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Posted by jiminy on 04-17-2008 at10:05:

Well -I am enlightened.- I should autotune Wiki more oft.

I thought since the subject was old recording methods we were speaking of something more obscure...and I'm never afraid to admit my ignorance...ever.

It certainly does explain the "WTF happened- that sounds NOTHING like the CD....."

but- hey- if it is abused too much.... whats Randy gonna say about next weeks AI performers??

sorry dawg - I dunno - it was ...

Posted by jiminy on 04-17-2008 at10:09:

btw- Markymark- bragging up recording stuff hes not letting us hear either..
Wink

whatup with y'all ? - fraid you'll sound pitchy??

what we do round here- we share!

(please??)

RR- Mark- any other homeboy recording dudes..

Come out of the closet!

Posted by jiminy on 04-17-2008 at10:12:

quote:

Originally posted by wes berlin
you might be surprised about who uses auto tune. there are obvious persons and then there's others you might not even think of.

that's all i have to say about that. Pleased

thats not John getting in one last dig at his former "partner" is it??

Or maybe its his melodic wife?? Big Grin

Posted by Audiori J on 04-17-2008 at11:13:

quote:

Originally posted by MarkyMark77
I'm a little sympathetic to autotune users. Here's why:

Last night, I was listening to a drum track I just recorded. There were a couple of spots where the timing was a little off, enough to be noticable. The rest of the track was great, and since I have limited recording time, and the track sounded really good (that's hard when you've got one Radio Shack mic on your whole kit), I edited it a little so that it sounds right.

Can I play the drums? Yes.
Could I have nailed it if I had spent more than 20 minutes on the whole drum track? Yes.

Most of my guitar, bass & keyboard tracks are one take. Drums and vocals are more, sometimes spliced together. But I played every bit of those drums, and sang every bit of those vocals. Just maybe not in the order that other people will hear them. Tongue

In a time when integrity seems to not be an issue for many people, I do expect the people on my CD's, mp3's, 8-tracks, etc., to actually be able to sing and play the way their performance sounds on the CD. If not, it's more or less lying.

I think if you're fixing something that you actually can do, but you're jusdt "autotuning" it to save time, why not.

If you can't sing, and you're being promoted as a singer, that's pretty much lying, and you should go sell encyclopedias.

I agree. The Beatles sometimes would do nearly a hundred takes of a song before they were happy. They also tended to like effects, Lennon even invented a couple, and many times they adjusted tape speed to change the pitch of their vocal. Lennon actually had George Martin splice together two takes of "Strawberry Fields" in order to get the final released one. Unfortunately they were both recorded at slightly different pitches and times so Martin slowed one down and sped the other up to splice them together. If you know where to listen you can hear the change.

I don't have a problem with any of that, but the technology has gotten so good that some people make albums who cannot sing or play any instruments or write songs. Thats when the artistry is no longer there, its just manufactured, like having a machine paint a picture for you and claiming to be the artist.

Posted by wes berlin on 04-17-2008 at12:01:

quote:

Originally posted by larryl
i can sort of see it for fixing one or two pitchy notes....

so much can depend on the operator. these things are available to tweak not to create vocals (or instruments). i agree that, like many effects, auto tune has been abused in the the hope of polishing a turd.

and here's a question for all you "purists" out there:

is it "wrong" to record to a click track? Tongue

Posted by achentodaze on 04-17-2008 at12:02:

Props - I love this song and I think it fits in well with the theme of Alarma! The fact that it is a song about props and sounds like it could be a show tune is brilliant.

On the album credits, Marty is credited as 'reluctant lead vocal', so the vocal styling was either planned or Marty just can't sing.

edit: from a comment by Marty a few years ago on the Larry thread:

"I think one has to be honest about one's abilities and then make valued decisions. I can sing, but not as good as Glen Lystne (the vocalist on I'm In Love). I'd like these tunes to go futher then my voice can carry them, if there's any hope of that happening, then I don't pick my voice. I plan on singing one or two songs on this album, if I can convince myself."

Mortal Coil - Who can argue with a reference to Hamlet?

