The Smiley Smile Message Board

In the next couple of days I will be asking moderators to move "The First Gig" thread out of this section of the board (and into the concert reviews section) in order to make room for the additional threads for shows coming up on the tour.  Perhaps any current talk regarding "Autotune" can continue here? 

Thank you, Justin!

I foresee someone down the road asking something like "What is this autotune stuff you guys are talking about??  What concerts did this happen?"  And it'll be a bitch to try and locate stuff so what I'll do is summarize each tour stop with the official verdict so that person can go and find that thread based on what cities we've deemed "Autotuned."  This thread may or not actually continue on the discussion of the Aututone but at least it'll have a summary on what's went down during this wacky period.

I think you mean "Probably" and "We don't know yet"

^_^

City                                     Autotune?
------------------------------------------------

Tuscon, AZ                         Yes
Grand Prairie, TX                 Yes
New Orelans, LA                     ?

I thought at first that maybe B-Pain took the night off for the TX show, but then I realized I based that off of about 3 notes I heard in Good Vibrations (when he sang the extra "Ooh Bop Bop" super low in the mix).

Then I heard "The Little Girl I Once Knew".  >:( 

This might be a permanent thing guys. Here's hoping they killed it during tonight's show.

Ugh, it's also on the 26th show. It's not as bad, but it's still pretty damn bad. :(

I listened to the Vimeo clip that was up of the first show and it is bad and noticeable.  I'm not sure how people don't hear it if they compare Brian's vocals to Mike's.  Mike's vocals are very dry, as though he has no effects.  In fact, it can be a little hard to hear Mike when the harmonies are around him.  Brian is mixed loud, in front, and it sounds like the guitar on "Frampton Comes Alive."  Who are the people that allowed that?  I don't think people would mind if Brian had a little subtle pitch correction, but he doesn't sound human.  Somebody needs to tell the sound guy or whoever is doing it that they're not making Brian look or sound good.  It almost sounds like a different band and concert entirely when Brian has a lead vocal.

Seems to be.  Darn.

Oh well, looks like it's going to be an interesting tour!

ur so mad ;(

Is it really so hard to see why this upsets people? That the very presence of something like this totally cheapens the whole "live concert" thing? That Brian would probably actually sound *better* without something they've made a conscience decision to use to make him sound "better"? That it's a slap in the face to Brian's talents, Brian as a person, and fans? That it makes him look pathetic and incapable to people who hear it and don't know any better?

I'm not trying to ruin anyone's experience of going - they've already been there, I'm sincerely glad they had a good time. But this is the sort of thing that makes people *not* buy tickets.

Again, hate to be repetitive, but it's a problem, it persists, and the denial of it by people in the show means it's not likely to improve any time soon. It's just sad.

Would you really be okay if the albums were re-released and sounded like this?: http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/20/800088/TIMETOGETAPHONETOGETAPHONEANDJUSTTALKTOGETHER.mp3 (http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/20/800088/TIMETOGETAPHONETOGETAPHONEANDJUSTTALKTOGETHER.mp3)

Runners, please calm down, man. I honestly was not trying to provoke you. I was acknowledging that yes, it seems pretty clear from the newly available evidence, that BW is being pitch corrected.

What's more, I think it's a shame.

Not being a party to the backstage decisions, I'm not sure why they're doing this. I think the fact that Brian appeared at two high-profile public events without any such pitch correction, and the fact that his camp let him tour for 12 years without it, makes its inclusion here superfluous.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out, simply to see if the application varies or is ever stopped, or if the media ever get savvy to it. At the very least it doesn't sound natural, so I can't imagine it will go unnoticed if they keep at it, especially at smaller venues. But I'm also just not the sort to rage about stuff like this. I know some people want to, and I'm sympathetic. But I'm raising a 12-month-old here at home -- this is him last week --

(http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/577486_10150665917306895_500841894_9662300_2020125096_n.jpg)

And that's a lot more important to me than if rich white guys are singing with computer effects or not. Makes me happier, too!  :)

Aw. Hes a cutie!

He can also sing an amazing Heroes and Villains if you hook him up to an autotune plugin!

(Not really. Not yet, at least.)

D'AWWWWW ^_^

That is one cute baby!

Erm.... er, what were we talking about?  :lol

BABIES SHOULD NEVER BE AUTOTUNED

That's the stuff! You'll be raising a 13-month-old soon... And it just keeps getting better. My 37-month-old asked if  would dance with her to the Beach Boys yesterday! She's learning!

So where exactly is the autotune in Texas? - as I am listening to it right now can one of the B-Painers please point it all out

Thanks in advance

me either. don't hear it anywhere. and really, who gives a sh*t anyway? what difference does it make? just be happy this is happening and enjoy the ride.

Count me down also as one of the ones too stupid to hear any autotune, anywhere, on anything. 

I haven't reviewed everything yet, but it does sound like they've backed way off, for the most part.  There's less totally overt robo-voice stuff (Surfer Girl sounds pretty much clean to me, at that was one of the worst offenders in Tucson) and there's less of the glitchy pitch-stepping stuff (you can hear Brian actually slide, naturally, out of tune on the H&V coda) but there are still some suspicious moments.  "I'll be movin' in one day" on "Little Girl..." for example.  There are still some weird jumpy artifacts throughout the verse on H&V.  Brian's overall too-perfect pitch on "Sail on Sailor" sounds suspect.  But if Tucson was the sound of hideous malfunction, Texas seems to be the way it's "supposed" to sound.

Or:


You're hearing sh*t.


:)

Cool post man

The chorus on the Texas H&V is quite peculiar ... there is like one, thin, sustained, single note from Brian. It sounds really robot-y.

Thank you anazgnos, I appreciate that.   

Somebody clue in us ignorant and ill informed who despite all our efforts can't hear any autotune.  Explain to us mechanically how Autotune works, for instance i heard that a keyboard player plays the melody or something?

Somebody break it down for us exactly how they're pulling off the autotune that's on all Brian's vocals, so we can better understand.


Be warned though: After you do that, later this evening I'm going to sign on and introduce you to my friend Ockham.  It will not be pretty.

:)  

Refer back to runnersdialzero's post above: If the autotune hypothesis is correct, Brian's lead vocals fro Tucson would sound almost exactly like this, if you heard them isolated.  These are the glitches or artifacts that people are talking about hearing.


I mean, it doesn't matter if you don't hear it, it's fine.  The only reason to talk about this is precisely because, as we are often reminded, "people who matter" are listening in.  

Of course, not to say that you don't matter too, Ron. :)

How they would "pull it off" is placing it going into the soundboard.  No one in the audience or on stage would see it.  You can Google "live vocal pitch correction" and see the options out there (and see video/audio of how the effects work); there are other brands besides autotune, so they can claim they're not using autotune but could use a different brand.  It doesn't involve anyone playing a keyboard, it's just an effect like the ones used for instruments or on the board in a recording studio, where knobs and sliders are used to contour the sound.

I'm not stepping into the debate, but the question was asked of how it works. I have a rackmount vocal processor with the original Antares Autotune, and can answer a few rudimentary questions, leaving the really techie stuff to the engineers on the board.

Autotune recognizes what we hear as pitches (notes) by analyzing the waveform, calculating the pitch of that waveform, and correcting it. It's a digital process, nothing mechanical about it. It can be adjusted fast which doesn't allow breath or vibrato to come out (and maxing this out is the T-Pain effect), or slow, so it corrects the pitch but leaves breath and vibrato and other vocal bends and all that as part of the sound.

Two parts to remember about Autotune are that you need to "program" it in a way depending on the key of the song. If it is in the key of C or A minor, for example, you would program all the notes of that scale telling it to trigger on and correct to those notes. If you have a melody that goes beyond the straightforward key, you can program those chromatic notes as well, and omit certain notes of the scale calling them blank notes so it won't correct everything and will sound more natural, and allow the melody to go in and out of tune ever so slightly.

Or, you could have the Autotune completely off except for a few notes, so the vocal can be natural on the majority of the melody notes being sung but if they have a hard time hitting a really high note, you could trigger the Autotune to only hit and correct that note up to pitch, leaving the others natural.

If Autotune is used "live", the singer's monitor mix would probably only have his/her actual notes audible while the audience's mix would have more of the Autotune signal, otherwise the singer would be hearing Autotune working in their monitor mix and try to pitch their voice to that, and it doesn't work as well.

And engineers should be able to get a fairly "natural" sound using Autotune, like compression which was designed to not be detected as an "effect" unless deliberately over-applying it or maxing it out is the desired effect.

My external Autotune rack unit is several years old now, and the effect itself is about 15 years old when it was developed for ProTools, so if anyone can shed any light on the newer developments or revisions, please do!

So the question remains - what songs and where in them precisely does the Auto tune come in

I've had a little bit of SOS, SG and H&V so far and that hasn't been exactly scientific

Come on u B-Painers lets have it

It's on his voice for the whole show.

The "offness" of it is more audible certain times than others. For instance, towards the end of the Surfer Girl bridge, you can hear the machine knock him down completely to the note below. If the pitch correction machine wasn't on it, it wouldn't be nearly as flat.

After listening to both shows (almost in their entirety) I find that there isn't one moment where they laid off the pitch correction. Choose any spot, and you'll notice a certain robotic quality about his voice.

I don't know man... He's sung flat, and that's not because of a machine pulling him down. Let us not fall into the extreme of blaming a pitch corrector every time he sounds too good

Of course. I'm not blaming the pitch correction for Brian Wilson's flat singing. We've all heard the tapes of him (and seen him) over the past 12 years and know what it is as far as his live singing capabilities.

I am blaming the pitch correction for pulling down the notes even lower than he's actually hitting them, and creating an unnatural sound, possibly polluting all of the board tapes of the C50 shows.

They've taken an unpredictable situation, and made it predictably bad.

#BPainC502012  :smokin

They'll have him go in and overdub it post-production if they don't like the sound, whether it's autotune or he's flatting or both, for any DVD or download/CD release.  Then people will complain about that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxRvDpF2FDA

Yeah. Well, not me. That would be a welcomed fix compared to what's going on here.

I just wonder who they're trying to impress, or fool. Judging by the audience reaction when Jeff calls out the band members names in the beginning of the TX show, these people DEFINITELY know who Brian Wilson is, and most likely know what comes with his presence. He clearly got the loudest audience response.


LOL nice. I like that song quite a bit. Catchy hook. T-Pain's a talented guy beyond the autotune.

We need a T-Pain ft. B-Pain collab.  :hat

Also, yeah, it is on the Texas show. Not as bad as the Tuscon show, but still pretty bad.

But we couldn't tell them apart anymore!  ;D

I don't know if they are or aren't using it from what I've heard, but this entire argument is obnoxious. If it is being used, I wish it would stop simply because this argument has raged for days with no end in sight.

That's what this thread it for! It allows us to concentrate Autotune discussion in one easily avoidable spot for those who wish to direct their energies elsewhere.

I know but it's so hard to ignore the little new thingy next to the thread name so I HAVE to read it! Following which, I read depressing instances of the Beach Boys using Autotune.

There was definitely autotune to be had for BW in Atlanta. 

This is the most blatant example of the auto tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQNj9WQUHsc

If you can't hear something very strange about Brian's voice here well....you never will. It is is clear that it is being digitally pushed to hit the notes.

In all seriousness if they keep this up it is only a matter of time before the media catch on and Brian and the Beach Boys are a laughing stock. Someone has got to get rid of this. Brian has never needed it before.

So true man. I already saw some girl post it on her tumblr. I'm concerned for these guys. It's embarrassing.

Just as they can send the unprocessed signal to the monitor mix, they can (and do) also send an unprocessed signal to the mobile recording truck.  So, unless you're talking about soundboard recordings (not officially released), then we don't have to worry about any eq, reverb, compression, delay, etc. that's applied to the house mix to be applied to the signals that go to the truck.  

Wow, you can really hear it in the "Sunny down snuff" solo vocal. Brian's voice is being pushed all over the place, and there is audible digital stepping.

It must make it hard to sing when your voice is being mangled like that. It is an insult to Brian that they are making him  sing with autotune.

If it's being used, it's certainly not being fed back at him through his monitors.

Yeah, that's what I said in my post answering Ron's question about how it works, when used live - the singer would not hear the Autotune signal in his/her monitor.

You're right.  As for that, push it back, way back.

Okay, now, would it be at all possible for anyone connected to the tour in anyway to tell band's management that the pitch correction needs to stop? Is there any way of contacting them?

I couldn't hear it on the Tucson show, because I don't know what to listen for,  but in the Texas show on H&V there are a couple of moments with a really odd sound on Brian's voice, like if he was hitting himself repeatedly, very fast, in the throat to make a robot voice while singing. I assume that's what people are talking about?
It sounded bad on that bit, but generally it doesn't seem to sound too bad to my ears...

Wow, that's horrible. Sad to hear.  I'm an audio engineer, and that's just bad use of autotune. It wouldn't even be that big of a deal if they at least used it efficiently, but the settings are just horribly done.  Hopefully, they'll figure the situation out soon.

I hear it on You're So Good to Me. Cringe worthy.

Ah, of course. Fairly obvious - I should have known.

I think you are hearing things

Can't hear it sorry and I do a lot of listening

Good on u bro. Be grateful that u can't hear it.

She isn't.
It's not a big deal to me, but there's no denying the fact it's there.

Ha! That's funny considering I've seen him live for the past eight years. I would like to think I know Brian's voice live by now!

Me too and to be honest he was getting better and better - still not convinced this is all auto tuned by the long shot

You can hear it very subtly on this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTLX3Elt4F8&list=UUpzE-BoSEkaeK0Dct2JPkRQ&index=2&feature=plcp

For those unfamiliar with subtle "tuning" it IS very hard to here.
I'm an audio engineer and I can definitely hear it on some of the end of BW's lines and when he pushes certain notes.
Oh well! Can't wait to see them in June!! Love the new single too.

Ten years from now this'll be funny.

I don't want them to turn Brian into Mae West in "Sextette" and "Myra Breckinridge."  He doesn't need the audio equivalent of facial tape and Vaseline on the lens. He did without it before on his solo tours, or at least it was done in a way that wasn't obvious if it was.  I realize a lot of artists may employ it in their concerts, but it shouldn't draw attention to itself.  I also find it odd that he's pushed up so high in the mix on some songs when Mike and the others aren't.  That may be what's sounding as odd as any autotune employed.  He sounds best on the circulating video of  "In My Room," where he's softer in the mix but you can hear him, and I don't notice autotune so much or it's not being used as obviously, if at all.

I agree, it's hard to hear if you don't work in the audio industry.

I don't think working in the "audio industry" has anything to do with being able to hear the effects on his vocals.

I bought a guitar tuner (so now I'm in the music industry) and held it up to the speakers while I was playing the youtube videos.  Brian's voice made the guitar tuner peg to "in tune" on each note.... so I hear it now!  Now I can hear the autotune! 

Can't believe they're doing this.  BTW who's playing the whoo whoo machine to make all this happen?  Did they ressurect Roger Troutman?  Did they hire DJ Quik? 

If you don't hear it on THIS clip then you need your hearing checked.

