So... YOU can't hear auto tune? No problem, NOW YOU CAN SEE IT!!!
Вставка
- Опубліковано 4 тра 2024
- Tonight we're attempting to SEE auto tune, without having to hear it. Let's see how we get on!
TIME STAMPS -
0:00 Start
3:08 Analysis Start (Freddie Mercury - Base Reference)
6:27 Michael Bublé
8:26 Vibrato Comparisons
(Comparisons/Explanations to End)
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TIME STAMPS -
3:08 Analysis Start (Freddie Mercury - Base Reference)
6:27 Michael Buble
8:26 Vibrato Comparisons
(Comparisons/Explanations to End)
I would really like to see a comparison with an opera singer (maybe Pavarotti) since they are known for their sophisticated singing technique. I would bet that even they can't hit notes that consistently.
@@EbonyPope Someone like Geoff Tate (classically trained Queensryche singer) would be a good comparison. Or Elizabeth Zharoff (the Charismatic Voice on You Tube). She is an opera singer and knows her stuff, also becoming quite a metal fan.
@@stevechristy3244 Yes good idea. But I really would like to see how it compares to the best of the best. Maybe Pavarotti.
@@EbonyPope Yes but the idea of getting Pavarotti involved is highly unlikely. Getting Tate and/or Zharoff is a little bit more realistic.
@@EbonyPope Maybe La Callas too
Freddie Mercury: "We are in a golden age of music. There will be a time when technology becomes so advanced that we'll rely on it to make music rather than raw talent...and music will lose its soul."
To add the words of Geddy Lee, "All this machinery making modern music can still be open hearted; not so coldly charted, it's really just a question of your honesty."
reminds me of writers that would refuse to use typing machine since it supposedly lacks soul and would stick to writing by hand.
I don't have any issues with autotune , but it is very easy and clear to me when it is used . It is clearly a machine sound . Those who can't tell the difference, provably just have not listened to much live music.
I think rather optimistically. When you learn to play the violin, you start by learning to hit the notes perfectly, but then you learn to develop character and not do that to bring the character of a human voice into the performance. I think they are simply at the beginner stage. It'll still be the expression of someone's feelings, they will simply be a computer technician rather than a vocalist.
😭
I feel like the public has forgotten how great imperfection is.
That's why live shows are always better than studio the version. It's the humanity.
Imperfection is what makes it art.
When you used the word "emotion", that really says it all. There is a robotic quality to Autotune that is often quite distinguishable. As was mentioned before, it is the emotion that gives music its character. Its humanity. Shame that someone as talented as Buble', would be using it. And yes, forever Mr. Mercury!!
@@toddharmon8141 - we can pretty much give every "singer", after 1997, both an Ashlee Simpson and Lance Armstrong award.
Blanket Autotune on a track just isn't the singer's singing anymore. Period.
Even if "everyone is doing it" (aka Lance Armstrong award), it doesn't mean that anyone actually should be.
Sorry to break the immersion but nowadays people also autotune live performances... Or even just playback
@@aiheki - aka the Ashley Simpson Award
Frank Sinatra was doing a session in the late 60's with a new producer and in one session he said "Hey Frank I think you missed that C in the chorus. " and Frank said "Yea...sounded great didn't it?"
Lesson learned: Freddie's imperfections sound a million times better than anyone using a device to cheat.
Thanks for explaining for the zero people who didn't understand
💝
Great. It's like pick the Van Gogh's Starry Night and try to adjust in Photoshop the brightness...
@@bidonejackgreat comment
No such thing as “cheating” when making a record. It’s like calling Stallone a cheater for taking steroids.
Have you considered the possibility that Michael Buble is actually a robot, powered up only during the holiday season? That would explain the robotic sounds.
😂😂😂
😂😂😂
love this coment :D
You guessed quite right! BTW, he was built as a prototype by Kraftwerk in 1975 (they artistically digested their experience of the manufacturing process three years later on the album 'Die Mensch-Maschine').
It also explains ALOT
It was funny hearing you describe how some people insisted that it was "just your opinion" that Buble has been autotuned. We live in an age where a lot of people can no longer tell the difference between opinion and fact. They think that anything they believe must be a fact
I've always said for as long as buble has been around that his voice is autotuned af and no one believes me 🤣
@@emanx222 I guess that bublé has been burst!
