Using Auto-tune plugins

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Zakelsta

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I just purchased Antares Auto-Tune 3, and it's really awesome, and is a great tool.

I've just had some trouble with getting it exact, some notes not being fixed as well as others, even in graphical mode.

If anyone knows anything about this, please let me know what you think about using it, or any tips.
 
I don't use Autotune. i find it to be a major time waster.
so in that case, i use Melodyne.
 
Auto-tune ignores consonant sounds. If the vocal line has more gravel than note, Autotune won't track it.

The bottom line is, if the performance sucks, autotune won't fix it. Most people who can't sing in key, just can't sing.
 
Sillyhat said:
Auto-tune ignores consonant sounds. If the vocal line has more gravel than note, Autotune won't track it.

The bottom line is, if the performance sucks, autotune won't fix it. Most people who can't sing in key, just can't sing.
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Then, dude, what are they using to fix the voice of Avril Lavigne, Ashlee Simpson , etc ? Autotune does wonder in the right hands.
 
Autotune won't fix a performance, it will only fix the pitch. It's two different things. If you can't control the tone of your voice, or your pitch is really off, autotune won't help.

Even though the people you mention aren't great singers, they are trained. They are, technically anyway, better than most people.
 
Autotune has been used on about every singer.. it can literally make a good singer sound great if used properly.. But I agree with whoever said it's a waste of time.. When I mixed (actually 2nd engineer, I applied compression and effects on instruments) with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis I have noticed that their chief engineer X-man (xavier) uses Autotune and I even bought it.. It's nice but it's not worth messing with.. It all comes down to can your singer sing and if so how is your mic placement skills? You can always enhance a vocal take, but if it ain't happening don't salvage something that will take you longer to make it sound okay.. Find a new singer then..
 
Zakelsta said:
I just purchased Antares Auto-Tune 3, and it's really awesome, and is a great tool.

I've just had some trouble with getting it exact, some notes not being fixed as well as others, even in graphical mode.

If anyone knows anything about this, please let me know what you think about using it, or any tips.
Click to expand...

1 - Make sure you have the right key selected, and that the vocal fully conforms to the key.
2 - Make sure you select the appropriate voice type.
3 - Go easy on the speed and tracking settings, don't force it.

Once this stuff is setup correctly, AT3 needs one more thing to work well...... a reasonably well sung vocal. That means it's never out by more than 33 cents, and rarely out by that much. If you're asking it to do more than that, then I agree with "sing it again, or get another singer".
I rarely use AT on a lead vocal, but I like to tighten up harmonies with it. If I do use it on a lead voc, it's because it was a good emotive take that I don't want to give up for just a couple of minor pitch discrepancies.
I've heard from reliable sources that pretty much everything that comes out of Nashville has been pitch processed, and that's pretty easy to believe. You'll have to reach your own conclusions about musical integrity and genre/song specific appropriateness of AT3, but let me just warn you against the presumption that it's necessarily "better" if everything is perfectly pitched.
 
Get the feel right

Yea, AT is a great little plugin for tuning. But I have to agree with previous posts in many areas.

1. The vocal shouldn't be too far out of tune, otherwise AT won't be able to handle it. A well sung vocal which is generally in pitch can be made to sound better with AT, but a badly sung vocal still sounds bad, no matter what you use on it.

2. By all means pick the right scale and disable the notes your vocalist doesn't use, this will mean that AT only targets the right notes.

3. The feeling in the vocal is truly important. I've worked with singers who sing in tune but lacked feeling, technically things sound great, but the performance lacks that magic (emotion, energy - call it what you like). AT and any other plugin for that matter is totally useless at correcting this.

4. As for vocalists who can't sing in tune, there are things called singing lessons (seriously, they can help). Then again some people still can't sing in tune after having lessons, maybe diplomatically suggesting that they try playing another instrument might work?

5. As for Melodyne, it's an amazing piece of software, which I think is far more complex than Autotune, but also far more versatile and gives extremely good control of pitch, formant, amplitude etc.


I notice that Waves has got a new vocal plugin which does pretty much what Autotune does, I haven't tried it, but some of the reviews I've seen suggest that it's pretty good.

Cheers
Theo C
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http://www.theoc.co.nz
 
Yup - you can't polish a turd. I am a novice singer and have tried using Autotune to try and save my vocals - but really it doesn't do anything if the performance is shit to begin with. It's just for correcting slightly pitchy vocals on an otherwise solid take.
 
I haven't used Autotune in a long time, but here's a method I found to work best.. process in small chunks rather than attempting to run the whole track through it at once.. experiment with the different scales and modes if a part doesn't take as well as another.
 
anything more than about a half-step out is probably lost, no matter what you are using. (and that's pushing it)

but say what you will, i've made some serious crap listenable with that plug.
and it's time consuming.
and i bill by the hour.

try this for fun, tune every little bit of every note in a line or 3, and turn the speed all the way up, and the "choosy" or whatever it's called all the way down.
insta-cher.
the worse the singer, the neater it sounds.
 
Like any other tool, it is useful if used by someone who is skilled in its use.

In graphic mode, you have far more control, but there are two factors that can impose limitations on pitch correction, even in graphic mode.

One is that extreme fixes will change the timbre of the voice, so it will sound "chipmunky" (when moved up) and whatever the equivalent term would be when moving down.

The other is that if there is any other instruments bleeding into the vocal track you may get some very strange sounding artifacts when running the track through autotune.

In either case, you may find the out of tune vocal, bad as it may be, sounds better than the "fixed" one.
 
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