You can really hear it in the bridge section of Sail on Sailor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X6gLxS9Cw8&feature=relmfu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X6gLxS9Cw8&feature=relmfu)

Compare it to to this 2001 Letterman clip of BW singing SoS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BakwE9cjSc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BakwE9cjSc)

Yeah, you would have to have a cloth ear to not hear the autotune in the first one. I have a tin ear, and I was able to hear it...

Voice may be processed (it better be), but the performance is ptichy anyway. Besides, he'll sing a good note, and  when he has to sing it again he'll do it badly. In other words: it's inconsistent enough. The same goes for every Brian performance circulating of this tour.

We've had episodes like this before in this board: fans arrive at a certain conclusion that is accepted as gospel, only to be tumbled by reality. The latest one possibly being when the DIA video appeared: dozens of posts appeared stating that the video was fake because David was not at the session. Reality put them in their place and people had to swallow their words.

Exactly.

Another piece of recent fan gospel that was tumbled by reality: "they will NOT play Fender".

Check all tour photograhps and videos, please.

Snowball effects are constant here. And when these gospel staements are proven wrong, few of its former supporters are around to take the blame. The same thing is happening with the autotune crap.

The Fender-Gibson thing has not been explained, and for the life of me I don't know why that obscure issue is "off limits". Some topics, yes - not for public broadcast, understood. But obviously something was going on with the band and Gibson, and the band (Al, mostly) and Fender, but ultimately after Gibsons in rehearsals and at the Grammy awards we see them playing Fenders on the actual shows.

Is rumor and innuendo better than just telling the truth and ending it? Hey, I posted that same thing in the Fender-Gibson thread! :-D

You are correct good sir, but I have to say that autotune is pretty obvious on Brian's (and only Brian's) voice. Anecdotal evidence: I was watching a video and my girlfriend (casual fan, not a musician, can't typically pick out elements of a mix) heard it from across the room - it was one of the sustained notes in "Please Let Me Wonder" where the formant and pitch goes way out for a split second, in a non-human way. She commented to me about it, with no prompting.

Of course, Brian's bum notes are still audible, so it makes the live pitch correction doubly ridiculous and useless.

 

Bah. Just spent way too much time writing a long ass response, but nevermind.  All is perfect in the world of The Beach Boys. Even Brian's perfectly out of tune vocals. :hat

lol Dr. Lenny maybe you're the one who is wrong?

Listen to those videos I posted. There's tuning. There's a popular Billy Joel video of him singing the national anthem at an outdoor baseball game and there's very obvious live tuning on him too so maybe compare the two and hear the similarities.

It's a bummer but maybe it's part of their contract with whoever is financing the whole tour.

Perhaps they think his voice is a risk for potentially bad reviews and for casual fans who don't necessarily know Brian as a household name, nor have seen/heard any of his solo tours/records - he's a pretty odd character on stage and don't know what he goes through etc.
Just a thought.

I'm still going to be at the Boston show and will buy the new record on the release date.

I think you hit the nail on the head about their contract possibly requiring it. Like you, I am going to enjoy the sh*t out of the show I am going to, and I will purchase the CD on day 1.

Take a look at David's baseball cap in the Jazz Fest photos. :-D

Can I ask a serious question, why is this Autotune thing such a big deal with some of you? Is it a deal breaker and that you won't go to shows? Since no one has heard it while attending shows, is the issue just that it is fucking up your bootleg concert collection? Thanks!

I don't collect concert bootlegs (seriously, no wink and a nods). But the YouTube audience recordings, to my completely and utterly untrained ears, demonstrate the use of pitch correction on Brian's voice. I hear it in the attack, mostly, but also in the bridge of SOS. In my opinion (everything I write is in my opinion, by the way) there is also a digital sheen to the notes he holds for a little while, but maybe that is a result of bad smartphone recordings.

I agree that "autotune," when used properly, isn't a big deal. Take all the help you can get, no problem, I don't blame them. However, when it adds digital bloops and blips, which I'm relatively certain I hear-- I'm hedging, I honestly believe there's no question it's being used-- it pulls me out of the moment and makes it sound unnatural.

I think Brian's "shouty" delivery is what screws up the processing. He knows how to deliver a good live vocal. Pitchy? Sure. Fine by me. It's authentic. It's our Brian. Anything else distracts from everything that makes him a superhero.

I'm still happily going to two of the shows in June.  If the autotune is still going strong it will probably detract from my enjoyment of Brian's leads, but I know there's more to the show than that, so it's not a dealbreaker at all in that sense.  Obviously my goal is to go to the shows and hear some of my favorite music in the world and have a good time.  I'll probably be a little sensitized to any weird robotic sounds coming from Brian's voice, but it's not my goal to sit there picking it apart at the show.

I wish they weren't using it.  I dislike the effect on general principle, and I think what's even worse in this case is the fact that it doesn't solve the issue they presumably want it to solve.  I love the Beach Boys and I want the world to see and hear how amazing they still are on this tour. But things like live autotune are generally treated, justifiably, as a dirty little secret.  I'd hate for this to impinge on their legitimacy or reputation if it were noticed by the media at large, or the wider body of fans.  So, I think there is value in talking about it and giving visibility to the issue here: since we're so often reminded that higher-ups do read the board, there's an outside chance somebody it could get back to somebody in the BBs organization who could recognize the problem and take steps to fix it.  Then again maybe it won't change, and nobody will really notice, and it will only ever ending up slightly irking those few of us with dog ears.  That's fine too.

I think I can speak for most of us who are hearing it on the recordings: we love the Beach Boys, we don't want to see them fail or be embarrassed, we are not just a bunch of PhilCohens chomping at the bit to find fault with whatever the BBs do.  I also understand that a number of people either can't hear it or don't care.  More power to 'em.

Beach Boys fan need a sort of trainwreck theory permanently. Up until a couple weeks ago the tour would be a disaster because Jeff Foskett would be too loud in the mix. Before that, the reunion was meh without Blondie. Before that, the DIA video was fake because David had not taken part in the recording (allegedly, of course). And on and on.

Recently the live autotune thing came along.

Thank God we now have "Spring Vacation" to rant about.

I personally have not made any complaints about Foskett or Blondie or Do It Again.  In each of those cases, I would presume that certain people were expressing their reservations about the things they personally had reservations about, but you're acting as though it's really all the same people who can just be swept under the same rug for being perpetually aggrieved.  I'm not really convinced that this is the case.

The fact that there are numerous and varied complaints about the Beach Boys in 2012 is not actually evidence that all complaints are invalid, and that everything is perfectly swell.

I realize that people have their different opinions, but you have to listen. Nearly 100% of the notes that Brian is singing in this video are the victim of whatever program their using to "correct" his voice. As a result, it is making it worse by trying to latch onto a bunch of different notes all within a very small amount of time, hence the wobbly sound. Let this be evidence for the naysayers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7c0CZFno0s&feature=relmfu

It's a good thing you started a new thread on this. 

Deleted.
Take it to the thread created for it.

 :deadhorse

My point is that live autotune is the trainwreck fan theory of the week.

Isn't there another thread dedicated to this subject?  And it was discussed on a couple of other threads before that, right?

Who gives a shiiit anyway?

You do. ALOT. Otherwise you wouldn't have posted....

Go to hell. I am not here to bitch and complain. I'm here to learn more about my favorite band. I'm going to a show to hear my favorite band perform live. I am mildly critically about a decision somebody made. Have you never criticized anything before? I'm sick of your tone, your obnoxious assumptions and your dismissive attitude. Go to the Blueboard if you want to blindly worship Brian Wilson. I'm allowed to express my opinion on a message board IN A THREAD DEVOTED TO THIS TOPIC without your bull merda. I love this band and I want to see them perform to the best of their abilities. Apparently, the only thing BB fans like more than bitching about the BBs is bitching about other BB fans. You don't hear it? Fine. That's not our fault. I don't care. Enjoy it, and go foda yourself.

Nope.  But I know you can't spell very well and your grammar sucks.

Hee canne spelle bettir than eye kan

Hey, no one listen to bgas! He forgot to put a space between "a" and "lot." Clearly, his opinions are less valid than Mikie's. Besides, his attitude isn't nearly as sparkling and pleasant as Mikie's charming demeanor.

True dat, Evangeibel!

i care enough to come and also say,

WHO GIVES A sh*t.

Put me under the "care less" category.  These guys are 70 years old.
Let's get outraged over something IMPORTANT.

Beat the livin' crap out of it man! Sounds good from here. I detect a little ThwacKorrektor on it, though.

The trouble is, is that it isn't mildly critical. It has taken over every reunion concert thread. You are right in one respect, if we are going to talk about it, this is the thread to do it in.

jon had a thread about the new orleans show. no autotune is being used.

That may be true, but it is also true that there is a certain type of Beach Boys "everything they do is wonderful" fan/apologist that must always have someone's differing, negative opinions to harp upon. Which ends up being just as negative, if not more so.

Right on.

That bugs the hell out of me, because I respect Mr. Stebbins and trust him. So what am I hearing? Because it really, really, really sounds like pitch correction. Of all the crappy live recordings I've ever heard, none have ever sounded like this before. We "autotuners" are hearing something that's aberrant. What is it?

Jon did say he was on stage.  It's possible he was hearing an onstage mix without the vocal processing, rather than the FOH mix.

I've been thinking... Is it just Jeff backing him up?

Nobody in the audience has heard it either. Any chance this is just reverb and echo?

Yes

I don't think we can conclude that "nobody in the audience has heard it".  A very small handful of board members who have attended shows have reported not noticing it.

Neither Jeff nor echo would produce digital pitch-stepping artifacts.

+1

I meant the board. This is the place where the discussion is taking place.

There's no autotune on that video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU8l5WmUTAw&feature=relmfu

Whatever it is, I hope you don't lose too much sleep tonight.
I wonder if either Obama or Romney will weigh in on this most important of issues.

It would be nice to get a definitive answer, is all.

That sounds like chrousing...

Jon as usual is right.  I converted the clip to mp3 and then ran it through the Amazing Slowdowner at half speed (this is a program that can change key or tempo without changing other factors).  If there were autotune then the slurs from one note to another should sound like arpeggios -- and they don't.  He's definitely slurring from one note to another.  No autotune at all.

Nicely put.

I just wish that when all is said and done and reality proves you wrong, you step forward and acknowledge it.

I did the same thing. What you guys are hearing is chrousing, NOT auto-tune.

Jon Stebbins isn't God.  He's just a writer. His opinion is his opinion, it's not fact.

I'm not sure that's any better.  It does sound like something or other is being done, but there are many things besides autotune or autotune equivalents. 
It is autotune, or something, it doesn't sound like a human voice.  It sounds just terrible. 

Even if people want to think or think they know Brian's voice is being digitally altered using some process or other, can we all agree he sounds awful?  He does.  It's not that he doesn't hit the right notes, but he hits the wrong notes at a high volume, and his vocal timbre is unpleasant. His voice is mixed way too loud and much louder than any other singer in the band when he does a lead.  Mike's voice may not be that great, either, but he's not loud in the mix.  The mixing of Brian's voice is just too loud and doesn't match with the other lead singers on all the videos and audio clips that have been released.  It's like the ghost of Murry Wilson has comandeered the sound board, yelling, "Surge!"  If Brian really does just sing loud and Mike just sings softly, then turn down Brian, and turn up Mike.  Is that hard to do or something?

Mind if I ask what chrousing is?

as quoted above from another thread, we can put the autotuning controversy to rest -- I did an experiment running a youtube clip of Heroes and Villains from this tour at half speed through the Amazing Slowdowner (changes tempo without changing key) and have proven that there is no autotuning. If there were, then Brian's slurs should be arpeggiated, and they are not. Brian is not being autotuned this tour. Rather -- he's singing well.  Maybe he has taken on some new vocal techniques that make him sound weird to those used to his singing from before.

I think what we're hearing is a pitchy singer (Brian) who seems to search for the pitch AS he's singing a note (sometimes he finds it, sometimes not) and then with Jeff or whoever else trying to subtly double him ON pitch. Not even trying to double him really, but rather, trying to anticipate when Brian might not be able to hit a note or simply not sing.

That said, I think Brian sounds fantastic when he's on! He kicks ass on California Dreaming especially!

Everyone has a different definition of singing well.  I guess maybe you could say he has a new technique to make him louder, but if he has, he's way louder than anybody else and it sounds odd.  If he sang all the right notes,  his voice is overwhelming the mix and it's harsh.  I also can't figure out why that video of "Heroes & Villains" makes him sound like one of those guys who calls the Muslims to prayer when he sings "innocent girl."  His pitch is wavering between a couple of different tones on each vowel. If that's just a new singing technique (not a digital effect) to make his singing sound like that intentionally, he should stop.

Jeff doubles him occasionally only (part of GV, TWGMTR if he screws up and little else), and you can easily tell. Alan doubles him in the chorus of YSGTM. Other than that, it's Brian on his own.

I don't know anything about digital vocal processing. If it isn't pitch correction, it's something else and I can accept that. There is something going on with his voice, I believe that to be a fact. I do not believe that any kind of vocal technique can make BW sound like that. It's being manipulated, and frankly, it sounds worse than his natural voice.  

Dr. Lenny, I hear it. I've heard it in every vocal clip that's been posted. Fifty-six percent of the respondents to the poll at the top of this thread agree (not that said results are proof, I believe at least half of any population of voters in any context are idiots). Honestly, no matter who denies the use of vocal processing, or how adamantly they assert their position, I will probably choose to believe my own perception. Perhaps I am a fool. Perhaps you are.

Already, band insiders have denied it. Mr. Stebbins has denied it. Many on this board deny it. At this point, given the clip of "You're So Good to Me" posted above, I feel justified to stand by my assertion that something is being used to alter his vocals digitally, to their detriment. I can't imagine what it would take to make me admit I was wrong. Pristine soundboard mixes? A denial from the Man himself? It's tough to discount that which you directly perceive. I'm mystified that others don't hear it, as it sounds so clear to me. So there you go. I can't believe you can't hear it, and you can't believe I can. I'll admit I'm no expert. I'll admit that I, and others, could be wrong. But man. It would take a lot to convince me otherwise.

EDIT: I'm sorry for my outburst re: Dr. Lenny earlier in the thread. Dr. Lenny, I'm sorry. I've enjoyed many of your posts. My motives are pure, though my heart may be tainted by bitterness and cholesterol.

EDIT (again, sorry): Jeff has doubled Brian for a long time. Are there any examples of this effect being produced at past solo shows? I don't believe it's a matter of volume or doubling. We'd have heard it before, if that was the case.

In this case, it's a plug-in . Chorus is an effect that takes your original signal, makes a copy of it, slightly detunes it, and sends it to the amp mixed with your original signal. The effect sounds as if more than one player is playing, and the detuning is to approximate the sound of two players who are never perfectly in tune. Usually it's used on guitars, not vocals. So yeah, it sounds like Brian's vocals are processed, but it's not auto-tune.

I wish that everyone here had a clip available of Brian appearing on Steve Dahl's radio show back in 97-98. He and Joe were showing up to talk about Imagination. Brian had a keyboard and played and sang some. But Joe had him hooked up to the most ridiculous sounding vocal effects unit. IIRC, it was mainly industrial-strength reverb, but it was the opposite of natural. It sounded good on one number, but it eventually got wonky and they turned it off.