@@sail4life 🤣 it's just the fact that it's so glaringly obvious that gets me
@@sail4life HI, five that's a rip roaring hilarious comment. 🤣 Michael Buble is as obnoxious to hear as "Chihuahua eyes" Marc Anthony.
People keep jumping into his defense because some conservative people try to label the use of pitch correction as a sign of incompetence of the singer and it's in fact just a tool to fine tune the pitch so the final result is more pleasing and comercial.
It sure is possible to make a very pitchy singer sound better, but pitch correction is used everywhere in almost everybody's voice even when it's already sounding alright. When it's done well with no abuse (and if the original vocals are very close to being pitch perfect) it only enhances the final result, and that's what it was made for. But some people that think they are superior Gods refuse to use it out of pure vanity. Just to tell the world "they don't need it". I think it's rather pathetic the need to prove anything to anybody. The guy in the video talks about it as if it diminishes an artist and try to make excuses like "maybe Michael Buble doesn't know he's been autotuned". If he doesn't, he's an idiot! Of course he does and there is no problem at all.
I think it would be interesting if you ran Freddie's vocal through auto-tunes and then compare to the original, then we could see and hear the difference.
So many great suggestions
Great idea
i cant recall who but someone did this already.
Grace slick’s white rabbit is another one to try out.
@@un7ucky Rick Beato maybe? That sounds like something he has done, maybe not with Freddie Mercury's voice though.
"Flaws" in singing and music is what makes character and expresses emotion. If auto tune had been invented earlier, we wouldn't have had unique voices like Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan or Lou Reed become popular. I'll take passion over perfection any day!
Another perfect example would be Bruce Springsteen, He has a harsh and raspy voice and yet his music is great! Harsh and raspy may not be the correct words to describe his voice so please don’t take offense, just replace those words with whatever words you feel comfortable with! Either way I’m sure everyone will get the idea!
Janis Joplin is an excellent example of just how much better those imperfections can make the music.
@@NeverEnoughPyro40 auto tune doesn't change ur voice tho, it just corrects the note ur singing
I'm most impressed that Michael Bublé can breathe in tune
That's a skill we all have to learn eventually
Lol
Legend has it he farts in tune also
Lol
What!? Breathe in tune?
🤦♂️ I guess I haven’t gotten to that part yet!
After hearing Mercury's voice isolated, Michael Bublé's voice sounds almost mechanical. I don't need the visual graph to know that his recording has been altered with auto tune.
Freddie's voice is too wild, I feel. Bublé has it hands down.
Bublé's voice actually sounds like that live, too!! It's almost scary!
@@joelzupan You can apply Autotune live, you know. That wasn't true maybe at the beginning due to lack of processing power, that would introduce too much lag. Today, it's entirely possible.
It's also very hard to spot live performances. I've seen singers (who are amazing and are to remain unnamed) use tricks to prove they are live like moving the microphone away to cause a sudden drop in volume.
That easily becomes a double edged sword if they do that on a prerecorded performance and forget when they are supposed to move the mic away. So you get sudden drops w/o the mike moving or the mike moving w/o any drop.
I don't blame them because there are a thousand reasons for singers not to be live and still having to put on a show, from a mild cold to enforced censorship.
@@TheMule71 yes, I saw Justin Bieber on a morning talk show... a big one where he was performing live outside and he wasn't being sneaky with it, it was for those obvious tricks with the 90 degree turns and the trills of a whole step or more that are smack on the note and once again, visually would have been 90 degree angles in a millisecond straight up to the next... but it's interesting that they CAN do it... I would think the opportunities a little far and few between... because there aren't many difficult songs or discerning audiences that would demant pitch perfect performance, who wouldn't recognize the device, or who would CARE about the device... not to mention the problems of a technical nature singing through a leaky vocal mic... and maybe that person forgets and decides to TALK and the voice comes out odd sounding vocalese.... or how much do you apply it and when do you let it go?? all learning curves and just the tip...
@@karijohartmann2649 I think the problem here is that autotuning removes nuances in the voice that might be even intentional. Attacking a note a little flat or sharp, like sliding into the note might sound even better than hitting the note straight on. Also, in many musical instruments, pitch is connected to intensity and volume. Gently tap a guitar string and you hear a pure note. Pull and release it with some force and at the beginning the note is a bit sharp (your're literally bending the string a bit).
One thing that makes me crazy: Bublé doesn't need the autotune there at all! Not only he's a good singer ("purring" aside), he's also hitting notes that are quite easy for him. So this was done out of extreme perfectionism on the part of the producer, only. This is overproduction at its finest ruining what's supposed to be natural talent.