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

Posted by MarkyMark77 on 04-17-2008 at12:10:

quote:

If you know where to listen you can hear the change.

At around 1:00, I believe. When I got "The Beatles Recording Sessions" at age 14, I read it over and over and over.

quote:

Thats when the artistry is no longer there, its just manufactured, like having a machine paint a picture for you and claiming to be the artist.

Yup.

quote:

is it "wrong" to record to a click track?

I do much of the time because it's only me playing everything, and sometimes I need it as a reference point.

But more and more, I'm not. I just play a drum track independent of anything else. I'm finding that, more and more, there's more feel to those tracks, and it's easier to sync up, because all of my musical quirks bleed into all the instruments I play. Tongue

I've never been in a band who recorded in a studio that used a click. Most drummers that I know hate 'em, and can't play with them anyway.

Posted by Mountain Fan on 04-17-2008 at12:28:

to get the inverted exclamation this is what you do:

press ALT+F1, ALT+F1, then 0-173

i did this in a text editor and then copied and pasted it into the mb window.

Posted by Mountain Fan on 04-17-2008 at12:29:

is a click track something like a metronome, or markers where musical changes are supposed to occur? Red Face

Posted by Audiori J on 04-17-2008 at13:55:

Its a click noice on a multitrack to help you stay on perfect time. Like a metronome. It is used on Buechners and can be heard I believe in some of the recording sessions on the DVD, if I remember correctly.

Posted by jiminy on 04-17-2008 at14:10:

timing is one thing-
pitch is another.
a musician should either have both (generally) or not. When a band is together- a clicktrack makes loads of sense.

Pitch:
case in point - last weekend at PK - He picked up one of the SCADS of guitars he had -started the opening notes and went:

"oops- new strings" ( even I could tell it was way out of tune)
he hit each string
ONCE.

.turned the appropriate key-

asked ONCE
for an E Chord from Tom Shiness-

and had the match-

there you are.

Oh and the harpischord on "In My LIfe" is way sped up (nearly double timed)..that GM- he is great!

Posted by PuP on 04-17-2008 at14:41:

Let me go on record as stating I was never against auto-tune, per se. However the current spate of singers using it for effect (i.e. Akon) are wearing out their welcome.

Auto-tune used as a tool - OK. Auto-tune as an effect - outdated and overdone.

Posted by larryl on 04-17-2008 at15:28:

quote:

Originally posted by wes berlin

and here's a question for all you "purists" out there:

is it "wrong" to record to a click track? Tongue

not at all... especially these days, when i record one take at my house, another gets recorded at someone else's house, and then we go to the studio with it all........

or when i'm trying to lay a drum loop on something..... almost nobody is good enough to record without a click, and have a loop laid over it, and it line up.

if i could get a drummer to lay his track first, i could probably record without a click.......

for the record... i hate playing to a click track. i use hand claps, a high hat sound... anything but that horrible metallic "click"

Posted by DwDunphy on 04-17-2008 at15:56:

I think many would prefer if I used auto-tune.

Posted by wes berlin on 04-17-2008 at16:29:

quote:

Originally posted by larryl

quote:

Originally posted by wes berlin

and here's a question for all you "purists" out there:

is it "wrong" to record to a click track? Tongue

i was only joking.

but just to be clear.....i think it's great to live in such a time where there are so many options that can be helpful in the recording process. nothing can ever take the place of a artist, because of the human element. problems often occur when someone tries to make themselves into something they are not.

Posted by Dr Rich on 04-17-2008 at16:49:

I was thinking about iAlarma! and it seems to me this is the record that DA really found it's voice.

This is the record where DA defines itself, to me, for the first time.

All the other DA records have something that started with this album.

Posted by jon eddies on 04-17-2008 at17:09:

Alarma

that's exactly what I was trying to say.
AS far as click tracks, I hate them! I prefer to record to a drum machine beat and then add real drums later. for me I have a better feel for the song with a fake drum beat than that stupid click, click, click. As far as auto tune, poor folk like me don't have that option, so I have to do it up old school, over and over and over again till I get it right.