Likewise, late in 98, Brian performed his first live show (although not with the current live band). For all the numbers from Imagination, he basically lip synced (they claim he sang along with pre-recorded vocals, but ... yeah ...). And the other numbers may not have been synched, but they were overdubbed so much in post-production, I'm not even sure how he did at the time.

The point is, if Joe is indeed involved in how this is all going down, he well may think that having some sort of effect applied to Brian's live vocal is essential. He probably hasn't followed BW's touring career that closely, and doesn't think anything of turning to an effects box if he thinks Brian is being outsung. I don't think it's done with ill-intent, and I think Billy's notion of a chorusing effect is interesting (and seems to comport with some recent YT vids). That being said, without a full show with clear audio, it's hard to tell how it all works. Maybe there are different effects. Maybe they're turned up more in some songs than others. It's hard to say.

Anyway. The point is, there is ample history of this kind of thing. And if Joe is helping to mastermind it, we have our responsible party.

Everyone feel free to ignore this as happened with the earlier answer to "How does Autotune work", but the origins of chorusing come from multitrack recording and the doubling of a lead vocal track. As heard on Les Paul and Mary Ford records from the early 50's, originally, when you sing the same vocal notes over a vocal already on tape, it cannot match exactly, it's not humanly possible, so the differences between the pitches create a phasing-filtering effect that can sound metallic or even robotic, depending on how far apart (pitch-wise, rhythmically) the notes really are. If you alter it even further and stretch them even further apart, it creates a "comb filter" effect, which creates a "whooshing" noise that became known as flanging and which the band The Small Faces rode to a mega-hit drugged out sounding record called "Itchykoo Park", although that wasn't the first by far: Les Paul did it, and so did Stan Ross at Gold Star. The Beatles used it a lot in '67. Everyone followed. Tape flanging is beautiful.

Devices were developed to enable doubling a vocal or any part electronically - at Abbey Road, it was called Automatic Double Tracking, or ADT. Guitarists wanted that sound too, of overdubbing and doubling a part, so pedals and effects used the process Billy C described, and thus we had the Roland Jazz Chorus amp and various Boss and other chorus pedals for guitars. Again, simulating a doubled track.

So it stands to reason that:

A. Brian doubled lead and backing vocals *a lot* in the 1960's and beyond on his productions, creating a wall of vocals and creating that sheen which made the vocals swirl and jump out of the mix...it was a signature sound for Beach Boys vocals, what if he or someone else wanted that sound in 2012 on a reunion stage? Chorusing - natural or electronic, is not the same as pitch correction.

and B. If you have upwards of ten voices singing parts and those parts are being doubled in the blend, you have voices singing the same notes which would create natural chorusing...if you have 5 Beach Boys in the studio, you would double them on an overdub for that sound. If you have ten guys singing live, you can get the sound naturally. If you have two guys singing the same melody and one is veering a bit off pitch from the other, the chorusing effect will become more noticeable.

And chorusing/doubling does smooth out a lot of pitchy notes.

Just sayin'.

THANK YOU. One thing a lot ( :lol ) of people are forgetting is the fact that on his solo shows, Brian's vocals were very dry , a little too much if you ask me. I think in this case the pendulum has been swung too far the other way.

Plugins like Amazing Slowdowner or Paulstretch use a ton smoothing and interpolation between the stretched samples. The point of those kinds of tools are to produce a pleasing and listenable result, not a scientifically bit-perfect recreation of the original audio.  It's not clear that you would get exactly the results you think, to say nothing of the fact that there are better sources to "experiment" with than many times re-encoded youtube audio.

I agree that Brian's singing well - he sounds totally into it on that "You're So Good to Me", his delivery is tight and he's really on top of it for the most part.  I just wish I could hear his voice.

haven§t they been applying some sort of trickery to their live vocals since the late sixties, some automatic live doubling, as guitarfool says. I listened to something on you tube from one of the shows last week and it didnt sound so much like autotune to me as it sounded like there were two Brians singing, one hitting the right note, one a little flat.

And let's not forget this...people that were at the shows say it sounded good, except for the beginning of the New Orleans show, when they didn't have time for a proper sound check, and it took a few songs for the sound person to dial it in.  Other than that, almost all reviews say it sounded good at the shows.  The sound tech is mixing for the venue, and for the folks in the seats.  So, whatever reverb, compression, eq, chorusing is used, it's used to make the band sound good in the venue.  And from most reports, it does sound good.  A miniature recording device is not going to give an accurate representation of what people at the shows are hearing.  It's simply impossible.  I don't care if it's an iPhone or a higher end miniature HD recorder.  A small crappy mic fed into an HD digital recorder is going to give you an HD recording of a small crappy mic, and unless the device allows the user to adjust input gain (doubtful), the device will have an auto limiter/compressor at the input that further alters the sound.  
:deadhorse

I'm really excited to see the show in Milwaukee on the 1st of July.
I just wish they would put some pitch correction on Brian's voice        

The problem I have with this Autotune thing is that listening to various recordings and U Tube clips there are so many bum notes by them all that if Autotune was being used those bum notes wouldn't exist and they would be on all the vocalists

Most live autotuners only 'tune' the note you are singing to whatever is the closest note is. If you need to sing an F but you are naturally singing somewhere near a B, the autotune adjust that B you are singing so it's a 'perfect' B. For autotune to work, you need to be singing near the right notes all the time (something which Brian hasn't done for... a good while I'd say  :lol)

I'll say it again: there was nothing robotic in Brian's performance at JazzFest. Nothing funny about his voice. It was imperfect enough, with bum notes and all. And his vocals were overall good.

If it does no correct pitch, it's not a pitch corrector. Is it that hard to understand?

BTW, regarding Wirestone's last post: I wonder if anyone has seen Joe at these shows. Is he part of the touring crew?

Is this post aimed at me?  Because, um, well, you know, I agree with you.

Quzi is correct. Seems like the 22 people who voted "No" took over this thread. Let's not forget that this IS an issue, and that the pitch correction IS pushing Brian's off notes WAY further off than they should be. It's not chorus, doubling, etc. It's the robotic artifacts of badly done pitch correction that we're all hearing. Granted it would be harder to pick this out at a live venue (though I know I'd catch it right away. and if you search around, people that were at the venues are saying they heard it as well) This is a mistake on The Beach Boys behalf, and I hope they rectify this before the end of the tour.

The pitch correction is the only flaw of the show as far as I'm concerned. This is a rare once in a lifetime "never-thought-this-would-happen" moment. I was listening to the TX show last night and it all hit me how special it is that we have 4 original recognizable voices up there, sounding damn good for the most part. (Seems that Bruce still has a pretty solid falsetto!) OK - only other complaint - I wish they would pull Wouldn't It Be Nice down one full step. Sounds like Al's straining on that one.

It would be a better experience for me & others if they took the pitch correction off, but it's still incredible to watch this unfold.

Ha! :lol
Just the first paragraph, to help illustrate your point.

For what it's worth...

I spent 15 years in a band with a singer who had trouble singing in tune.  We used to go through his vocals phrase by phrase, word by word, sometimes syllable by syllable, applying autotune.

My two cents:

Pitch correction would not necessarily arpeggiate glissandos.  Autotuners generally have attack settings and "humanizing" settings that allow for slides and vibrato, etc.

As for whether it's there, I think I can hear it (though it doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother others).  There are two main things to listen for: 1) sometimes when Brian sings something flat, the autotune catches hold of a note that's a half or whole step below the correct note.  When this happens, it sounds like Brian is holding a consistent note...but the wrong one. 2) sometimes autotune can get "confused" as to which note you are trying to sing.  In these cases you hear a split second of "wobbling" around the note before latching on to one.  

Autotune doesn't sound like chorusing, but B-Dub may have some chorusing applied to his vox as well.  

      

No idea, but his main work over the last 14 years has been in producing live concerts for PBS on the Soundstage show (http://mixonline.com/post/features/audio_pbs_soundstage_steps/). This is now his expertise -- and given the stage trappings, etc., it would surprise me very much if he wasn't involved in the staging somehow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU8l5WmUTAw&feature=relmfu

YSGTM-- especially between the 5 and 7 seconds area-- whoa, man...anyone who doesn't hear it there needs their ears cleaned. He sounds like Cher with her batteries in backwards.

There are 12 notes chromatically altogether, and 7 in any given scale. That means if the Autotune is set chromatically (which it evidently is), there are plenty of extra notes there that don't even belong in the key. So for example, if a song is in C major, and Brian attempts to sing an A (which is in the key of C) but he's 51% flat, the machine will cause it to come out as an A-flat (not in the key). So yes, he's still singing wrong notes, but the machine is making them worse.

Consider-- Brian, who always sings slightly out of tune at his solo shows,  almost NEVER sings just slightly out of tune in these recent videos.  A given note is either exactly and completely perfectly in tune, or it's exactly a half-step off (generally flat), or it flutters between the two options.

Someone needs to slow the audio to half speed (without a program that smooths note transitions), check the frequencies with a tuner, compare to s solo show, and post the results. Autotune (or some other brand of pitch correction) will absolutely and positively be evident, I (who have perfect pitch, and who tunes pianos by ear) promise you. I'd bet the proverbial farm on this.

And, as others have observed, other voices (and all instruments) sound completely natural and unprocessed.  The recordings aren't all bad, and none are at such a low bitrate that intonation is affected. This effect is on Brian alone, and there's no way crappy mics can magically change the quality of one voice embedded in one or two audio channels, surrounded by 10 other uncorrupted voices and a full band.  To believe so requires magical thinking.

For Christ's sake, Bill, he's singing flat notes like crazy. Can't you hear those? Those are plain bum notes; they are not pitch-corrected. And they are not at all a half-step off. He's flatting plain and simple. C'mon man, you gotta hear that. It's insane; people claim to have sophisticated hearing as to detect a ptich corrector, but cannot hear how many bum notes he's singing. On occasion, when this has been pointed out, some guys responded that the auotune will not correct his pitch anyway-- now that's the ultimate absurdity.

By the way, he sang this better at JazzFest. And no voice wobbling to be detected in the venue.

Chorusing won't do those weird pitch wobbles.
He's hitting bum notes and the tuning is going crazy trying to find it.

iPhone users - download the "I Am T-Pain" app and mess around and you'll hear a very close similarity to BW's vocals on the majority of the shows.
It probably wasn't used at the Jazz Fest as the sound isn't completely customized to the artists' wishes as there's dozens of other bands using the same gear etc.

It probably isn't mixed in with what the guys on-stage are hearing in their monitors but it's definitely being mixed in with what the crowd hears.

Here's that Billy Joel autotuned National Anthem video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8smRRyoYGc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8smRRyoYGc)

From one of the comments on there...

"Billy talked about this performance on Howard Stern today. The TV producer auto-tuned his mic without him knowing."

You are right, Bill, there is very clear pitch correction on Brian's voice, but the problem here is that a) some people don't have the ears to hear it, and...

B) Some people apparently can't enjoy the Beach Boys concerts if there is autotune on Brian's voice, so they must fight a battle with everyone else, saying that there is absolutely no pitch correction, and they are 100% sure. Very strange.

In the end, it sucks and is disrespectful to Brian, but it isn't a huge deal; it is not a turd in the punchbowl of the reunion but more just a bit of fecal matter. In other words, the punch still tastes fine, and I will enjoy it until I get e. coli poisoning.

/Thread

Yep its just not so good singing but........

1. What's the point in having autotune if it doesn't work?? - Bill you should have been asked

2. His band will know that his singing varies from night to night and they will know all about autotune and what it can't do and what it can do - I think they would have said something to say it is a crap idea and won't work

3. I have no doubt all the singers on stage would have Brian in their in-ears otherwise they wouldn't know how to harmonise with him and in Jeff's case support his leads - it really would sound rubbish with no monitors

4. ML is also off a lot on many of the songs they are doing

5. Bill - get your farm ready ;-)

IMHO it is a VERY BIG DEAL because the Beach Boys are famous for their harmonies and having the best of voices and here they are using autotune - can't you get it - its like finding out Eric Clapton has been miming all these years or John Coltrane's parts were played by someone else - its a big story waiting to happen and I can't believe the BBs management hadn't thought of that.

A scummy journo could have a field day

For Christ's sake, Bill, he's singing flat notes like crazy. Can't you hear those? Those are plain bum notes; they are not pitch-corrected.
[/quote]

I explained that: "So for example, if a song is in C major, and Brian attempts to sing an A (which is in the key of C) but he's 51% flat, the machine will cause it to come out as an A-flat (not in the key). So yes, he's still singing wrong notes, but the machine is making them worse."

[/quote]

And they are not at all a half-step off. He's flatting plain and simple. C'mon man, you gotta hear that.
[/quote]

Please link a Youtube video, with the precise time at which you hear a flat note which is not a half-step (or whole-step) off, and the word he's singing when you hear this, and I'll get my guitar tuner ready,

Android users can use the "Tune Me" free app.  You need to pre-set the correct key of the song to make it sound most natural.  It actually sounds like your natural voice until you sing something you can't hit well.  It's not professional auto-tune, but a pretty good simulation. Auto-Tune and other pitch correctors only work well on people who can really sing and hit most of the notes or close to them.  I'm not sure why some seem confused by that.  No, auto-tune can't make everyone sound good and it makes the worst singers sound robotic when they're not exactly already close to being on-pitch.  You know, like Brian does on some of those recordings.  Although I think the main problem is he's mixed too loud, even more than any processing. At least if his mic was turned down all the flaws would be less obvious.

I explained that: "So for example, if a song is in C major, and Brian attempts to sing an A (which is in the key of C) but he's 51% flat, the machine will cause it to come out as an A-flat (not in the key). So yes, he's still singing wrong notes, but the machine is making them worse."

[/quote]

And they are not at all a half-step off. He's flatting plain and simple. C'mon man, you gotta hear that.
[/quote]

Please link a Youtube video, with the precise time at which you hear a flat note which is not a half-step (or whole-step) off, and the word he's singing when you hear this, and I'll get my guitar tuner ready,
[/quote]

Bill - so why use Autotune if its going to put Brian out of key anyway - doesn't make sense

There is no point, that's why they should stop using it


They may not have a say in the matter, and they may need to avoid rocking the boat in order to keep their jobs.


As has been explained, standard operating procedure would be to not have the autotuned signal sent to the monitors, but only to the audience


That sucks, but at least you can hear Mike's voice

Can someone get OGolden [?] the cleanest example of the suspected autotunage so he can run it through his software with "smoothing" or whatever turned off?

Can't I get it? Well yes, I can. I was saying that it is not going to ruin my enjoyment of the show. Of course I would rather there be no pitch correction, both in the live shows and on the new album.

If people don't hear it though, what do they care that the rest of us (the majority, mind you) do hear it? Many people around here have trained ears, much more trained than mine, and they hear it. The people who don't hear it are mostly the people who don't have trained ears.

That's all well and good. But why fight about it? In the end, yes, it sucks, but it should be 100% a non-issue for the people who can't hear the pitch correction in the first place. Why not just say "I can't hear it," and leave it at that, instead of arguing vehemently over it?