Obviously not. He chose to use autotune, not his producer.
@@echoromeo384 his contract does.
It’s like ‘ unneeded’ plastic surgery
@@dianecourtney2724 Yes. Like uplift bras. 🙂
@@echoromeo384that’s not traditionally how that works, he even touches on that in the video. The producer probably did that when Michael was already gone, it’s just an example of over production. The singer isn’t the only artist at work on an album.
I hope Freddie knows we are still talking about him and that he is still so relevant and loved.
He's dead mate
As a first soprano an Honor Choir in High School, thank you. I have been kicking myself for not being able to match other people's notes, and now I know it's Auto-Tune. Thank you for showing us. I thought there was something wrong and I stopped singing, because I thought I wasn't good enough anymore. You gave me a gift today I appreciate that.
The best advice I can ever give is to never compare your live voice to a studio recording. They have the benefit of an entire team of sound engineers to help them nail a particular sound and as many takes as they want to do it. Live performances will get you a bit closer to something you can compare to; but even then they've still got sound engineers that set up everything ahead of time, and some artists even just lip sync or use auto-tune live. I've found that comparing my singing to acoustic performances or other amateurs on UA-cam helps a lot to know what is actually realistic and achievable by a regular human.
dont do digital recording or studios -what they really did in the past were to invest in new technology not better -and a studio would do the same today -if they invest in 32kbps mp3 quality then this would be pushed on as the most perfect ever (for them)
As someone who sings choral music, i will urge you to not compare yourself with pop singers but instead to develop your vocal techniques as best as you can.
@@NkechiR thank you. I appreciate that. Sometimes you can find your voice again at 45
Unless you're Freddy Mercury... I don't think he died... I think his batteries ran out... lol and maybe certain lifestyle choices, to cover up the sound of the servo motors...
When comparing an auto-tuned voice to Freddie, you realize just what a master of voice he was. I would love to hear you put Karen Carpenter's voice through the software. She was known to have perfect pitch and often recorded her songs in one take.
Ahhh, Karen Carpenter’s beautiful voice! ‘We’ve only just begun…’
I second that recommendation, Karen Carpenter was awesome!
Charli XCX is someone that proudly admits to using autotune, and worth a listen to get a feel for it
@@mollymollie6048 my favourite.
not to mention that beautiful Contralto tone unlike any other singer in history.
👍
What sucks the most is that people using auto-tune to mask imperfection gives a bad name to what could otherwise be considered a perfectly valid effect no different from chorus, phaser or delay. The robotic granularity of auto-tune is perfectly capable of being appealing in certain applications, so long as there is no pretense of hiding it.
Nah, tbh I think it's actually the more "artistic" use of auto-tune that's given it's bad reputation.
Other than music / production nerds, I think most people don't really care if a song is pitched perfectly. If anything, I'm sure many would prefer it, or at least think they do
But when people hear the term "auto tune," the first thing they usually think of, is probably stuff like T Pain, or that one Cher song, which was pretty much responsible for thrusting auto-tune into the public spotlight...
(I mean... how many audio plugins can you think of, that the general public actually know the name of? lol)
In other words, they're basically thinking of a vocoder type effect, not subtle pitch correction.
And they hate it mainly because it's over-used in modern pop music, and seems like a kinda lazy way to spice up a shitty / unexciting vocalist.
And they're not entirely wrong... lol
But yeah, I think it's essentially the opposite of what you're saying. It's the blatant use that most people hate. No one really cares about "subtle" pitch correction, except music nerds, who either think it's "cheating," or otherwise imperfect by way of excessive perfection.
@@FromNothingICome Not nerds who think it's cheating or imperfect via overperfect actually.
Buble, for instance, just sounds bad. Like, actually sounds distorted and bad.
If the autotune was way, way, way better at shifting the notes without mangling them, then we wouldn't care, regardless of how too perfect it was or "cheating".
I think for instance some AI software will be able to do this. Maybe already is.
This isn't about people not liking something because of meta information, like saying humane bacon tastes better. This is saying too-long frozen and overly cooked bacon tastes worse.
@@FromNothingICome Depends on what you mean by "subtle". If you ask me, the auto-tune in this video's example is anything but.
@@FromNothingICome short and sweet. Auto takes the soul out of music. I would rather listen to "raw" music any day.
How can someone NOT smile when they hear Freddy Mercury! My God!
