diablo wrote:Listened to this prog on radio earlier, all about autotune and similar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01shwkqQuite interesting really. Always wondered how it worked, though seems that although there is an auto version it is better to manually adjust the pitch.
Though the auto must be used on live performances sometimes - or at least I'm told that it is. ???
Both the software plugin version and the hardware version ( used mainly live ) have automodes.
Here's a typical pitch display of a vocal. The original is in read and the autotuned result is in blue. You can use it manually to select one syllable, word or phrase and tweak the curves.
It is very handy indeed. Especially whan a vocalist has sung a spectacular take and a couple of words are out of tune. So instead of retaking the line to drop those two words in and potentially ruining the flow it's much easier to fix them.
It's not just handy for vocals. I've used it to fix an out of tune string on a bass guitar for example.
Autotune was first made famous on Cher's I believe as an gimmick effect. Singers slide into pitch rather than instantaneously hitting the note like for example an organ Autotune's Retune Speed controls ( botton pane in the picture ) howfast this happens. When you wack the control up to fastest you get that infamous "cher effect" and as used on billions of RnB tunes.
So is it a good thing? Well yes it's a very handy audio tool IMO. Contrary to popular belief it can't turn a crap singer into good one. All it can do is turn an out of tune crap singer into an in tune crap singer.