1. In rehearsal they would have worked out it doesn't work

2. BW's band is very close to Melinda and she ain't going to lose her job

3. Monitors - you -tried harmonising with a crap singer - I am one and and would pity anyone trying to sing with me

4. Let's autotune mike

And they are not at all a half-step off. He's flatting plain and simple. C'mon man, you gotta hear that.
[/quote]

Please link a Youtube video, with the precise time at which you hear a flat note which is not a half-step (or whole-step) off, and the word he's singing when you hear this, and I'll get my guitar tuner ready,
[/quote]

Bill - so why use Autotune if its going to put Brian out of key anyway - doesn't make sense
[/quote]
This is exactly what we are all saying - the pitch correction is making Brian sound much worse than he would without it. On sustained notes, you can hear his voice "snapping" out of the note momentarily, digitally stepping down to another note very, very quickly and back up again, with none of the gradient/portamento effect that the human voice naturally has. Try using one of the aforementioned iPhone/Android apps and you will see what we are hearing in these videos.

I wish that were what had happened.  Apparently whoever made this decision thinks it sounds just fine.  That decision is now open to criticism.


I am not as certain as you that the band members have veto power over Melinda, assuming she likes the idea or is OK with it.


OK.  Brian's voice is whatever it is at this point.  Those who have to harmonize with him - that's their job.  I'm not sure what you're saying - that he needs to be autotuned so he's easier to harmonize with?  That's a pretty different argument from saying that they cannot possibly be using autotune at all, which is what you seem to be saying the rest of the time.


I'd rather not but knock yourself out

You know, Mike sounds a bit processed on a few tracks of the Texas show too.

(ducks)

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I read that Mike Love has been a robot since 1969 and that he wore that big white robe to conceal his metal exo-skeleton.
He wears those rings on his fingers because they are solar power panels that recharge him.

On the Melinda thing - I think his key band members would have/could have said to Melinda that AT wasn't working - I have no doubt she would have done something about it

Harmonising - I don't think they are using AT for all the reasons I gave above plus its a mega suicide note if they get found out

[/quote]
This is exactly what we are all saying - the pitch correction is making Brian sound much worse than he would without it. On sustained notes, you can hear his voice "snapping" out of the note momentarily, digitally stepping down to another note very, very quickly and back up again, with none of the gradient/portamento effect that the human voice naturally has. Try using one of the aforementioned iPhone/Android apps and you will see what we are hearing in these videos.
[/quote]

Don't you think that would have all come out in rehearsal so if they had the idea in the first place they would have binned it

(http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/553665_3606327280686_1348783559_3525013_438616656_n.jpg)

We Kid...
   Because We Love.
        Michael Edward Love.

Do you think if we complain a whole bunch they'll stop using it?

By say, the show I go see, maybe?

WHINE

What ?? Processed in the face and lips???

(Ducks even further)

Is Al plugged in?????

(Whoops)

Darian is actually controlling a keyboard that makes Al Jardine move around like a real boy.

For a point of comparison -- if pitch correction is being used on this tour, can you experts hear it being used on any recent BW solo tours?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The consensus seems to be that it is a brand new thing as of this tour.  People talk about digital pitch correction on the recent Brian albums a lot; I've never seen anybody suggest he was using it onstage.

There is some moderate use of pitch correction on every one of Brian's studio albums from BWPS onwards. But it's here and there, where perhaps he didn't nail one or two notes in a verse and they were corrected in post....or where he couldn't hang onto a note that he was required to sing for a long time. It is a shame, but I can accept that Brian probably isn't going to record take after take for hours on end. The exception is the Gershwin record, for which Brian did a lot of rehearsals and takes. There's still some processing in there.

Vocal processing is one thing, adding reverb or whatnot doesn't take away from the ability of the singer to hold a note or to give his/her singing emotion and heart.

To be honest, I am utterly heartbroken to hear autotune or any other pitch correction on a Beach Boys concert and especially with Brian.

Mike uses those same rings to autotune, pitch correct and then pitch uncorrect Brian's vocals on the 50th Anniversary tour.

Nah.  I've never heard any processing, even once, in any of the BW solo shows, and I've been to shows just about every year since '99, and I've watched dozens if not hundreds of Youtube videos from his shows.  That's what makes it all the more egregious now. Only on recordings subject to post-production (PS Live dvd, etc.).

The crux of many people's arguments against there being the possibility of Autotune seems to be, "Well, why would they use it if it makes him sound worse?" This decision may have been made by some tone-deaf corporate bigwig who was advised that Brian's pitch is a problem, and who heard that it's the latest trendy thing. There ARE idiots out there. The notion that people in control SHOULD know better doesn't automatically mean that they do. Maybe George W. Bush is running the soundboard.


Or it may be Brian's idea, and he doesn't know how bad it sounds, or they have a dumbass managing the settings on the fly. Who knows. Stupid and really obvious things happen all the time, and just because it's obviously bad that it seems unseemly doesn't mean it's not happening.  Sometimes people do big, bad stupid things that everyone can see...and there's always someone who will say, "That's not happening, because no one would be dumb enough to do that."

And yeah, I was wondering if it was being used a bit more judiciously on Mike.  Compare the audio on the Knebworth DVD to the unprocessed audio, and that's what a pitch-corrected Mike sounds like.  Maybe this is Mike's way of getting back at Brian after that...

Also, pitch-corrected Mike can be heard on Do It Again 2011, at least on the original leaked promo (I haven't heard the CD version yet).

It's also on BW88 (One for the Boys used a Fairlight to massage BW's vocals) and Imagination (everywhere).

It's been claimed that it's on GIOMH, although I can't really hear it there.

So that leaves OCA and IJWMFTT as the only non pitch-corrected items in the BW solo oeuvre.

and those are my least favorite Brian albums vocally!

You know, they've had two days off, and probably a chance to re-evaluate these first performances. Maybe we'll see something change after this, one could only hope.

When all you have is nail clippers, everything looks like a hangnail.

(quacks)

Please link a Youtube video, with the precise time at which you hear a flat note which is not a half-step (or whole-step) off, and the word he's singing when you hear this, and I'll get my guitar tuner ready,
[/quote]

For instance, the video you linked, when he sings "how come you ARE".

BTW, I was at the JazzFest show. This was right after the autotune discussion got going. For that reason, I listened very intently at the venue trying to spot said effect, and did not detect anything similar to the wobbling and funny sounds that emerged in the videos. I mean that I did not detect anything funny in any of the songs he sang. Of course his voice was processed, like everybody else's. But not pitch-corrected. Perhaps once everybody on this board gets to see the BBs live, this discussion will end. ???

For instance, the video you linked, when he sings "how come you ARE".

BTW, I was at the JazzFest show. This was right after the autotune discussion got going. For that reason, I listened very intently at the venue trying to spot said effect, and did not detect anything similar to the wobbling and funny sounds that emerged in the videos. I mean that I did not detect anything funny in any of the songs he sang. Of course his voice was processed, like everybody else's. But not pitch-corrected. Perhaps once everybody on this board gets to see the BBs live, this discussion will end. ???
[/quote]
Lenny, you don't hear the pitch correction. That's cool. I wish I couldn't hear it. Regardless, it is still a relatively minor thing for me personally - Brian, Mike, Al, Dave, and Bruce are onstage together playing a pretty damn good setlist with a superb backing band. That's what matters.

People will continue to talk about the pitch correction because this is a board for discussion about all aspects of The Beach Boys, live and in-studio. However, there is no reason to let the pitch correction (or lack of same, in your view and the view of several others) put a damper on the reunion. It's all good, baby...

I dunno about that--I would even wager that most people probably wouldn't notice that pitch correction is being implemented.  Something tells me that most Beach Boys fans probably don't listen to a lot of T-Pain.  When Paul McCartney put out his most recent live release, Good Evening New York City, I remember debating on a McCartney forum over the obvious use of Autotune on all of the tracks.  A lot of people on that forum didn't believe it was there since their ears couldn't detect it.  But if you know what pitch correction is, you simply can't miss it. 

Can't say I'm all that offended or bothered that they're using pitch correction for Brian's vocals.  It didn't detract my enjoyment of the concert.  He simply does not have a strong voice due to age and all his other problems.  And he was never a good live performer.  Just be glad he's up there on the stage at all. 

Well, from an engineer's mouth who worked on OCA, the vocals on that album were tuned up as well. He mentions putting them through a sampler -- which most likely would've been using the pitch wheel on either a Fairlight or a Synclavier in that era  -- as well as using multiple takes and punch-ins. :)

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/252354-post2.html

I would imagine that just about every Beach Boys and Brian Wilson album uses multiple takes and punch-ins. The use of Synclavier/Fairlight for tuning is interesting though. Thanks Dave.

Edit: Now I see what you mean, punching in line by line.

Indeed. Punching and comp'ing are commonplace in record production. I just wanted to point out that, on top of that, his vocals were also manually "tuned up" using a sampler/pitch wheel for that particular record :)

Very cool post. I had no idea that OCA was recorded over a period of three years. It seemed like a "one-and-done" sort of deal, but in retrospect, it must have been an important time in Brian's life - being newly independent and working on a record with Van Dyke. It's amazing how far he's come.

As for the pitch correction... I never would have guessed! I suppose the manner in which they did it, whilst much lower-tech and time-consuming, yielded decent results, much like "One for the Boys."

I thought that Gearslutz thread was most illuminating as well. In fact, I saved all the text from it on my 'puter several years ago...lol.

The Orange Crate Art engineering assistant, while not afraid to acknowledge Brian's vocal shortcomings -- his vocal control and pitch issues -- and what was needed to get things up to snuff on the record, truly seemed in awe of his overall creative abilities, as well as working with VDP too. That is, it wasn't just some hatchet piece. He was very diplomatic and informative.

[/quote]
Lenny, you don't hear the pitch correction. That's cool. I wish I couldn't hear it. Regardless, it is still a relatively minor thing for me personally - Brian, Mike, Al, Dave, and Bruce are onstage together playing a pretty damn good setlist with a superb backing band. That's what matters.

People will continue to talk about the pitch correction because this is a board for discussion about all aspects of The Beach Boys, live and in-studio. However, there is no reason to let the pitch correction (or lack of same, in your view and the view of several others) put a damper on the reunion. It's all good, baby...
[/quote]

Thanks boots.
How many people have attended this tour so far? 60,000? Shouldn't we be facing a major scandal if Brian sounded in the venues like he does in those videos?

That's what makes this whole argument pointless.  I don't care what people think know they hear on these recordings.  I'm going to go to a show and listen to The Beach Boys in person.  With my ears.  And I'll hear what the sound tech is hearing. With his/her ears.  And I'll be very, very happy that it will not sound anything like these terrible audience recordings.  There's a reason why officially released live albums don't use recordings made by random audience members, using miniature recording devices with tiny mics, that do not in any way represent what's actually being heard in the venue by people who are listening directly to the sound coming out of the speakers with...umm...their ears.   

It's cool that you don't care about live bootlegs or whatever and are neither aware nor curious about what's possible or available, but you're just talking a bunch of nonsense.  If your entire argument against autotune is that every audience recording must present a grossly distorted view of what the show sounds like, you should probably just back away on that one.  If I showed you a picture of Brian wearing a red shirt, you might insist that we can't draw any conclusions about what color Brian's shirt is because cameras only have tiny lenses that can't possibly capture what people can see with their own eyes. 

Besides which many, many officially released live albums were recorded from the audience with amateur gear.   :)

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3c/1969Live.jpg)

Pretty sure that was professionally recorded. You're thinking of Live at Max's Kansas City. Or The Quine Tapes.

Now that you mention it some of the above album was from multitrack, but a major chunk of it was from an audience tape from the End of Cole Ave. in Dallas.  And, the bootleg is widely regarded as sounding better than the officially released version, for having less generational loss.   So yeah, all three of those were largely audience tapes.

Nonsense?  Not to me.  I do like listening to some amateur recordings to listen to the songs and the performance, but as sonic documents they're less than ideal.


I have not once stated that no auto tune or pitch correction is being applied to any particular voice.  My argument has always been that it's just too difficult to tell for certain from these recordings.  Not that it matters.  I've heard that the mix is just fine for the great majority of the folks in the venues, and since that's where I'll be listening, I'm cool. 


Well, they're fine for listening to a performance for the sake of listening to a performance.  But if trying to determine exactly what effects or processing is being applied to a particular channel on the mixing board, they're useless.

Lenny, you don't hear the pitch correction. That's cool. I wish I couldn't hear it. Regardless, it is still a relatively minor thing for me personally - Brian, Mike, Al, Dave, and Bruce are onstage together playing a pretty damn good setlist with a superb backing band. That's what matters.

People will continue to talk about the pitch correction because this is a board for discussion about all aspects of The Beach Boys, live and in-studio. However, there is no reason to let the pitch correction (or lack of same, in your view and the view of several others) put a damper on the reunion. It's all good, baby...
[/quote]

Thanks boots.
How many people have attended this tour so far? 60,000? Shouldn't we be facing a major scandal if Brian sounded in the venues like he does in those videos?
[/quote]
That's exactly what people here are worried about.

I don't know if anything is being auto tuned or not but no one is taking up the OGoldin challenge. Seems like a sciencey way to approach it.

I haven't been following this very closely but am I wrong that some are hearing something on fan recordings that some in the audiences didn't hear at the live performance of the same audible product? 

The "challenge" will probably do more to reveal the shortcomings of the way the show was recorded by the audience member, it wouldn't do much for figuring out what was going through the mixing board then through the PA that night.

You are not wrong on the second point. The only way to end this once and for all is to actually go to a show and hear the feed of the live signal which is going into the PA.

Or ask the sound guys for the tour.

If it were only that simple! :) I think it may be near the "grassy knoll" stage where no matter what they say the debate will still rage on.

And the version of Rock N Roll on that album and one of the versions of Heroin (an extra track on the separate: parts 1 n 2 CD versions) were actually taken from the Quine tapes!

For instance, the video you linked, when he sings "how come you ARE". Bs live, this discussion will end. ???
[/quote]

Here ya go, Lenny...WAV files!

http://www.mediafire.com/?5rx8y0yvpcabd3v

This is that very spot, slowed down 66%.  Granted, there are digital artifacts, but notice that Brian's voice shifts in rapid half-steps, without any "slide" between. And even with digital artifacts, you'd expect it to settle between notes from time to time, but no, it's always one of the 12 definable pitches of the Western octave.

I'm hearing the song in F major. On the words "How come you are?", I hear the following pitches consecutively:

how: g - g# - g (should be g)

come: d (unwavering) (d is correct)
you: d - d# - e - f - e (should be slide from d to f)

are: e -c# - b - c - rapid flutter between c & b (should be f - d - c, all slid together)

To prove that it's not the recorder or Audacity causing this, here's the same section from a BW solo show:

the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKMxVnzerug

slowed down 66% (from approximately  the 40-48-second point in the video):
http://www.mediafire.com/?kfspbgko35vivc5

Now there's sliding between the notes, as opposed to the stair-stepping effect on the first example.

Tah-freaking-DAH.  It's pitch correction, folks.

You win, Spil.