All this goes to show is: Freddie was, and forever will be, one of the greatest vocalists of all time.
I'm sure all the throat lube he had helped
Can you imagine if Freddie was alive today and the industry did this to him?…
@@yourdumbeyes the problem about is not only the post processing. The problem is the choice which artists will be produced.
Today music Industrie doesn't take a risk. They only produce and promote, what can be clearly a win. This doesn't mean, that they only produce the best things, but the things which are hitting the lowest common denominator.
A artist like Freddy maybe would have bad times today.
They're not looking for individuals with an unique style, own compositions, own ways. They're looking for voices and putting everything else around.
@@dano8613 🤣🤣🤣🤣
And the SHOW MUST GO ON!!!
As a tone-deaf amateur I could hear the imperfection in Freddie's voice. No slight on Freddie intended but I could hear it occasionally. There's a Zen beauty in imperfection. His sincerity as a singer was a great appeal to me more than the pure quality of his voice. Great art is often great because of it's imperfection. Only robots are perfect, who wants to hear a robot sing?
Some people do, thats where vocaloids come in lol
@@josephdrury6021 even for vocaloid the better dj's use deliberately off notes for better sound.
or the jumpy, digitized and compressed nature is used as a style element (similar to daft punk)
I guess it's like recording a real acoustic guitar versus a digital note playback.
But also, don't you talk down on Daft Punk! :D
@@umbaupause i used daft punk as a positive example for pitch correction. they use(d) it as a deliberate style element, as a vector of art, not as a crutch. i quite enjoy daft punk.
@@Chrisspru Ah I didn't even read your comment, sorry! It was just a silly joke about them being singing robots in response to the original comment.
I'm thinking Freddie on the high note was intentionally aiming for D half-sharp, followed by a slide to E flat, which is exactly what sequence he hit. Why? Since a half-sharp isn't a standard note, it immediately sounds off to a western ear - matching the feeling of strain/desire/yearning in the lyrics, but the slide brings it to the perfect fifth/dominant of the A flat (which is the key it's in), which signals completeness/resolution to a western audience. Intentionally not hitting the E flat right off is how that emotion is conveyed best. Freddie isn't 'off' on the note - he's hitting exactly as intended, but communicating emotion better through intentional 'imperfection'; that's the problem with autotune - if you have a true talent, using it can end up masking that talent in situations like this.
What you describe here is a fundamental part of Indian classical music (& the philosophy that goes with it). Seems entirely possible Freddie was doing this on purpose, through knowledge, or through natural instinct.
I think you’re speculating. We would have to hear it from Freddie himself and, well, of course he would probably say it was intentional. “Oh yeah, I meant to do that” LOL
@@melanieenmats He was of Parsi descent. Perhaps it was a learned cultural trait.
@@JDogggg69 Interesting idea. I for one know that this typical regular vibrato that we hear in western music and in soul, is really ugly to my ears. It always sounds like someone is faking the emotion when they do that.
In Indian music I'm pretty sure the regular vibrato does not exist. They have all kinds of sliding tones etc but not that ugly vibrato. Farsi I have no idea ofc, but I would guess close to Indian music.
@@michaelhandy4018 By vibrato I mean going up and down in pitch around the target note like the second singer in the video does. I might have gone a bit off topic there.
A forgot what term he used for it in the video, but it is the very thing Freddie was doing irregularly and the other one very regularly.
Some imo bad soul singers will do this so much it ruins the whole song for me. The second singer in the clip for me also sounds just terribly corny.
The effect has it's place in music. I think it imitates the human voice wavering under strong emotion. From that it is logical that doing that in a very regular way, by it's very form opposes what it should be trying to convey; losing control through emotion.
I'm a psychologist by degree, and learnt to play music by myself. I've studied the links between music and psychology a lot, so that is my angle in the idea I present here.
My apologies if we are talking about different things, as I don't know what you mean by "colouring" pitches via brightening or darkening the pitch and the vowel".
I don't understand coloring, nor the brightness things. Also I don't see how pitch (height of the note) and vowel (part of a word) are related :p.
It's bothered me for SO long (damn near 20 years) that nobody else seems to be able to hear pitch correction. FINALLY a video that I can show people, this is what I hear. Thank you!
The horrible, metallic "shine" that auto-tune generates is usually the giveaway. Also the software uses dynamic compression to maintain volume across the vocals which removes much of the subtlety. I think the saddest part is that auto-tune could just be used sparingly and intelligently to correct poor performances where studio time is at a premium. It seems many engineers are just happy to select a pre-set and let it do its thing. It makes cheats out of decent singers and frauds out of bad ones.
