Why Not Use Auto-Tune?

[KittyKat]

Are the Beach Boys even doing a new album, or is that some kind of new news? 

[joshferrell]

Are the Beach Boys even doing a new album, or is that some kind of new news? 

Strars and Stripes vol 2.. 

[The LEGENDARY OSD]

Are the Beach Boys even doing a new album, or is that some kind of new news? 

After the dreaded, highly combustible SIP, the RIAA issued a 50 year ban from releasing any new albums.

[Rick5150]

This thread is not supposed to be about the shortcomings of auto-tune, whether you like the effect or not, or whether it sounds fake or robotic. There are a ton of threads about this already.

Have the Beach Boys earned the right to use the modern technology of auto-tune (or other pitch enhancement) to enhance new recordings? "New" meaning music since pitch correction has been available to them or even new recordings of 'old' music, but most recently the TWGMTR and C50 albums.

Brian has always doubled vocals, pieced together vocals and snippets, enhanced live recordings with additional vocals, etc. to make the records sound better. This is another effect that saves time and effort in the studio. Their live vocals are enhanced and often doubled with the actual Beach Boys voices being lower in the mix (than Jeff Foskett, for instance). The same with the instruments for that matter.

Regardless of what you want to hear from The Beach Boys or whether you will ever listen to them again if they use auto-tune, have they earned the right to use it, and would you rather have nothing from them at all, or new music using auto-tune?

[CenturyDeprived]

This thread is not supposed to be about the shortcomings of auto-tune, whether you like the effect or not, or whether it sounds fake or robotic. There are a ton of threads about this already.

Have the Beach Boys earned the right to use the modern technology of auto-tune (or other pitch enhancement) to enhance new recordings? "New" meaning music since pitch correction has been available to them or even new recordings of 'old' music, but most recently the TWGMTR and C50 albums.

Brian has always doubled vocals, pieced together vocals and snippets, enhanced live recordings with additional vocals, etc. to make the records sound better. This is another effect that saves time and effort in the studio. Their live vocals are enhanced and often doubled with the actual Beach Boys voices being lower in the mix (than Jeff Foskett, for instance). The same with the instruments for that matter.

Regardless of what you want to hear from The Beach Boys or whether you will ever listen to them again if they use auto-tune, have they earned the right to use it, and would you rather have nothing from them at all, or new music using auto-tune?

I don't think you'll find many (if any) real fans who would rather have zero new recordings as opposed to recordings with some autotune on them. Of course the BBs have earned the right to do what they want to do (or what they approve, whether happily or grudgingly, a producer to do their voices). But that doesn't mean that it's not worth noting that many instances of autotune that the BBs have used don't sound all that hot, and ideally could have been done more transparently. Just an opinion.

[filledeplage]

This thread is not supposed to be about the shortcomings of auto-tune, whether you like the effect or not, or whether it sounds fake or robotic. There are a ton of threads about this already.

Have the Beach Boys earned the right to use the modern technology of auto-tune (or other pitch enhancement) to enhance new recordings? "New" meaning music since pitch correction has been available to them or even new recordings of 'old' music, but most recently the TWGMTR and C50 albums.

Brian has always doubled vocals, pieced together vocals and snippets, enhanced live recordings with additional vocals, etc. to make the records sound better. This is another effect that saves time and effort in the studio. Their live vocals are enhanced and often doubled with the actual Beach Boys voices being lower in the mix (than Jeff Foskett, for instance). The same with the instruments for that matter.

Regardless of what you want to hear from The Beach Boys or whether you will ever listen to them again if they use auto-tune, have they earned the right to use it, and would you rather have nothing from them at all, or new music using auto-tune?

What kind of a question is that? Have they "earned the right to use autotune?"  What does that mean? That they are part of the "over the hill gang?"

They don't owe anyone anything.  50+ years of wonderfull-ness.  They've earned the right to have their concerts fairly represented.  And, I don't think it was with C50.

The question is whether it was "over used" to the point the C50 live was wrecked and inferior to amateur YouTube?  Is it an apology in advance?  It is insulting, I think.  They've done impromptu "concerts" with little else but bongos, acoustic guitars and their voices and sound pretty good to me.  

Isn't it better to arrange music to "fit their voices" rather than take their voices, and for lack of a better term, (because I'm no sound expert) and "process them" after-the-fact, and I do really apologize if it is explained badly.  They have not lost their voices.

Sure, a little "enhancement" or "doubling" which has been great and done for years is fine. They were really innovative at achieving their "sound"  The issue, for me is overkill.

No one will convince me that the raw footage from C50 was not "good enough" to cobble together for a decent CD.  It was so disappointing to open that CD, load it onto a laptop, connect my iphone and listen to it, expecting that sheer magnificence which was their night-after-night M.O. and have the finished product so disappointing.  

I almost feel disloyal to write this, but it is the only time in nearly 50 years I didn't savor every single second of one of their recordings, and was further disappointed to think that all those other people who never got to see them during C50 would never ever know just how great their performances were.  Because that CD was just awful and the "disconnect" as between BB "performance" and CD "product" was so complete.

And, I found it so disappointing that I removed it from the phone, and just run YouTubes, (good luck with my phone data plan!) everyday, to catch some of that magic that was C50.  Those C50 YouTubes are on my Roku, Apple TV, etc. and that is what C50 was, unvarnished. Fire and excellence.  

Maybe some "magic" but not done-to-death, over-processing.  

[Lee Marshall]

The Beach Boys have earned the right to jump 600 feet into a two foot cup.  They've earned the right to just give speaking engagement tours.  They've earned the right to tour collectively and/or individually.  The Beach Boys have pretty much earned the right to do whatever they damn well feel like doing...and they do it.