I did the same thing on something without pitch correction, but used various other VST plug-ins, and the same thing happened. That's not a proof that there was pitch correction used, just digital effects.

This^^^^^

But pitch has been modified, in a way that it stairsteps through pre-defined pitches.  If THAT's not a product of pitch correction, I don't know what is...

I hear what you hear, Sir.

I still wonder why and if this does not sound like this in the venue. About 70 thousand people have heard the live shows, many of them enthusiastic fans that deaf-happy to be therer, others not so much, and among them professional music writers. Apparently none of the guys that made any of these recordings heard anything funny live. Had this half-step sliding and wobbling taken place before 140.000 ears, this should be MAJOR scandal already. But it's just a topic in a die-hard fan forum.

Yeah.  If the effect can't be heard by the ticket buyers in the seats, then it's not an issue.

We are also living in a time when pitch correction/autotune are used in nearly every top-40 song, commercial, film, etc. Hell, I saw an indie band at a local club last year, who rely on harmony for much of their music - they had a rack full of Antares units in the backline, but they were singing very close to on-key so there was no audible stepping.

In truth, I think people want to give Brian a pass, and as you said, most people don't hear it or don't care - or they explain it away as being some other kind of effect. If it were picked up by the right media source, it might possibly become an issue, but I doubt it.

Fuck 'em.

Agreed. It was a band that my friend was trying to get me into, and any respect I could have had was ruined by their reliance on mummery. Plus, it's not like they couldn't sing properly, so why bother with those rackmount Antares units? Terrible.

JUST THE KID

Grizzly Bear?  Animal Collective?

Do you guys know what The Hum is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum

This discussion somewhat reminds me of The Hum.  My wife claims to hear a low frequency Hum in our house (in southern California).  Even though I have good hearing, I never hear it.  Does that mean it doesn't exist?  (well, no.)

But hearing can be so, so subjective, more subjective than we realize!

No, I have never heard Grizzly Bear but I like what I've heard of Animal Collective overall. I will find out the name of the band in question. Even without the pitch correction, it was not the type of music I would be receptive to normally. However, the fact that this band, which was based around two young guys performing fairly simple vocal harmonies, relied on pitch correction immediately put me off.

Everyone there seemed to love 'em regardless. People are so used to pitch correction nowadays as a matter of course; we are immersed in it. It is used in many places where it is simply not necessary. I have seen and heard so many productions - TV, film, records - utilizing vocalists and actors who can sing beautifully and professionally, and they are still run through pitch correction. The mind boggles.

You can't autotune live vocals...

Good point!

Welp, time to close the thread. Why didn't we realize this before? ^_^

Yeah, stuff like this doesn't actually exist:

http://www.amazon.com/TA-1VP-Antares-Auto-Tune-real-time-correction/dp/B004OA6JU2/ (http://www.amazon.com/TA-1VP-Antares-Auto-Tune-real-time-correction/dp/B004OA6JU2/)

Yeah, not quite sure what was meant by that. Live vocals most certainly can be pitch corrected.

Sorry, can't take you seriuosly without Hello Kitty, Is this the new you? Are we supposesed to just deeel with it? Well I can't. Bring back kitty, or the Kitty gets it!

'
Other digital effects can affect pitch. At this point I think we're debating over semantics, but it wasn't  specifically "pitch correction" that was used; if it was, it'd be 1).  Melodyne as opposed to Antares, and 2).much more noticeable to the point where we wouldn't even be able to debate it, and the live audience definitely would have picked it out.

<3 She'll be back. In the meantime, please enjoy this seven year old vomiting milk carton gif I found on an ancient, decaying CD-R backup. I know I am. = )

Bump.

They're still autotuning the sh*t out of Brian's vocals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZrIyFaPRTE

In no way would it be surprising if they were autotuning Mike or the other members as well.  They have the tools and seem to have no compunction about using them, regardless of appropriateness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emVE_TqGBqw&feature=relmfu

Joe Thomas better have an alibi!

But if the alternatives are...

1) The band refuses to do songs that are too tricky so fans miss out on 'Why Do Fools' or 'Wendy' for example?

2) The other members insist that Brian's mic is switched off during their numbers

...doesn't that mean we'd all lose out as fans if they didn't autotune?

At the extreme, we might only get an hour of music instead of three minus the intermission.

Except for the fact that Brian and this exact band have been putting on acclaimed shows throughout the U.S. and around the world for the last 12 years without a scrap of autotune -- or even echo, in a lot of places.

That's the thing I can't get over. If Brian's last decade of touring had been a disaster, or embarrassing, or even "meh," I could see the defense. But he's been acclaimed! He's regularly gotten better notices than Mike and Co. So why is everyone so embarrassed by the fact he sings a bit flat?

This thread made me think of this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXa9tXcMhXQ


Carry on...

What do you mean, like, autotune is allowing them to do numbers that would otherwise be impossible?  You'd have to first believe that the autotune is actually working, when the primary complaint seems to be that it is not working, and instead just pushing Brian's pitch around in an unpredictable and musically unpleasant way.  And secondly they're not using it to reach notes they can't hit anymore, they have Jeff and the rest of the backline for that.

Unless you're saying it's just a contractual or psychological safety net for Brian or the other members regardless of its musical utility or effectiveness, in that it makes them willing to consider things they wouldn't otherwise because they assume that the autotune will make everything OK?  Doesn't seem incredibly sensible, but I guess anything's possible.

Well, the Beach Boys have never been known for their sound decision making. But for a enterprise which is essentially down to Brian's wifeandmanagers....

Of course, I wouldn't be able to ever definitively say so until I see them. And that is not happening, because they're not coming to Britain. But on the evidence presented to me, Brian's lead vocals are definitely being pitch-corrected. I've even asked my friends (who tolerate my Beach Boys obsession) and they agree he's auto-tuned.

this HAS to be made worse by the camera, i don't doubt that there's some tuning going on.  But that video is the worst i've heard, and nobody would do that knowingly.

The video is fine. I can't believe people are still in denial over this! It really IS that bad, it's not the recording device or anything of the sort - Brian is being autotuned, and it's not well done at all. Autotune, if not applied correctly, can actually make people go out of tune and sound worse than they really do.

Also, did they really give David's only lead away? And yet Jeff still gets a lead? Inexcusable.

the only reason i said the camera is cause it's never been THAT obvious.  It hasn't, and anyone trying to tell me it's been like that the whole time is bonkers.   I almost feel like someone turned it way too high for that show on accident. 

Yes.

I've seen some camera clips where the tuning is virtually indistinguishable from how I've known BW to sound -- the only clue is that he's hitting pitches square on rather than a tiny bit flat.

But this latest round of clips makes him sound like a malfunctioning robot. And clearly there is a middle ground in terms of how these concerts actually sound.

It's sounded about as bad on about 3/4 of the other clips and recordings where Brian does lead that I've heard. Cameras and iPads do not create autotune, nor do they ever really act in a way that can create something that resembles it.

imo

At least to my ears, there's a notable difference in the metallic quality. It is not the same as 3/4 of the other recordings, which is why both Runaways and I are writing about it.

I've found the tuning audible on 90 percent of more of the audio or video recordings I've heard. But I also trust my ears enough to know that the effect does not sound the same in every situation. Assuming the sound man at the shows isn't radically changing the settings from one date to another, it simply makes sense that the mode of recording affects the sound's reproduction.

And if you don't think recording devices can give people's voices a metallic sound, you must have limited exposure to modern technology. Or never used a cell phone.

We've heard a million sh*tty BB's audience tapes through the years. No pitch correction to be detected.


C'mon Beach Boys' people, hear us....

---

Here's a clip from the same source

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpcvXiuo3Zg&feature=relmfu

No pitch correction or cell phone artifacts to be found on Carl's vocal.

we'll just disagree.  I've watched as many videos as i can, i haven't heard any as bad as that.

I'll grant you that the video posted is one of the worst and clearest examples, but there are several other I've heard that aren't terribly far behind. Just me.


This would be the most damning evidence on all of these concerts. Why don't Carl and Dennis ever have this going on if the recording devices are to blame?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9QAA1RP4Tw&feature=relmfu

49 seconds in...WTF?! Now THAT right there is pitch correction of some sorts. Holy balls

Wow, that may the "silver bullet" for those who don't want to accept tht Brian is being tuned. I wish they'd just take it off, who in the BB's organization actually thinks this sounds good?

A lot of what you guys were hearing before wasn't pitch correction. Remember how i said it would be glaringly obvious when it was used? Well, THAT, my friends, is the result.

If any one on the BB organization is reading this, if you REALLY want a better sound, I work cheap. Cause that right there is a travesty.

Not if it doesn't sound like this in the venue. I refuse to believe that only tone-deaf people have attended so far (are we at 100,000 already?) and no one's realized this obscenity.

Bro, it's been there from the beginning. The Texas show (2nd day?) is damn near soundboard, and B-Pain is IN THE BUILDING!!


I don't know man. Is there a remote possibility that someone from management is reading this thread? If so...

What a f*cking outrage.

PLEASE STOP RUINING WHAT MIGHT BE BRIAN WILSON'S LAST LIVE VOCALS WITH THE BEACH BOYS!
 
The Beach Boys are better than that. It's embarrassing and disrespectful to Brian, the band, and the fans.

People ARE hearing it at the venues. Don't believe me? Just look around.

And if you don't wanna buy into that, trust me, people are hearing it on the youtube videos. You can't keep ignoring this. Say you don't condone "bootlegging" all you want, but these are the times we live in. This is giving a terrible impression of The Beach Boys.

By the way, if they do this at Bonnaroo? The sh*t's gonna hit the fan, if you ask me.

Guys guys guys. Check out the Tampa thread. Listen to Heroes. They removed it. Or at least, changed the way they used it significantly. Brian sounds completely different and no more wobbling.

I guess I cold be crazy and way too optimistic...but this sounds extremely, extremely different.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7zFvqsTv5sU

Check out that pure chorus!

Nah bro it's still there.


If it doesn't subside, I'm gonna call the cops!

Do you agree that is a LOT less? I mean come on. That's WAY different than some of the wobbling we've heard.

Not at all sir. There's a ton of reverb on the recording which might make u think you're hearing it less, but all the tell tale signs are still 100% apparent to these ears.

Ok, so who has been at these actual concerts and heard it live in the room and is hearing these same effects as heard on the fan recordings?

whoa...settle down backwards beatles.......no sh*t is hitting the fan.....just enjoy this time we have been given and save yourself from all that stress and yelling...

Yeah, I did bug out a bit there. Apologies for the bad energy. It's just another one of those bizarre moves by The Beach Boys that makes no sense.

Other than this I'm totally excited about the reunion.

Nah, that's clearly Brian showing of his kickass ability to sing vibrato!

:lol

That was Brian impersonating Grace Slick.

It sounds like they may have slightly turned him down in the mix, going by the clip of the last show.  You can hear the harmonies and the band a little more. His voice still sounds processed.

What we haven't been told is that Grace is secretly doubling Brian on this tour, she has been backstage at each show with her own mike and has gotten a little carried away at times resulting in the 'robo-Brian'.

Judging from that bit heard at :49 into the video...I wouldn't be surprised. ;D

I'm really hoping that they will either tone it down or it will be be not audible from the audience by the time they play in the hollywood bowl. Seems like they made some adjustments in the last few shows. I'm ok with a little teeny bit of auto-tune, so long as its not TURNED way up like it has been in the first leg of gigs.

Alright, so just to summarize what has happened so far. 


1.  People hear crappy recordings from live shows recorded on cell phones and then uploaded to Youtube... and hear "Autotune" as they call it on only certain notes that only Brian is singing.  Brian is clearly singing off key, even on the notes people claim they hear Autotune on.

2.  People that go to the concerts, (Oh... thousands of people who have commented) don't hear Autotune on anything.

3.  A few people who went to the concert, claim that they heard 'just a little bit' of Autotune on 'just a few notes' that Brian sang.  He's stil singing off key, like he has for 40 years.

4.  No reporters have mentioned autotune at all. 

5.  Finally, the Beach Boys play live, in high definition, on Jimmy Fallon last night.... sound great, nobody can hear any autotune, and Brian sings off key, like he has for 40 years, like he has the entire tour, like he will the rest of his life.























Conclusion:  There is no live autotune being used, at all.  What people who should know better think they are hearing is a combination of two different people doubling Brian live, instruments doubling Brian while he sings the melody, and Iphones and Youtube dropping the quality just enough to blur the lines.  When you hear it live, he's fine, and when you see it in high definition, there's obviously no autotune. 

Nah. It's a rackmount voice processing unit rounding his pitches off, some people don't notice the artifacts too well. Voice processing gear isn't smart enough to always make sure you're on key because unless you go in note by note or have a MIDI signal telling it exactly what to hit, it doesn't know what the heck the song is if you're just dialing in a scale or whatnot. I wasn't quite sure based on the audio from the first night, but once all the other performances flooded in -- um, yeah. Kind of hard to miss across dozens of boots.

Voice doubling isn't going to cause crazy fluctuations between notes or that glide effect as in the Sail on Sailor videos. Neither will codec compression, cheap device mics, bad audience sound, etc.

They didn't use it on the Fallon appearance. I'm not sure where the exit poll data on concertgoers is kept, either.

That said, all of this Auto-tune talk has me firing up various plugins and having fun crooning Beach Boys tunes through it over the past week. Ha! Fun! And totally cheesy and alien-sounding. It's ridiculously fun on "Surfer Girl," tho. Take that, harmonies!

You make Brian's singing in the past 40 year sound worse than it was / is.

Also, his live vocals so far (at the reunion gigs) have obviously been somewhat processed, even if it isn't the so-called "autotune".

FWIW, David Beard says Brian's not Auto-Tuned. But a coupla things to consider:

1) That doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't some OTHER pitch-correction or other digital effect on his voice.
2) His source was one of the musicians, to whom he talked backstage. I'd never put my full trust in what one of the musicians would say to the editor of a widely popular fan-zine, especially if it was the same musician who once claimed that Brian's teleprompter only shows him the set list.

lolololololol

Edit: Just wanted to add that aside from everything else you've said, which has been debunked several times over, the sound team who does Fallon is not the same people at all who do sound for the Beach Boys. So again, it means nothing.

Also, again, Jesus fucking help you if this is how Brian sounds to you normally.

It still blows my mind that everyone assumes that every recording that has been done of this tour was captured from an iPhone.

Have the folks that recorded these shows disclosed what kinds of devices were used to record them?  

Indeed. Having now heard much higher quality audio from many more shows, it really is indisputable. But I can also see why some people don't hear it -- depending on the venue, it can be mixed so that if you're not paying attention, you wouldn't necessarily think anything was going on. And I suspect that the less Brian is off -- and some songs, he pretty much nails -- the less digital wobble you get.

folie à plusieurs -


mental disorder affecting several people who share the same delusions; formally classified as shared psychotic disorder.

Shared Psychotic Disorder -

a delusional system that develops in one or more persons as a result of a close relationship with someone who already has a psychotic disorder with prominent delusions.

Man, as much bad energy as I've spit out in regards to THE OBVIOUS USE OF PITCH CORRECTION ON BRIAN'S VOCALS ON THIS TOUR....