I was struggling to find words to describe how autotune sounds, metallic shine hits the right note
The true tragedy is it makes average singers of great ones...a nullification of exceptional ability at both extremes.
metallic shine. perfect term for auto tune
If only there was some way musicians could get better. Maybe they could even be ready for the studio which is designed for recording. I have no idea. Maybe they could write beforehand and then do something several times first. This concept I just invented I think I will name "practice assholes." Maybe just "practice" for short.
Not sure you spelled 'shine' correctly - that 'n' should be a 't'.
Auto tunes is precisely why older people honestly believe “our” music is so superior to today’s music.
Yes, exactly. Autotune...as well as the poorly written and unimaginative lyrics, as well as the...I don't know how to describe it, simple-minded melodies, if you can even call most of them "melodies." Btw, imho it started in the 80s, with people like Madonna, and went downhill from there.
That, along with missing actual intricate melodies, chord progressions, variations and imaginations and growth in songs from start to finish. And many more talented actual musicians playing actual instruments.
@@TheHylden Precisely! And well said. Thank you for this.
@@TheHylden we used to have beautiful harmonies as well. It’s why I listen to Pentatonix and Home Free. The acapella groups are bringing back intricate harmonies and vocals.
Its no only that. Music became progresively more pasteurized since the 80s. Harmony is always the same 4 chords on repeat, melodies are simpler or non existent and timing is always 4/4. Tracks are not recorded live by a band in a studio, that means theres no variations, no improvisation, no surprise. For example, Somebody to love has a 6/4 time signature and very different sections.
I attended a concert of Michael Buble’s, which was tremendously impressive. After wowing the audience for about two hours, Michael pointed to the sound booth operators to turn-off their audio gear while he began yanking off all of the wiring harness, mic and earpiece, and finally the band went mum as well. The entire auditorium went silent as we all listened to Michael finishing his last song all alone, with no amplification, band or anything…. Except his awesome voice. I figured he was making sure we all knew we got our money’s worth in a real, not auto-tuned concert.
It blows my mind that people equate supposed “perfection” with “good”.
When music is good, it doesn’t require machine exact perfection.
Artur Schnabel (Austrian pianist) said: "The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes-ah, that is where the art resides!"
With singers, especially on the level of Freddie, I think some of the "imperfection" you see in software like this is sometimes choice to express emotion. That's where the art resides.
So true. There’s so much beauty hidden in the imperfections. That’s where the humanity comes in.
Yep. If you go through a vocal stem with melodyne and fix up literally everything that's not in tune it will sound awful, but that's not at all what the software is for. Moreso if a singer has a great take but a couple of notes went a bit far off what was intended, THAT is what it's for.
@@heshanperera1581 couldn't have said it better myself.
Indeed, any idiot can push keys on a piano and get sounds, it's how you press the keys and how you handle the release as well as those pauses between which make the difference between any idiot and somebody that people will pay to listen to repeatedly.
This is also part of why the piano was so important historically for learning about music theory, especially how notes relate to each other, as long as the piano is in tune you can repeat various combinations of notes to see what does and doesn't work. Obviously, you need the piano to be in tune, but it's a far lower barrier to entry than many other options.
Definitely. Think of the greats_Dylan, Van Morisison ,Cohen ,Neil Young, Baez, Joni Mitchell etc.Real musicians that touch your soul.
Stumbled on a highlight from some "talent" show a couple years ago. Some guy was singing on stage while the judges rated his performance. After his performance one of the judges who was some singer of some note was tearing the guys performance apart with all the things that was wrong. His response, was to look her dead in the eyes and say "at least I don't need auto tune". The look on her face would have been worth the price of admission.
yeah well said
I'm guessing that was Demi Lovato, right? I think I remember seeing that on a UA-cam clip for the American X-Factor/America's Got Talent.
@@writerinprogress - I think that's the name. There was some big blonde next to her saying she was "uncomfortable" with the guy just looking at her. At least the guy got a big guffaw out of Simon Cowell.
Nobody in the past ever said that Freddie Mercury was amazing for hitting notes perfectly. That was not the claim - it was that he had a big range, operatic style, etc. Not that he was a pitch machine, even for the time.