As for using the latest gizmos?  Ya they've earned the right to play with those too...if they want to.

"earned the right"?

What kind of a question...or remark for that matter...is that?

[Rick5150]

Sorry I am not being clear.

"Earn" as obtaining something for one's services. The Beach Boys have given us many years of services as entertainment and hundreds of non-auto-tuned songs. If they want to use it (or need to) then why not? They have certainly done the time and provided us with 5 decades of gorgeous harmonies. It is not a big deal.

It is not like new "artists" that use effects to mask that they cannot sing well, or get caught lip-synching.  The Beach Boys have earned it.

[Bicyclerider]

Why not use auto-tune?  Because it sounds like merda.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Sorry I am not being clear.

"Earn" as obtaining something for one's services. The Beach Boys have given us many years of services as entertainment and hundreds of non-auto-tuned songs. If they want to use it (or need to) then why not? They have certainly done the time and provided us with 5 decades of gorgeous harmonies. It is not a big deal.

It is not like new "artists" that use effects to mask that they cannot sing well, or get caught lip-synching.  The Beach Boys have earned it.

I understand what you meant, and I agree. They've earned to do the right to do whatever they hell they want. If they want to do a cover of Avraham Fried songs, or maybe an album of them belching the alphabet, or whatever...it's their perogative. They don't owe us jack.

[Bicyclerider]

The argument makes no sense.  No one "earns a right" to use some sound technology - if the technology is available and an artist wants to use it, they can - they don't need to earn it.  But we as fans of good music can dislike its' use and be disappointed and dismayed at its' overuse.  And it's not clear who really wants the autotune - is the producer 'pushing" it on willing singers, or did the singers request it be used from the start?  I suspect the former.  And if we do not like the end result, we can fault both the producer and artist.

[Manfred]

From my point of view there are only 3 reasons to use autotune, namely when the feeling of a vocal take was perfect, but the note was not in pitch exactly, to add a high voice nobody can reach (Jeff does it on the last BB album, Sweet did it always - but they slowed the tape down to sing that) or to use it as an effect (Cher in "Believe").

Oh, another reason would be to work with young children.

[Rick5150]

The argument makes no sense.  No one "earns a right" to use some sound technology - if the technology is available and an artist wants to use it, they can - they don't need to earn it. 

The argument makes plenty of sense once you are willing to differentiate between simply "getting" something and "earning" it. It has nothing to do with who wants it, who approved it, who used it, when they used it, whether fans like it or whose fault it is. That is not what I was asking. A "new performer" using the effect for pitch correction just because it is available is just plain lazy or probably does not have the talent to sing on key to begin with. 

What you say has interested me because it made me wonder... If the auto-tune was done afterwards, that probably means that there is the possibility of hearing the pure vocals prior to adjusting them. Maybe the answer is that each release should be 2 disks? Disk 1 with pitch correction and disk 2 - exactly the same recording without pitch corrections. 

[Bicyclerider]

From my point of view there are only 3 reasons to use autotune, namely when the feeling of a vocal take was perfect, but the note was not in pitch exactly, to add a high voice nobody can reach (Jeff does it on the last BB album, Sweet did it always - but they slowed the tape down to sing that) or to use it as an effect (Cher in "Believe").

Oh, another reason would be to work with young children.

Hey nice you brought that up - the Beach Boys have used varispeed to make voices higher before - Be Here in the Morning comes to mind.  That's a nicer effect than autotune on my ears at least. 

[the captain]

From my point of view there are only 3 reasons to use autotune,

There are as many (possible) reasons to use pitch correction as there are to record: infinite. Just as there are infinite numbers of potential reasons to use distortion, choruses, flangers, phasers, gates, compression, reverb, harmonizers, limiters, different mics and miking techniques, instrumentation, arrangements, words, notes... The entire spectrum of options is just that. And as others have said, nobody earns the right to use whatever they want.

Then it's up to listeners to either enjoy the results or incessantly bring it up on message boards.

[Smilin Ed H]

Funniest thing about auto tune on the last album was people (one asshole in particular, since seen off by AGD after some other nonsense - thankfully - was particularly wearing in this regard) who didn't have a fucking clue, moaning about it then the whole thing being picked up by mainstream print journalists (who also clearly didn't have a fucking clue), who then highlighted its use as one of the album's failings, as if this is the only album EVER to use audio legerdemain...

[Manfred]

"the Beach Boys have used varispeed to make voices higher before"

Yes ! and as well to lower them, think of Wind Chimes (The wind chimes tinglin' tinglin' .....) that tape loop is used like people did years later with a sampler. Clever idea back then !

[Ron]

Dare I say it, Brian would have used AutoTune if he had it in the '60s.

There you go being all rational and sh*t.  This is a thread about Autotune.  There's no use for logic in a thread about autotune, even the plug in they use isn't called Autotune but we still bitch about it, using the wrong word, anyways. 

Also in all threads about Autotune somebody has to use the words 'natural', 'warm', and 'aural'. 

[OneEar/OneEye]

I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely prefer aural to be warm....though it doesn't necessarily have to be "natural"   

[Amanda Hart]

I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely prefer aural to be warm....though it doesn't necessarily have to be "natural"   

This is it for me too. I don't care what kind of studio tricks a producer or artist wants to use as long as it's not overdone or sucking the life out of a performance like too much vocal processing can do.

[ToneBender631]

Billy, they used pitch collection on BW88 and OCA as well ... (Fairlight and Melodyne respectively.)

The Fairlight makes sense but didn't OCA come out (1995) before the first release of Melodyne (c. 2000, if memory serves)?