Nothing tops this guy on the bad energy meter.

Dude, when will you realize that many audio professionals (myself included) have commented on the subject, and even a bunch of casual listeners are able to hear the autotune?

You talk a great game, but you're wrong when you say that no one at the shows has heard it. People have posted ON THIS BOARD saying that they heard the autotune. At the venues. Seek and ye shall find.

In the meantime, just know that you're wrong, and it's extremely offensive to imply that we're all nuts. No one needs that sh*t man.

Just saying that could be a possibility.  Calm down sugar. 

It's fine for people like you, and Wirestone to say that it's 'indesputable' because you're an audio professional, but it's not alright for me to say maybe you're delusional? 


You're saying I'm delusional, right?  I don't hear things.  I say you hear things. 

No big deal.  don't get so offended, if the shoe doesn't fit, maybe there's some other explanation for why you hear sh*t that isn't there. 

Groupthink -

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints.

The primary socially negative cost of groupthink is the loss of individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking.


---------------------------------------------------------

Folks like you present yourself as 'audio professionals' when I've been hearing with the same ears you have since I was born.  My opinion is just as valid as yours, and when members of the band say there is no autotune, and I hear no autotune, I'm not afraid to disagree with YOU, or anybody else, who tells me I'm wrong. 

So you have your opinion, and I'll have mine, but don't tell me you're an audio professional and know better.  You know no better than I do what I hear with my ears. 

Ears can be trained - the mere fact that we all have ears does not put us automatically on equal footing for hearing things. And the fact that ears can be trained to pick out particular nuances that untrained ears can't undermines your "either you're delusional or you're not" dichotomy.

Ron- you don't secretly work for the Beach Boys touring sound staff do you? Your fervent denial is starting to sound like it... but Its too late, we've caught on!  :lol  

It's certainly an opinion, but to claim it's just as valid as an expert's I think you'll find won't wash anywhere but, say -- a 24 hour news channel where despite simple reporting that could sort things out, The Facts and A Delusional Yet Strongly Held Opinion are portrayed as somehow the same.

 :lol

Absolutely. It's the myth of objectivity.

No, I don't...




Just remember folks: I'm not the side trying to tell you what to think.  I'm being ridiculed for having the audacity to disagree with people who claim they hear better than you or I.  

Please believe every nerd who hears AutoTune has posted on this thread.  Thousands who attended the concert and didn't, haven't posted because they're NORMAL PEOPLE without psychotic issues.  LOL

But, back to why I'm wrong: My ears (and thousands of other stupid people) just haven't evolved like yours because you're an audio professional.  Riiiiiiiight.  




Facts:  

1.  Everybody agrees the high def footage on t.v. last night wasn't autotuned.

2. Everybody but a hand full of weirdos agrees that none of the vocals were autotuned in the concerts

3. The strangeloves who think that autotune was used, can only point to a couple notes in each song that they think sound funny.  So we're talking about .1 percent of the people who have heard the boots hear anything, and then those people hear something on .1 percent of the vocals.  

4. The band says no autotune.  

5. No review, even by casual attendees the band didn't know were there, has mentioned Autotune.  (In case you think big brother cracked down on them and won't let them mention the dirty little secret).

6. All the autotune 'evidence' has been sketchy recordings.

7. The grammy event wasn't autotuned, by all accounts.  

8. The Autotuned notes skeptics point to aren't even the tough notes.  

9.  Brian sings the whole thing off key anyways, despite accusations that he's using pitch correction.  

10. He clearly doens't need autotune, because on the 'not autotuned' vocals on In My Room last night, he's caught singing a complex song, in fine form.  


-----------------

The evidence for the other side is:

"Ron, I know better than you becuase I downloaded Pro Tools on my mom's computer and played around recording a copy of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and I can make my voice sound funny.  Therefore I hear it in this youtube video, but only when he goes "Bom Bom Dit Dit" on the third verse.  Listen really close"


.... And i'm the crazy one.  

Delusional, right?  I say you're delusional for hearing it, what are your credentials?  Why is your opinion better than mine and the thousands who attended the concerts and heard nothing?

I think you'll find that when you're in an argument and actually have to SAY "and I'm the crazy one," you tend to be the crazy one. Look back at your post and try not to detect a bit of foam! Still, isn't this great!?!? We're arguing about Beach Boys shows! AIEIfjwo04gjoqig4onh46oinhoinh!

I could care less if they put Brian in an iron mask and only have him sing though a ring modulator on the chorus of Shortnin' Bread, this is amazing stuff!

Anyway, you'll get your definitive answer soon enough I'm sure about the exact "revolutionary live voice processing system" that isn't Antares Auto-tune, I betcha... let's just blame the oily hand of Joe Thomas on all this, or perhaps a spot of bad mustard... an undercooked potato...

You should keep claiming you're on the side of thousands of concert-goers, tho. That's a great technique against any kind of "informed opinion" crap.

For the love of God, Ron, stop drinking.

Maybe I should start!  Perhaps I'd start hearing things. 

I don't have a position on this issue either way, but I can say that your position is thoroughly unconvincing.

The possibilities are hilarious. We could arbitrarily switch sides for a few hours.

You know how we can figure it out?  It's somebody who wasn't at the Grammies, or at the Baseball Stadium, Or at the Jimmy Fallon Show, or Any of Brian's concerts he's ever performed at before this tour... in his entire life.  He's also not there for most of the songs, or most of the notes in the other songs.  

So look for somebody to blame... on three or four mid-range, easily singable (but still off key because the imaginary program doesn't work) notes per song that Brian sings lead on.  















Or, if you want to get brave enough to get accused of drinking, maybe he's simply an old man singing?

Yes you do, you're just too much of a coward to put it out there.  Everyone has opinions. 

 :lol

He can be all these things and MORE!  

Well, let's keep listening. I'll be catching three shows next month and certainly will be in it for the KICKS and not sitting primed for sniffy pitch-correcting snippery, but I'll pipe up if I hear it... along with... "AHHhGHGHh! David Marks! And he never stops smiling!"

But there SHOULD be complaints about it on the boards. Maybe PEOPLE will see it and such monkey business will cease, as they don't fucking need it. The Fallon mixes sounded great!

Ron isn't trying to prove whether or not autotune is being used. He is trying to prove that he is right and others are wrong. He has already proved it in his own mind, so anything after that is a bonus.

Oh my God.  :lol

Claiming you are in the majority by bringing in your estimation of the thoughts of those not on the board is fallacious. What matters in the context of the conversation here is the opinions of those on the board, and in the conversation. Your oft-stated philosophy is that the majority is the closest to truth in the absence of true objectivity. The majority HERE, as seen in the poll, hear autotune in the live concert performances. So, by your own philosophy, those people are right and you are wrong, simply because they are the majority.

Checkmate, Ron.

I've been exploring this further.

As noted above, folie à deux refers to the strange mental condition, where one who has a close relationship with an individual with a disorder, starts suffering from symptoms of the same disorder.

Brian Wilson famously suffers from Auditory Hallucinations.  God bless him.

Auditory Hallucination -

"a form of hallucination that involves perceiving sounds without auditory stimulus. A common form involves hearing one or more talking voices. "

"In Musical Ear Syndrome, people will hear music playing in their mind, usually songs they are familiar with. Recent reports have also mentioned that it is also possible to get musical hallucinations from listening to music for long periods of time."

You must be assuming I read any of the replies. 

You are a bully who speaks far too old for his years. You know very, very little about music or any type of intelligent discourse. Hopefully, you will be banned or God will strike you dead.

Love you too! 

There are actually no synthesizers on Love You.

It does not automatically tune Brian. Therefore it's not autotune. When this was pointed at, people replied that autotune wouldn't work anyway. And the million-dollar entourage working on this MASSIVE tour haven't realized yet? As the 100,000 people that attended so far?

Bold statements got bold replies.

Fine, change the thread title to "The Dynamic Pitch Randomizer Thread".  Everyone is happy.

"Voice wobbler" could be another one. Their state-of-the-art audio equipment can't do without one of those.


...


Just keep in mind "Spring Vacation" sucked until AGD told us it's one of the better cuts. Lots of statements have been made recently, and many of them had to be taken back.

The technology is not hard to understand, and it has been explained at length in this thread and others. Autotune is not magic. It works on a note-by-note basis, and is not conscious of the "right" notes for the song. If Brian is nowhere in the neighborhood of the correct pitch, then his voice will be "corrected" to some dramatically different pitch -- and it will be out of tune. That is part of the problem.

I would wager that most of the people working on the tour are entirely aware of the effect, and aware of how bad it sounds. Indeed, I would expect the backing band is apoplectic over it. But tours like this are no democracies; they are not run by popular vote. A few people get to make the decisions, and whoever is making the decisions so far seems to feel as though the effect is working just fine.

As for the audiences, they are largely not enthusiasts. Those who are familiar with the topic and have attended have said that some degree of pitch correction is audible. But most audiences for this kind of thing (older, unsophisticated) do not know what pitch correction sounds like, and don't know what modern Brian sounds like.

i didn't know AGD said that. interesting.  him and the consequence of sound guy are on complete opposites when it comes to what parts they like. (minus they both love the end of the album).

I think boots is attending tonite's show. Let's see what he comes up with.

Yikes, i hadn't opened this thread once, but decided to take a look because it's grown to 12 pages. So i clicked on the last page just to see where the conversation is at, and without having really read much, it blows my mind to see that people still take Ron seriously enough to respond to him. Haven't you all figured that guy out yet?

I know! Plus, god will strike me dead soon enough.  Nothing to get worried about!  I mean, hey, I know nothing about music and dare to agitate people I disagree with... therefore I SHOULD BE EXECUTEDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

RonOrganPlayer

Oh, ya read that one, did ya, Poindexter? Just testing ya.

The funniest thing on message boards is when someone claims that they ignore so-and-so's posts and then proceed to respond directly to so-and-so. Classic.

Here's a recipe for carrot ginger soup:

Simple Carrot Ginger Soup
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1/3 cup peeled and finely chopped ginger root
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
Pinch curry powder (optional)
Salt & ground pepper
Optional Garnishes: plain yogurt or sour cream, chives or parsley


Heat olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add onion, ginger and garlic; saute for 5-10 minutes. Add the stock and carrots. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered over medium heat until the carrots are very tender, about 30 minutes. Puree the soup with an immersion blender or in batches in a blender or food processor. Season with curry powder, salt and pepper to taste. This soup may be served immediately, keeps in the refrigerator for at least 3 days and freezes well.

In terms of tonight's show, Brian's autotune was audible but just barely. I probably wouldn't've noticed it if I wasn't looking for it. Doesn't sound anywhere as bad as the audience recordings I've heard.

I will say though, that I've seen Brian live before and was very impressed by his singing and tonight I thought he was the worst vocalist of the bunch. It's probably the autotune's fault. But again, it wasn't that noticeable. If that makes any sense.

I quite liked Brian's vocals on "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" and a couple others. They were a lot rougher during the first set than the second. During the second set, there were a few instances where Brian's voice sounded amazing. I think sometimes he has to marshall all his confidence in order to deliver a good performance. It must be tough for him with the auditory hallucinations.

As for the pitch correction/autotune on Brian's voice, you are on the money. It wasn't out of whack as often tonight as it has been in the past, although your comment about Brian being the worst vocalist of the bunch surely applies to his take on "Please Let Me Wonder." The loping, leaping, up-and-down melody of that song makes it very unconducive to pitch correction, and it threw Brian's voice out of whack in some weird ways. Luckily, I was unperturbed by it for the rest of the night.

I posted upthread that I would also report back about what my friend thought regarding Brian's vocal pitch correction, or lack thereof. My friend is a studio musician and singer, like myself, and he has a very good, trained ear. He did not notice the pitch correction until later on, after I had told him about it. I know this is ammunition for those who don't believe any pitch correction is being used, but it's the truth of what my friend heard (or didn't hear). I don't want to make this argument rage on any, but really, it doesn't have to be an argument - some people may hear things that aren't there, and some people may not hear things that are there. C'est la vie.

Personally, I heard the pitch correction on Brian's voice during "Please Let Me Wonder" and in spots here and there throughout the show, but it seemed subtler than it was at the beginning of the tour. I also think the natural reverb at the Beacon makes it a bit harder to detect nuances in individual voices. I am interested in hearing an audio recording of PLMW to see if I still detect it as I did during the show. Anyway, I was happy to not be continually perturbed by Robo-Brian as I basked in the magnificence of the group's harmonies.

Regardless of autotune, Stamos, setlist, cheesy stage background, etc...  anybody who can go to this tour should go. This was one of the greatest concerts I have ever seen. It reminded me vividly of the vitality and ingenuity of this group. It was as much of a mixed crowd as I have ever seen - youngsters, oldsters, etc. all taking in the music and shared history of one of the few truly great, enduring bands of the 1960s.

And here they are in 2012, playing for us live, with a new album around the corner. Good times for Beach Boys fans.

yeah, I should stop complaining on here about the show, I actually really really enjoyed it.

Nah, I wasn't trying to shut you down or anything. You paid your money for the tickets, feel free to complain as much as you'd like... we don't want this turning into the Blue Board! It is a place for honest and objective conversation and analysis, sans groupthink.

Still, glad to hear you liked the show! Where were you sitting? We were right at the balcony, great seats with an unobstructed view.

Also, I heard "Guess I'm Dumb" playing during the intermission. Very cool song choice.

I was on the first floor, row W, towards the left. Only a few rows from the back wall but the sightlines were great.

A question: given that the environment of a TV studio is far more conducive to pitch correction than a concert, and assuming AT is used live (which I for one seriously doubt), why wasn't it used on Fallon ? Some of Brian's vocal on "TWGMTR" was, to be polite, dire.

That's a good question. Clearly, they don't think they need it for the TV. Though, this was the only live TV appearance so far where you could actually hear Brian.

Something else to chew over:


So you only noticed it because you were listening for it, i.e. you were expecting to hear it. And guess what - you did !  ;D


Your friend with the "very good, trained ear" didn't notice the alleged autotune until you told him there (allegedly) was some. In a court of law, that's called a leading question, or influencing the witness. Your friend didn't hear anything amiss until he was told there was a problem. If his ear really is that good, I'd say that was pretty good evidence that there is no problem.


Sorry Orville, but that won't fly. Potential live aggregate audience for all 64 shows posted to date - circa 300,000-400,000... TV audience for the Fallon show, something like 2,500,000.

AGD -- I know it doesn't make sense, but the evidence is pretty clear. There is pitch alteration on BW's live vocals. This entire saga has been perplexing from the start, but give foks who have heard BW live for years credit -- we can tell the difference between treated and untreated vocals.

I'll listen to the Dallas show again, but I don't recall hearing it then... and I know what it sounds like. Just pointing out that the evidence as presented below is seriously compromised by expectations and leading the 'witness'.

Well, I was listening for it on Fallon and didn't hear it. That kind of puts a wrench in the gears of your argument, don't it?

also, if everyone heard it just because they already thought it was there, then how did anyone hear it in the first place?