Nice analysis. I find Freddie's voice always so pleasing. Often times he is all over a note, occassionally his voice cracks, breaks some, but it just doesn't matter to me. His tone and vocals are so rich, real and expressive that I can listen to Freddie for hours.
Yep. There are times in the (live) band aid concert where he changes the notes (one particular he goes down, where he goes up in the recording), because he had a sore throat. His voice cracks a few times too.
It's still one of the greatest performances in history.
@@debbielough7754 Agreed. There are several instances of Freddie singing Live where instead of going for the high note like did in the studio, he drops down in pitch,
Really good example of how autotune is inherently degrading. Buble's singing is so good that it works despite the autotune, but there's no avoiding the unnatural quality -- a sheen of processing that's a perpetual screen separating the listener and the singer. I'm sure glad Freddie recorded before autotune
I think an auto-tuned voice is no longer a voice, it's just a sound. There's no life left in an auto-tuned voice. Great video Fil!
I agree with you.
Yeah it did sound synthetic. I noticed that.
Agree. His first 💿 album was my favourite of his because it did sound natural. Similar to him but earlier was Harry Connick, Jr. Harry Connick early vocal albums including the "When Harry Met Sally" soundtrack were great because it was a retro nod the Sinatra Rat Pack era of classic song. All real vocals, instruments, and production. No computer tampering, so when you see them live it's totally legitimate.
Agree with you 💯% Dave✌️
I agree, it sounds artificial. I hear it myself...sometimes they add an electronic voice changer which I can't tolerate at all.
I can’t thank you enough for these videos…
I’m a singer. And when I first started recording and producing myself, I fell into a black hole of perfectionism…
I’ve always been a fairly decent singer. Not always as on point as Sinatra or Freddie, but in tune enough to get paid work…
But between the now popular use of auto tune and other pitch correction plugins, I got really depressed and thought I was just a really lousy singer because I wasn’t hitting every note perfectly…
Being able to see both Frank’s and Freddie’s vocal lines made me feel so much better…
Now I don’t have to be so paranoid about my imperfections and I can just enjoy singing naturally and with human feeling
Thanks so much!
This is all very interesting to hear about Michael.
A few years back I attended in Michael Bublé concert in Grand Rapids Michigan at the van Andel arena.
After putting on an outstanding performance over the course of the concert, Michael pointed to the mixer crew, in the back center of the floor, to shut off the electronics and he pulled off his head mount microphone and his transmitter and dropped them to the stage. Then everybody got very still and he belted out his final song, totally a cappella; no band, no electronic amplification and tens of thousands of people sat and listened, in awe of his still amazing voice.
I figured he did that to prove to the world that he was not using autotune in his concert, and now I wonder if that followed some accusation that may have been going around before?
I don’t challenge the good information, presented in this Wings of Pegasus video. I am surprised by the information, nonetheless.
At any rate, there was nobody in the auditorium who thought that his a cappella voice was any different than his amplified and accompanied voice, except for the volume difference, I’m sure.
Fil is saying he can sing and that he does not need AutoTune. He is right.
I agree!I saw Michael in concert and he was amazing ❤ especially the a cappella at the end ❤❤❤ love his voice and music ❤❤❤he makes me proud of also being Canadian 😊
I googled “Michael buble auto tune” and the first thing that comes up is him admitting he uses it to get onto the top 40 charts. Not a good reason but he did admit it 8 years ago. That being said this is a great visual of how he uses it, and how much of a god Freddy was
Oooooooof
I don’t blame him. Spend that much time and effort on your voice and you want to be able to make a living from it. If people won’t buy it done right, selling it to them done wrong you at least get to keep doing what you love even if you don’t get to do it the way you’d most love to do it. And you still get to do it right when it’s live.
Nothing wrong with using autotune. Just depends on what the artist or producer wants the final sound to be. Autotune doesn’t prove whether someone is a good or bad singer. Lots of singers like T-Pain have made a career out of using the art of autotune. T-Pain is a great vocalist, so the excessive autotune is more of a stylistic choice rather than a crutch to sound better. Others use autotune to slightly modify parts of a studio recording of a song to make it just a little bit closer to perfect for the listeners.
