the hell opera singers are on about. But go listen to isolated vocal tracks by Freddie Mercury or Bowie, you'll hear what I mean. Surprisingly, isolated vocal tracks of Britney Spears reveal and real talent.

The hot tip that I'm eager to try that, yes, I indeed got from a Rick Beato video, is to always monitor your previous takes when doubling vocals. I always used to cheat by filling a take folder with many takes, then comping two separate clean takes from them. The problem is that without a monitor of the other take, you'll sing so close to the exact same pitch that you'll get phasey, flanging sounds. It's the same reason we detune oscillators when making huge synth sounds.

[Embenny]

It's a pretty archaic attitude to be against pitch correction of any type in any quantity in any genre.

I'm sick to death of the synthesized, full autotune sound, and overproduced pop makes me ears ache, but using something like melodyne is no different than using drum samples. You can edit or create something with it, either correctively or creatively. Nothing wrong with either if it fits your artistic intention.

[windmill]

For some reason the other day I was listening to some recent pop music and the pitch correction was so common that I wondered if it was being used as an "effect".
The sound of it must be popular because it is all over that type of music.

As a complaint, there is a local group that puts on a musical every year, the last one was the biggest production they had put on, eg stage, sets, cast etc.
After about 15 minutes I realised that every singer was being "autotuned", pitch corrected, and by the end it had become fatiguing to listen to
and ... it all sounded the same !

It spoilt what had, in the past, been fun evenings listening to the variety of different styles of local singers.

But it is now so common it must be popular.

HTH

[marqueemoon]

It's a pretty archaic attitude to be against pitch correction of any type in any quantity in any genre.

I'm sick to death of the synthesized, full autotune sound, and overproduced pop makes me ears ache, but using something like melodyne is no different than using drum samples. You can edit or create something with it, either correctively or creatively. Nothing wrong with either if it fits your artistic intention.

I basically agree with this.

The only thing I’d add is just like the other “paintbrushes” the decision if and how to use it doesn’t always come from a purely artistic place.

[mikeymike]

I would agree with most of the take so far. It has it's place and use; it had been over board for a while, but when used tastefully and with discretion, it's a powerful tool.

[øøøøøøø]

It's a tool for making art, same as any other.

There are plenty of times when pitch correction is the wrong artistic choice and makes the end result worse. There are plenty of times when it's the right choice, but is executed poorly and makes the art worse.

There are also plenty of times when it's the right choice, is done well, and makes the art better.

I've come to learn that audiences don't care about what tools are/aren't used unless the work is compelling, anyway. Interesting process doesn't make the work good--it's good work that makes the process interesting.

In any case, it doesn't have to be audible. I take pride in my ability to tune a vocal and sound like I was never there. I've done extensive work on plenty of vocals where the vocalist themselves didn't even notice.

But it requires going syllable-by-syllable. It's labor-intensive. People with little creative investment in the project (beyond what they're being paid) will often try to shortcut this and let the program do its work automatically. This is where things get audible.

One other note... there have been many times when I've listened back to a comp I've tuned, and a particular moment happens that makes me go "nah, I went too far with the Melodyne on this word, it sounds unnatural." Then I go back into the Melodyne and see that I hadn't touched that particular word...

Moral of the story: the human voice does funny things sometimes, and the human mind (with all its expectation bias) does funny things, too.

[DrQuasar]

Pitch correction can be so subtle now you may not even notice it. Hating it is more like a pet peeve now than anything. (One of my pet peeves is that 4 on the floor compressor pumping effect or whatever it is that's on a lot of pop tunes, drives me nuts).

I'm still really impressed when someone doesn't use it though. Remember when T-Pain went on Tiny Desk with just him and a keyboard player and slayed? I remember starting it thinking, "this is going to be hilarious," and then the piano player started playing and he started singing and I was blown away how good he was.

[Embenny]

(One of my pet peeves is that 4 on the floor compressor pumping effect or whatever it is that's on a lot of pop tunes, drives me nuts).

Yeah, the "aggressively sidechained compressor on the kick drum" sound is like nails on chalkboard to me.

It used to be a calling card of shittily-produced home recordings that put too much global compression on the drum bus or master bus, but it started to be intentionally used as an aesthetic choice via sidechaining, which blows my mind because it just sounds so bad to me.

[FrankRay]

I think I night be slightly off-message here.

basically I'd say you have to know what you're going for. If you want to sound like a real band in a real room- like the Police, say- don't use. Trying to perfect everything, tune everything, quantize everything will just make everything blander. It's the push/pull of individual senses of timing and tuning that creates tension and interest. The point at which everything is perfect, like Picasso used to say, is like taking a horse outside and shooting it. Life exists in the cracks between 'perfection'.

On the other hand if you want to sound ultra modernist, like Sophie or Kanye (and I really love both of them) go for it. Modern life is spent with many many people feeling more alive online than off. We live, love and experience life through computers. Use them to make art. Great. Just try not to do it 'invisibly'. Do it shamelessly, in your face. The world doesn't need anymore 'tasteful' artists like, say, Sharon Von Etten. Go tasteless.

That's what I think, anyway.

[øøøøøøø]

I think everything is too interdependent for any kind of "if x then y" flowchart.

Except perhaps "if the pitchy note/word annoys someone (besides the singer) three times in a row, it's probably worth touching it up."

[marqueemoon]

I like keeping imperfections and maintaining the human-ness of performances, but I gotta say it’s nice to have options. Particularly with singing vibe and energy can’t be faked. There’s no plugin for that.

There’s a weird Auto Tune Police cottage industry that’s spung up on Youtube. I just have very little interest in that. Of course Michael Bublé is fucking pitch corrected.

[øøøøøøø]

It's silly.

Virtually anything can be abused/overused.... including the instruments themselves. The human voice... we've all heard a singer who does too many runs!

That's why you just have to trust your good taste. I often wonder when people have these little dogmas; swear they'll never do/use this thing or that thing. Don't they trust their aesthetic sensibility?

Like, if I'm so detached from the artistic goal that I could fuck it up with a piece of software, then I stood very little chance of making good art with any consistency, anyway.

Why not be willing to try anything and everything that might make the art better? Once in awhile, you'll do something naughty, nobody will die, you might break an imaginary, meaningless rule (even one of your own making), and the art will either be better or it won't. Then you keep it or you throw it away.

[JSett]

I can only comment on this subject as a music consumer as I don't have any experience using pitch correction in anything I've recorded and, thus, don't have an acute ear for it - I assume most pop music has it on these days but I rarely listen to any of that. My opinion is essentially very simple: if I can hear it, I don't like it. Unless it's a vocoder, that shit is fun.

I enjoy the idiosyncrasies of a natural human voice, warts & all. I would rather hear a note sung a few cents off and with emotion than a perfectly in tune one with no soul.

But that's just, like, my opinion man

*side note: I was thinking of this thread as I span Just As I Am, by Bill Withers, for the first time in WAY too long while pottering around the house and constructing a lasagne yesterday. There's plenty of notes in there that aren't quite there but the songs are still perfect - just in a different way. Pitch-correction be damned.