I've doubted it since it was first brought up and I'm happy to hear AGD is on the same side of the fence.  Helps me sleep better at night knowing that someone more eloquent than I can say anything that needs to be said if things get out of hand.   ;D

There is Autotune on Brian's voice on this tour, it can be detected on some of the YouTube videos, and I don't care and I don't mind. Even if I should detect autotune during the concert I plan to attend, it won't make me enjoy it less at all. So there!

Just answered your own question: because they were expecting it for Brian, given past live experience. I note that no-one has discerned AT on anyone else's vocals, and at times Mike could sure use it. Surely if they're going to AT one singer, they'll AT then all ? Just doing one mike doesn't make any sense at all.

I don't see how that answers my question, why should anyone have expected live autotune on Brian? it was completely unprecedented before this tour.


par for the course.

'K, just listened to the Dallas show (2nd gig), and Brian's leads on "PLMW", "YSGTM" and the new single - and if there's any auto tune on any of those, especially the latter, then I strongly suggest they sue whoever sold them the software, 'cause it ain't working.  ;D

What I do hear is a mild chorusing effect and Jeff reprising his role as audio safety net. No AT.  

Ah, I can see the man in the striped shirt at the back mouthing "they patched it in after a few gigs because they realised Brian needed help". Sir, to you I say - rehearsals.

True dat.

People here truly have a really distorted view of what autotune is capable of doing if they think it'll magically give us even remotely good sounding leads 100% of the time.

Just reaffirming what has already been said close to a dozen times now: autotune does not know what you're supposed to be singing! If Brian's off-key, the autotune is just going to 'perfect' his off-key notes. Autotune ain't gonna improve his pitching ability, give him better breath control or shave forty years off the sound of his voice!

The man in the striped shirt is also wrong - it's there on recordings from the first show too. And 90% of youtubes. AGD, there are some where it is really obvious.

I don't know what to say other than I hear it - I would really like not to! And I listened to the recordings of that first show in a state which could be described as utter elation..... until Brian piped up.

And I did cold-test one of my friends, by accident - Something from the Raleigh NC show was playing on youtube as she came in to my room with tea and she (who classifies herself as 'quite deaf') went 'Are they using auto-tune?' without any prompting from me. And we know anecdotal evidence is the best evidence!  ;D

I'm not going to a reunion gig, though. So it doesn't matter, really.

it's not different from the past, boots. You're comparing the YT videos to your live experience. But you heard, in the venue, the same thing every concert goer has heard. That's why, once you saw them live, your report resembles those of the people who where there. In the venue it does not sound like in those YT videos.

I suggest that you listen to YT videos of the songs you did not detect any autotune in them during the concert. You'll find amazing revelations :-D

I have to agree that it is a great show! And acknowledge your honesty in dealing with this much-debated topic.

Nonsense. A ptich corrector can correct flat singing of Brian's type if used properly. The BBs sound crew, a professional bunch if there is one, know this stuff inside out. He ain't being pitch-corrected. That's all.

Would someone kindly point me at what they consider to be the most blatant example of BW AT on youtube from the current tour ? Thanks in advance.

I'd say this Sail on Sailor performance (specifically during the bridge) is where I have heard the autotune most clearly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X6gLxS9Cw8

A few notes:
- Try to focus on how the Brian's notes 'lock on' to a certain digital sounding frequency, especially on the held notes in the bridge, that's the autotune at work.
- According to the video's owner, this was captured on a Nikon camera which means the audio quality is quite a bit superior than an iPhone's.
- If you have any further qualms relating to the quality of the audio, you can turn the video up to 1080p to increase the quality of the audio.

Thanks, but you just rendered my little experiment pointless by telling me what to listen for: I want to approach any such clip with an open mindset. One observation, though: if they're using AT, then why have someone clearly shading him during the verse ?

I can edit that out of my original post and we can bring in Ron to be the guinea pig :lol

AGD, the tapes from Tucson are the most blatant example I can think of. Heroes & Villains, in particular - the verses. I think we are characterising 'mild chorusing' differently, natch.

They are doing it subtler, but it's still there on this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6ZZw_H2Cm4&feature=related

Most clips of Do You Wanna Dance, Sail On Sailor and Heroes And Villains should also be evidence enough....

It is nowhere near as strong as it can be on the Tampa gig, btw.


As an aside, your challenge has mostly got me just surfing through clips of the reunion and having a good time!   ;D

Okay, just watched the link AGD requested....and I agree with him: if they are using Auto-Tune, they need to sue somebody. Brian is CLEARLY off-pitch by like a quarter-tone or so on a few words, in particuarly, "water, " "marauder," "stumble"...sounds like somebody who's not quite reaching the notes.

I will say, though, he seems to be singing it with more feeling (SLIGHTLY more, that is) than before on the song...

I think that's why we're all bugging out. The autotune is doing more harm than good. Though I can understand why it might not be as easy to hear in a live situation.

On another note, it sounds like they really eased up on it last night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1EhNnCZ9kw

Eased up or turned off? I can't hear anything to be honest (  :-D ). That being said, I haven't listened to anything else from the show, but hopefully it's more like this and a little less like that SoS performance I posted!

It sounds like it could be set to "slow", but it may very well be turned off.

Put it this way, if this was the first performance I heard from the tour, I wouldn't be claiming pitch correction.

I'm anxious to see some of the other performances pop up before I make a complete judgement.

Either way, this is progress guys!  ;D

If/when they release a DVD, what happens to Brian's vocal? More filter? Studio overdubs by BW (or JF?)?

I'd think so. Whatever they did with the Brian Wilson On Tour DVD would be the best move imo.

Part of me that thinks that Joe Thomas may autotune the crap out of everything, but here's hoping that he doesn't.

Of course, if they need natural-sounding, undetectable pitch correction, I'd be happy to offer my services.  ;D

Well, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. I mean, Brian's just plain MISSING the notes....REACHING THERE, but not quite getting there. If it were Auto-Tuned, he'd either GET THERE or just blatantly not be there at all. He was close. Auto-Tune would prevent the "close" and make it either where it NEEDS TO BE, or lower. Brian's too close (but noticeably off), or else SOMETHING would have sounded different.

You think so? I hear what you're saying in a few instances. But peep the robotic pitch slide as soon as the SOS video starts. That's B-Pain in full throttle.

But hey this might all be pointless since it looks like they might not have used it in NY.

Check your Facebook messages...sent one. FWIW, I don't think it's been used as much as some people say (and you're spot on about the chorusing being used), but this was very hard to miss.

Here's the deal...I don't think it's used on every song, at all. In fact, I'd venture to guess that it's only being used on songs that are being filmed for possible DVD release. I know...why would the sound people do it if it sounds bad? To that, I answer....well, it was done on the Knebworth dvd (years after the fact) and it sounded terrible.

As for why it's not being used on other band members? Well, I thought I heard it on Bruce a couple of times, but I could be mistaken. That said, Brian's voice is NOT conducive to sounding good when *live* pitch correction is being used.

It wouldn't matter if a song is going to be included in a DVD/live album, because the board in the recording truck would be getting unprocessed signals.  You wouldn't want a live recording to use the same eq/effects/processing that is present on the house mix because that is all applied to make it sound good for the folks in the venue.  Those same settings likely would not sound good on a live recording.

^True. My field is studio recording, not live recording. :lol

And remember if it follows the example of live albums from the past 50 years or so, there will be extensive fixes or even re-recordings and punch-ins to "fix" any problems in post-production. Unless it becomes one of those "100% Live!" releases where the PR goes out of its way to say there was no fixing or sweetening done to the concert tapes.

So the argument that says Autotune is being used live with an eye towards a DVD release doesn't seem as valid since any fixing would be done in post anyway, well after the tapes were recorded live.

I'll have to post what I heard/know about at least one of the "American Idol" finale shows if anyone doubts this... :)

Oh man, I can only imagine.

From a musical/performance standpoint, just assume what you may think about it is close to the truth. ;D

And from a live recording standpoint in general, there are hundreds of examples but I heard one firsthand from an engineer who was contracted to do a live feed for a band's future radio/net broadcast, for a band who is multi-platinum and plays big shows and venues, and this person said the playing from one prominent member (co-founder) wasn't just sloppy, it was awful. No names, no instruments mentioned...but the stuff we hear if anyone doesn't already know can be very far removed and very much altered from the signals coming into the board where the recording is being done.

And it backs up the earlier comment here about the sound being mixed differently for the live audience actually in the venue: Those same effects and all that wacky live audio crossover kind of stuff is done for the folks in the seats. What you may hear on a future "official" live recording is not that mix, in many cases. Unless they get a tape straight from the live board, like Dinky Dawson's Steely Dan concert cassette recordings from '74 where you hear all the panning and such.

Is Brian's voice alone being doubled and/or tripled? If it is could it be that an auto tune effect is produced by several people missing/searching for a pitch to varying degrees at the same time?

Even if that made any sense [doubt it] it wouldn't explain why it is more pronounced on fan recordings and bearly audible/non-existent on professional recording or to live ears.

Wha?

OMG... AGD is denying the obvious autotune/pitch correction. The bastion of logic has fallen to the deadly sway of Brianistianity! Dude, just get some pitch correction software and sing into it - you'll immediately hear the sorts of effects you can clearly hear on Brian's voice in those clips.

And how much does such pitch correction software cost for a one-off experiment such as this?

I'm sure you can could try a free demo. This is the 21st century. It's not some mystical technology. It's actually very simple.

...and very affordable. Hell, there are some software programs that come with it free, such as LMMS, which is free in and of itself!

this thread:

"They're not using Autotune, because Brian is singing flat!  Autotune wouldn't make someone sound WORSE!! It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"

Someone offers a technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone sound worse.

"They're not using Autotune, because Brian is singing flat!  Autotune wouldn't make someone sound WORSE!! It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"

Someone offers a technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone sound worse.

"They're not using Autotune, because Brian is singing flat!  Autotune wouldn't make someone sound WORSE!! It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"

Someone offers a technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone sound worse.

"They're not using Autotune, because Brian is singing flat!  Autotune wouldn't make someone sound WORSE!! It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"

Someone offers a technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone sound worse.



14 pages of this sh*t.

Please....when someone goes to the trouble of explaining something, address the explanation.  Don't stick your fingers in your ears and go "LALALALALALALALALALALALALALA" and repeat the same stupid assertion over and over and over and over again.  Jeez.

True for both sides of the argument.

Really? How so?

Well, for me it was a case of posting at least two pretty long posts about both Autotune and chorusing along with others who posted similar things, and how that could have affected the vocals we're discussing, and it changed nothing, other than with a few posters who agreed.

The notion that what we may hear in some cases is a chorusing effect and not pitch correction didn't change anything. We could have written "blah blah blah blah blah....." and it would have had the same result as we're here on page 14. Of course some would say my posts are like saying "blah, blah..." but that's another story. ;D

That was my "grassy knoll" comparison, or take it as far as the moon landing conspiracies...people will hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see, and at some point it becomes like talking into a dead phone.

That photo of Oswald holding the papers in front of his neck with the rifle...some *still* see Oliver Stone's fantasy version of a mystery guy with an X-Acto knife cropping and altering that shot for Life magazine in the film even after additional photos from that same day surfaced. What can you do except put out the facts and answer questions?

In this case it does cut both ways.

And did/does anyone hear pitch correction on Fallon's show?

"They're not using Autotune, because Brian is singing flat!  Autotune wouldn't allow someone to sound flat, and I'm not talking a whole step or two whole steps.  I'm talking, say, 30 cents flat!! It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"

Someone offers a dodgy technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone who sings a B instead of an F sound like they're singing the wrong note.

"But he's not singing a wrong note, he's singing a few cents flat!  Autotune wouldn't allow someone to sound a few cents flat if it was doing it's job. It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"

Someone offers a dodgy technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone who sings a B instead of an F sound like they're singing the wrong note.

Nope.  And I didn't hear it on the Beacon GV clip either.

Drives me crazy too when people say BW's vocals were somehow processed, but not necessarily pitch-corrected.  (facepalm)

To that, I ask: how many other forms of processing/chorusing/whatever cause the pitches of the notes to be affected in such a way that they fall neatly into the 12 chromatic slots of the Western scale?

I'm guessing the answer is none.  Why would something that's not pitch correction change pitches?

Count me in among those who would be absofreakinglutely thrilled to hear NO pitch correction.  I'm calling it as I see it, not as I want it to be.  Therein lies the difference; I think the anti-Autotuners have decided in advance that it's not happening, and to them any evidence to the contrary must be faulty or just a matter of opinion.  

Folks, those slowed-down samples I posted are evidence, not opinion.  And the conclusion is not one that pleaseth me. But I'd rather be accurate than happy.

It's not a dogdy technical explanation. It's how the program works.

Autotune is tuned to a scale -- probably the chromatic scale, which gives you all the sharps and flats. Think of a giant piano keyboard. If Brian is singing a pitch that's in between two keys on the piano, autotune will move the pitch of his voice to whichever note is closer. But Brian sings very, very flat sometimes. So the program "corrects" him to the lower, incorrect note.

People are getting way too hung up on the name of the program. It's more accurate to say that in a live context, autotune is a "pitch mover" and "pitch smoother" rather than a pitch corrector.

I haven't heard Brian sing 30 cents flat on any sustained note.  It has ALWAYS flipped between half steps. Show me where someone explaining Autotune has said that the notes falls ANYWHERE except on a specific note.  Go back and listen to my samples again, and follow the notes with a keyboard. Play along with the pitches I notated.

B and F?  No. B and B-flat, maybe. No one ever suggested any interval larger than a half-step. The explanations have not been dodgy-- in what way have the explanations been dodgy?-- they've generally been provided by people who have used pitch correction software.  Have you?

I'm afraid your analogy contains inaccuracies which are purposefully put there to make your point sound valid.  If I correct the B-F thing and the 30-cents thing, we have:

"They're not using Autotune, because Brian is singing flat!  Autotune wouldn't allow someone to sound flat, and I'm talking a half step flat!! It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"
Someone offers a technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone who sings a B-flat instead of a B sound like they're singing the wrong note.
"But he's not singing a wrong note, he's singing a few cents flat!  Autotune wouldn't allow someone to sound a few cents flat if it was doing it's job. It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"
Someone offers a technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone who sings a B-flat instead of an B sound like they're singing the wrong note. And no one can point out where a sustained note is 30 cents flat, rather than being exactly accurate or a half step off.
"But he's not singing a wrong note, he's singing a few cents flat!  Autotune wouldn't allow someone to sound a few cents flat if it was doing it's job. It's called AUTOTUNE, for Christ's sake!"
Someone offers a technical explanation as to exactly why Autotune would make someone who sings a B-flat instead of an B sound like they're singing the wrong note. And no one can point out where a sustained note is 30 cents flat, rather than being exactly accurate or a half step off.

Again (please read carefully), his voice isn't a half step or a whole step or two steps flat.  It's less than half a step, so why isn't the pitch correction moving that note that's 30 cents flat up to the note that he's trying to sing, or down to the note one half step lower?

Where?

Read my post above.  It's on-pitch or a half-step off, not 30 cents off.  Please give me an example of what you're hearing.

Not true.  I shouldn't need to point them out.  They're everywhere, just as they were on TWGMTR on Fallon.  If I have time when I get home later, I may just have to find an example for you. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds to find one.