@@jonathanm.9801 almost 99% so called singers today are using autotune. It still proves that a singer has bad voice but he/she doesn't have to worry about having bad because there is autotune to cover it up. Singers such as Selena Gomez, Katy Perry, One Direction except for Zayn Malik (who has legit good voice), Iggy Azalea, Cardi B, 6ix9ine, The Chainsmokers and etc. have to rely on autotune to cover up their bad voice. Mainstream singers today can't even sing live and they suck terribly. That's why OLD singers such as Judy Garland, Doris Day, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Julie Andrews, The Beatles, Queen, ABBA, The Carpenters, Scorpion, Thompson Twins, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Whitney Houston, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Roxette and etc. from the 20th century will always be the GOAT and deserve all appreciation for their NATURAL good voice and talent especially King of Pop MJ. No singers today would ever beat the OLD singers. A lot of singers today are trash too spitting about trash lyrics. Singers today are just average and easily forgotten in music history. Singers today don't make big impact to the world like the way the OLD singers used to sing songs like We are the World, Man in the Mirror, Another Day in Paradise, Wind of Change. Thus, OLD singers are always the GOAT in every aspect.
@@erenyeagerist7681 Autotune and music trends have definitely lowered the bar for singing technique and skill, but using autotune doesn’t necessarily mean you are a bad singer. I don’t deny that most mainstream artists today are lacking in technique and could barely hold a candle to a lot of the older greats who did not use autotune. That doesn’t mean that using autotune in a studio recording is an indicator of bad singing. If you want technique, go more towards R&B. Jazmine Sullivan and Chloe x Halle are crazy good while still modern.
Perfection is boring. Imperfections are what make things interesting & exciting!
So true, always found Streisand too perfect.
Like with the "perfect" apples from the supermarket. Our neighbour has old apple trees. The apples have a highly imperfect appearance but they taste so, so much better!
So, so true. Singers like Janis Joplin are expressing a feeling, as much as they are singing a song, and the imperfection is what makes it feel warm and human and relatable.
Perfect comment.
@@tmemphis2 - must have been an auto-tuned comment.
Autotune will never be as good as actual voice
It depends tho, when used properly it's actually can sounds more beautiful than a real voice, example: Dragon Night from BanG Dream!, or I can be completely wrong and it's actually a vocoder and not autotune/pitch correction program... But regardless... Of course the point here isn't to replicate human performance anymore, but rather to create a robotic sound...
No, it is better. If we are only considering the pitch.
It sounds awful.
@@jarnovilen5259 It depends on what you consider "better". Equal temperament tuning is merely something humans came up with to make it possible for us to play all keys using the same instrument, it's hardly natural. So maybe a singer is actually singing in perfect natural pitch and the software considers it wrong because it's not in manmade equal temperament tuning.
Nope.
BBC had broadcast ' rock school ' at the end of 1970s/start of 1980s. Some sort of tie in with ',the old grey whistle test'. This guy has the manner , tone and presentation of many the performing artists and on that show. Well done.
Thanks!
This is basically the musical equivalent of 3D rendering looking fake unless you add dirt, minor scratches, skin imperfections,... and auto-tune is probably somewhere in the musical uncanny valley which is why it sounds odd, not clearly perfectly on the frequency like a synthesized sound but clearly not real human voice either.
I knew somebody who worked for dream works. . . She spent a year of her life making sure every blade of grass moves slightly in the film “Madagascar”. It’s hard to fake reality. A lot of detail.
The difference between a note from a smoke alarm and a cello is the imperfections.
I think that's where a lot of the discussions come in when organists discuss electronic vs classical pipe organ. The modern electronic ones sample every note and register now instead of simply generating the tone. Better. But probably will never get to the perfect imperfection of the real thing.
If you use autotune like a moron sure, but a more realistic analogy for proper usage would be removing a few scratches from the render because it looks a bit too old and shoddy for the context
That is a very good description. Autotune is the "uncanny valley" of singing, unless you spend time making it NOT sound perfect. Or, at the other extreme, you could intentionally overdo Autotune to get a robot-like effect (e.g. ua-cam.com/video/nZXRV4MezEw/v-deo.html )
This is why You are referred to as teacher or professor excellent analysis Fil 👍 You Sir. Rock in more ways then one! 🤘
I'm not a musician or singer but I've always thought there was something up with Bublé's singing voice. The autotune is so obvious right from the first sample of the isolated vocal. Nice video - thank you.
thank you
as a vocalist, I've accepted my own vocal differences in the same piece of music sung over and over.
your explanation is perfectly understood and the Visual along with the audio makes it very clear.
tons of folks use autotune and it sounds weird to me.
i miss our vocalists.
Freddie conveyed such soul & depth with beautiful imperfection which I personally find far more interesting to listen to. Using autotune is just creatively lazy in my view.
