Pitch Correction software

[Andrew07]

Who here is using pitch correction software? And if so, which one?

I've had Autotune for about 5 months now and I have NEVER used it. I've read engineers talking about how they can turn a "donkey into Pavoarotti." Well, I can't. Maybe I just haven't learned how to use Autotune well enough, but if I have a whiny off-pitch emo kid- it's gonna sound like a whiny off-pitch emo kid. If a singer is pitchy or off I tell them to sing it again and I'll try to comp different takes together, or we completely put the song on hold and just go back to it on a different day. If a band says, "don't worry he can autotune it in mastering," i just say no i can't and they have to do it again.

on a completely different note: brandon, did you ever do an article on compression or put up sound clips?

[richiebee]

I used Antares a long time ago... I thought it did a decent job.

I have Melodyne now - its okay for one or two notes, but its very tedious to use on a large scale, and depending on the material it can be really hard to get good results. The way it interfaces with ProTools is horrible too.

I think these things work better on non-vocal tracks where there's less likely to be intentional note bending going on.

Rich

[TAlderson]

I have a problem with pitch-correction. I htink that a recording should be indicative of the talent of the artist, not the amount of money and time the producer has. If a singer isn't perfect, so be it. nobody is, and it sounds more real if you don't tamper with the vocals.

-Tyler

[brandondrury]

I'll get on the compression article soon. I've destroyed with work lately. It's on my "to do" list which is about 5 computer pages long.


I've used Autotune here and there. I must say that I hate it. It doesn't work reliably. Even when it does,I don't think it actually sounds any better. Autotune was designed so that when you captured an unbelievable emotional performance, you wouldn't have to scrap it because of a bum note or two. The idea was to improve the emotion in the song. However, it's constantly abused these days. It's used to make a shitty singer sound better often on takes that don't have emotion anyway.

To be honest, I'd say that half the projects I do actually have some real emotion in them. You can hear it quite obviously. Since I don't work with much emotion, most of the time, Autotune won't do anything to help. There is no "balls button".

It appears to me that Autotune is more like an instrument than a tool in that it doesn't just fix things. You have to smooth with it to get anything good out of it in my experience.

Brandon