And it has never been 2 steps flat, and I doubt that it's been a whole step off either.  

Pitch correction ALWAYS moves the note to the closest half-step, whether up or down, and Brian sings close to a half-step off at times, but rarely if ever beyond that.

You're right, but I've heard people try to make that argument here.

And we're back to the Oswald photo... :)

Pages ago there is a post taken from my own Autotune rackmount ownership which describes how it is programmed to either do the chromatic scale (which is most used for the deliberate robotic effects), a full major scale (which is more accurate and transparent), or partial scales containing only select notes from that scale to be tuned and the rest of them to go unaffected (which would allow for a more 'human', natural sound and works best for singers who may have pitch issues on a few high or low notes in their range but are generally in tune).

If you want it to correct every single note, program the chromatic scale. That is how the "T-Pain Effect" is done, combined with maxing out several parameters so the thing deliberately overworks. That is where you want that deliberate effect. If you're wanting to fix only a few notes, you'll program it to only hit on a few notes, not every single thing that the singer does. In that scenario, some will be perfect and some may be a bit out. But unless the singer is truly bad and can't pitch a note within a 1/4 step accuracy, you should be able to set it so the Autotune itself is not obvious.

Re the Fallon example, EXACTLY.  The people who hear the pitch correction in the live concerts have pretty much to a person said it was apparently not used on Fallon.  Don't ask me why it wasn't-- that's not the question, and I have no freaking idea, but I'm so glad it wasn't used...I never wanna hear it used on Brian live again.

Fallon show is mixed by Fallon show sound crew, not the BBs touring sound crew.  Fallon show sound crew did not elect to autotune Brian.

Thanks for that, Craig.  That would definitely explain why some notes sound pitch corrected to some folks, while other notes are allowed to go slightly off pitch.

Even though I'm firmly in the "there's autotune all over these recordings" camp, I want to make my position clear. I don't really care if they process Brian's vocals.

My general outlook has always been that Brian's prime contribution to the Beach Boys, to his solo career, and to the music industry as a whole has been his work as a songwriter, arranger and producer. In that order. While his early work as a singer was great, it was never the most important thing he did.

So when Brian re-emerged in the 90s on record and in concert, I never minded that he was doubled by Jeff in concert, let's say, or tuned on his records. His voice was limited, his patience in the studio was shot, whatever. Better to allow those records to be made and concerts staged in the best way possible, with the least stress on Brian.

And I think the outcomes of the last 14 years justify this position. Brian has toured, and seemingly enjoyed it. He's done masterful shows. And he's been constantly supported and filled in for by his backing band. And as he got older, he passed on some leads to the band members, all of which supported the notion: The song, the arrangement, the production is the thing.

And his records have been better than anyone would have dared hope in the mid 90s. He's produced collections of original songs that are great and put out some outstanding cover records. He's kept writing (on and off, admittedly), kept playing, and stayed engaged in the studio.

In other words, technological and band supports have allowed Brian to thrive beyond all expectations in his late 50s and 60s.

So in that context -- with that back story -- tuning effects added in the live situation don't bother me much in principle. If it allows Brian to contribute to live renditions of his classics in a pleasing way, why not add it?

The issues come about when and if the effects compromise the performance the audience hears. Some online clips have therefore worried me. Other clips, while the tuning is audible, bother me much less. It's always been a question of extent and blending in the overall house mix.

The issue is ultimately perplexing, though, for reasons that AGD articulated in his usual but astutely blunt fashion. Why do it live but not on TV? Why do it on Brian but no one else? And why would this seem needed after 14 years of BW touring with an entirely adequate safety net -- and one that has followed him on this very tour?

Anyway, I trust a balance will be found. The Beacon clips sound promising. We shall see.

Oh poo.
0:37 - 0:39
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqhnmKDateo&feature=autoplay&list=UL-PIPxyjVlZ8&playnext=3

Dialed back but not gone.

I honestly didn't hear it there.

Two things:

1 - I've noticed some folk are now saying "well, sometimes they use it, sometimes they don't" - presumably these techs can predict when Brian will sing 'off' and switch AT on just in time.  Are you serious ?

2 - more importantly (although there will be those who will dispute what I'm about to post, understandably so), I'm informed by the legendary Someone Who Would (Most Assuredly) Know that Brian is not being autotuned. Said individual has never sold me a pup before, thus I believe them.

Sure.  But there are MANY similar systems. Now ask them, "Ok, so they aren't using Antares Auto-Tune, but they are using voice processing, right? Which system, then?"

Someone more informed than I can chime in, but I think there's a range of settings as far as how quickly it kicks in, and how aggressive of an adjustment is made.

Is it possible that Someone has been misinformed, or has not heard the performance from the audience's perspective? Or that Someone will be lynched by Capitol if they breathe a word about this? Ask them why Brian's voice sounds pitch-corrected, and the others don't. And play them my WAV files from a few pages back.  I'll be more than happy to replicate the results.

I don't know why so many people find it unthinkable in 2012 that a tool widely available and commonly used is being implemented on a huge-budget concert tour.  Wouldn't it be much more unthinkable that it's NOT being used?

Looks like they're still fiddling with it. It's off the start of H&V/Good Vibrations now because it was ridiculously obvious, but it's clearly still there most of the time. We'll see what happens. IMO it takes something away from the song performed whenever used. e.g, the first recording of IJWMFTT, urgh! that song needs passion note electronica, for lack of a beter phrase!

And no it should not be used despite having a big budget, I can name no other band bar T-Pain/Black Eyed Peas or similar acts with autotune recordings who do.  McCartney doesn't even use it live, and he autotuned his last live release to pieces!

Actually, yeah...I don't think it's used on every song. And, as I've mentioned previously, the only honestly say with 99.9% accuracy that there was some definite manipulation of some sort (not necessarily AT) was on that clip of California Dreamin' (specifically the 'sky is gray' part).  That was a good quality recording as well, near soundboard-quality.  There's always the possibility that whoever uploaded the video doctored the audio first, but to what end?

Anyone who has been to a Brian show knows that there are some songs he sings better than other songs. If (and it's a big if) a vocal effect is switched on and off during the show, it's easy enough to identify which songs he struggles with (hint -- they're going to include Sail on Sailor, which I don't think he's ever sung in tune). This is not an implausible assertion, regardless of its truth.

I have no idea whether they're doing that or not, but that would be a thousand times more sensible than leaving it on all the time, and not a crazy approach at all.  A good soundman could certainly be expected to develop an understanding, song-to-song, of which lines Brian has trouble on, or which notes he has trouble hitting.

These Beacon clips and the Fallon show are promising steps towards a better sounding Brian, let's hope this continues.

(http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/20/800088/cranston9g8j42g8j.jpg)

Exactly.  :)

Somene patient enough, from the "I hear autotune" faction would be kind enough to listen to these and tell if he or she detects it?
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2012/05/the_beach_boys.html

The H&V acapella coda is usually a pretty naked autotune moment, but it sounds pretty natural on that clip.  I can't say they're not using it at all (the earlier PLMW Beacon clip sounded like it was still soaked thru with autotune to me) but at least I'm not hearing the weirdest of the artifacts that tended to turn up there.  Certainly one would hope they would figure out how to get a pleasant result as the tour wore on.

BOOM AGD - spot on mate

It's either not there at all or turned way down on the Beacon shows, which is of course fantastic.  ;D

“I guess the video didn’t work, thank god i was here”?!??
WHAT?
I cannot believe this charlatan. What are the realistic chances that after the video working fine for the first 8 shows, it just happens to "stop working" in NY where John fucking Stamos is guesting? And on top of that he had to go front and center and take Mike off his mic when it seemed that he was perfectly fine on Jeff’s mic. WHAT AN ASSHOLE.

Maybe Jeff invited him to, ah, 'move away, please'.  ::)

I hear it, especially from 1:31 to 1:39. "Stand or fall"-- the G-flat flips down to an F. "And it's all"-- he sings "all" sharp, and the note flutters between a C and D-flat.
1:13 to 1:17: The first note starts flat, around an E, and flips up right away to an F; the last note in the phrase at 1:16 starts on an B-flat (correct), and flips to an A.

Also, compare any number of Brian's solo shows...he was usually a quarter step low on the E-flats in the Bicycle Rider chorus.  In the BB shows, he's been exactly on pitch, with curiously-machine-like precision.

This is post no. 100 for me.  Boo-YEAH!!!! And it's only taken me how long...

EDIT: Post 101.  But the glowy Boo-YEAH looks too awesome to edit out.

Yep. But that all sounds like gibberish to somebody who can't tell D from D7 and "knows what they hear."

You know, the most shameful thing about this is that despite resolutely never touching auto-tuning type software for the past decade plus, I now find myself playing with it. Woe is uh me bop! It's kinda fun. Gets obnoxious after a while tho, doesn't it. Like putting everything through a wah pedal when you first buy a wah pedal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lPZhD4KctA

2:02- 2:03

You know what, though? In this case, it actually sounds pretty cool.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/20/800088/robocop2.mp3 (http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/20/800088/robocop2.mp3)

Human voices do not do this. Never ever ever, undo any circumstances, is it even possible for a person to naturally sound this way. Human voices do not glitch like this, they do not automatically skip around like this.

:lol

I just sampled that and put a beat behind it :D

Fitting, really.

I wanna hear him wail out a Shortnin' Bread with all the FX turned up on maximum alien! Ya know you want to, Brian! The Beach Boys Play The Residents and The Residents Play The Beach Boys!

That would be fucking awesome. If only it could actually happen :'(

I'm actually doing something similar with Til I Die...

I love Byron Cransden and the whole cast of Shaking Mad. One of my favorite films.

After listening to IJWMFTT several more times, I'm starting to wonder if the goal isn't to fix any notes, but rather as an effect. It really sounds good on this one, like any artifacts are intentional.

There's still pitch correction smothered all over Brian's vocals at the Beacon.

Yes it was pretty obvious at the show. Stamos went to Foskett's mic and Foskett seemed surprised and was very reticent to give it up... then after moving away for a moment, Foskett moved back in. He seemed to want Stamos out of his space.

I remember absurd theories as to who were some of the people in The Residents, mainly Brian Wilson. Also, Frank Zappa, Martin Denny, and Sun Ra.

Supposedly there is a little hidden bit of H&V in The Third Reich And Roll, but i've never heard it.

Jeff needs to learn to respect Stamos. He's been touring with the group since the 80s - over twenty years! That's almost thirty years! He sounds great, and sometimes sounds just like Dennis! I don't know why people complain. He's an important part of Beach Boys history, and if you make fun of him, you're just jealous.

omg u r soooo rite RDZ!!!! thanx 4 speakin the truth! btw y r u a barfing milk containre now insted of hello kitty?!?!?!1

Can I have some money, please?

FINNY LIES COMIN ON 80. FUCK THIS. I'M GONNA WH- THIS LADY

Totally forgot I did this 2 years ago

Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/user/GreatSongsAutoTuned

You made those songs all sound awesome!

I know.     ;D

Awesome.  Especially the Nirvana clip. It almost sounds like he could actually sing.
Well done!

I wont ruin my future posting career on this forum by jumping straight into this mine field on my first post...

oh go on then..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZrIyFaPRTE

It's a shame, you would think that after hearing the first few shows they would have changed it.

I can't see how, especially in the recent video above, people can't hear it.

It just doesn't work and it's not needed :(

Well, I've held out on joining this argument, and I didn't hear it on the first few recordings.

This has definitely been pitch corrected, without any shadow of a doubt, unequivocally, 100%.

But I don't care really. If they come to the UK I'll happily part with my money. I'll be paying to see my favourite band together onstage.

However, given the choice, I'd rather they ditched the pitch correction.

Update please, do we have confirmation or denial from anyone directly involved?

Denial from everyone affiliated with The Beach Boys who's said anything.

Which is typical for something like this.

Even Ashlee Simpson's people tried to say she wasn't lip syncing during that SNL fiasco.

I've held off too, and really don't care either way, but in this last clip, I can think of no other reason that Brian would be singing that wrong of a note periodically.

That clip is "old" and before the Fallon show. Since that performance, based on numerous videos/witnesses at the Beacon shows, the Autotune has been dialed down and/or turned off. Check out some of those Beacon show videos.  It's MUCH different than the video posted from the Hollywood show.

Nah, it's there too in the vids from the Beacon show on Brian's voice and what sounds like Mike on Do It again. Two friends who hit both Beacon shows said they could hear it live but, one fella added: "wasn't as bad as the youtube of Sail on Sailor" and went on to make me massively jealous about how fun and overwhelming the shows were. So I'm in the same "I don't even care, can't wait to see em!" boat. JUNE! JUNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (emits high pitched squeal only dogs can hear)

Yeah, but check out some of those videos from the Beacon show. I'm not saying its gone, but it's no where near the level it was.

Yeah, I just said I saw some of them. It's not off and I guess someone twiddled the knobs a bit better. Is there a version of "Sail on Sailor" from the NYC stint to compare? He seems to not have too much fun doing that one and all the artifacting is especially evident.

I kind of like it on "Heroes and Villains," especially the choruses and Bicycle Rider. Adds a nice creepy edge to it.

Sorry about that. I didn't read your post carefully enough!  :-\

Don McLean was wrong. this is the day the music died.

I'd like to apologize on behalf of humanity for contributing to the death of music. In my defense, I had a mean piano teacher who once "accidentally" dropped a bench on my foot and snapped a big toenail in half. Do the math.

+1000000000000000

There's less activity in this thread since some of the proponents have attended the shows. Their verdict is the same as everybody's: "if it's there, it's mitigated 'cause I can't hear it... and Brian sounds pretty good." The exact same thing people who went to the shows have been saying since the tour started. Once everybody attends, or most people anyway, this thread will fall into oblivion.

Then when the DVD and TV special happen, and the vocals are overdubbed and processed, it'll go on forever whenever those releases are discussed.

Can you hear it in the videos above?

Oh, plenty of wobbling and crazy note-shifting for sure! Specially Do You Wanna Dance, which I'd heard previously. But you don't get to hear any of that in the venue. So, who knows...

Like I said, that was May 5. We've heard audio since then, and it's nothing quite that bad.

i.e. Take a look at this. Anyone who says it is as blatant as that DYWD video is simply exaggerating.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7zFvqsTv5sU

The worst clips come from the show or two right before Fallon.

Then we had the untuned TV appearance.

The shows since then seem to have had the effect turned down. For a lot of us, that counts as a triumph -- simply because the excessive turning sounded terrible. Right now, it seems like the effect is mainly in place to bolster high notes, and when properly mixed, is much less audible than before.

There are still aesthetic quibbles to be had, and some people will be unhappy no matter what (I, for example, have never quite heard the tuning on Knebworth, although I'm sure it's there). But if it must be there, the middle ground is appreciated.

+1, hit the nail on the head.

Good lord... Haven't really paid much attention to the Live at Knebworth 1980 CD but listened to "Do It Again" yesterday. What a complete mess of auto tune wankery... Is this also on the DVD? I guess the answer is somewhere in this thread but I don't feel like looking for it.  >:D

And what do you know. You predicted [the obvious] future!