Yes I appreciate his voice even more now after watching this. And also explains to me why I find his voice so much more interesting then Bublé. I think B is talented and I like the idea if his act and image, but something about it I didn’t like but couldn’t put my finger on it.
My usual autotune giveaway is snap transitions between notes, then perfectly flat notes. Much quicker than any natural singer could do. These can be seen on Michael Bublé graph here for example, not even Freddie Mercury could change pitch that fast, and also reach and hold a pitch exactly (there's some bounce, then vibrato, cant be avoided). And it's indeed well known that Freddie was a gifted individual.
Autotune sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. My hearing has always been exceptional and when bird watching I'll usually know what the bird is before I see it by its sound.
"not even Freddie Mercury could change pitch that fast" I agree.
The real question is : do we need to do it ? I love to sing and I love to hear songs and never I have needed someone (not even me) to change pitch fast.
Autotune can be fun as an effect (like reverb or distortion) but I don't think we NEED it.
@@ComteGuillaumeVonK We definitely do not need it. It's a side effect of autotune, that "snaps" the pitch to a defined level. As for voice effects, there are a lot of options for processing that can work without any need for autotune. Unless you are really looking for a cold, robotic kind of render...
@@coolhand411luke6 bang on Dwight Schrute impersonation...
I'm very glad you dropped "British guitarist reacts" from your titles.
I dislike autotune so much. Agree with you so much that imperfections in a performance make it special
Agree so much with the statement that autotune robs music of its humanity. Because I'm older and prefer 70s/80s pop-rock music younger family members tend to say I'm "stuck in my ways" or "too old to accept newer music". My answer to this is usually "no, the quantization and autotuning" sucks the life out of a lot of newer music". The vocals and drums sound soo perfect to me in new music that I find the sound is rendered lifeless and uninteresting regardless of how good the artist might be. Artists I listen to like Rush, Gordon Lightfoot, Triumph, Black Sabbath, Elton John, Queen, Rolling Stones... sound great because of the imprecision and "swing". In fact, I prefer early material, or live material of most of my favourite artists because it is raw, and interestingly imperfect - as these artists grew toward perfection even without autotune, they sound less and less interesting to me - the Stones are a good example - as the years go on I can hear the youthful energy fading in the recordings. Likely, there is some business model happening with new music that perpetuates this bland lifeless production probably because there is some basic level of assurance in it in terms of sales, but to me, at great musical cost, and often, at the expense of the artist's own musical growth.
Very well expressed. I agree with you 100%. Thanks for explaining exactly what I couldn't find the words to say.🧡
WELL said!
To me, auto tune is no different than painting by numbers - anyone can do that.
It's basically the same with cosmetical facial surgery to get the face become more symmetrical. Symmetry is being perceived as "beauty" by many. To me, these faces become boring same with quantized, drum looped, auto-tuned music. Bores the crap out of me.
Yes but there are artist today that don't use it,there mostly not on the pop charts,but most of the bands you mentioned were on on the pop charts ether.
@@mbsnyderc yes - good point - there is good and interesting music happening today, but not necessarily found in the same places it used to be. Lately I've been really enjoying a newer old school metal band: Stonefield (sounds Black Sabbath inspired to me) - I don't hear quantizing/autotuning in it but if there is, its being done in a really musical way which I'm ok with.
I showed this to my elderly mother today. She is a firecracker and she likes to say, "music is not the same -- people can't sing anymore." She was basically fist pumping in agreement as she watched this. Thanks for making mom's day!
There's more to consider, and this might make a good video Wings of Pegasus
Why was music so variable,, exciting and changing then,, and not now?
Then there were hundreds and hundreds of record companies competing for best song. Now The Big Three Labels control the entire industry, prop up a few boring pop stars year after year and block out all new music. Music as a marketing ploy!
That's why the thousands of musicians in the peaceful music revolution against that.
God bless your Mom!!
YOU CAN'T LIE TO MOM!
After seeing this I made some AI-isolated vocal tracks from some of my pre-1997 (pre-Auto Tune) and post-1997 CDs, then fed them into some similar note analysis software to what you used, and in most cases, modern vocals from the past 20-25 years or so seem to be much more "fixed" on the note than vocals (even those by the same vocalist) that were recorded 30-40 years ago. The difference is also fairly audible if you train your ears to hear it.
So glad I found your channel. As a singer, trained by an opera singer coach, this warms my heart ❤️
Many years before the existence of autotune, Minnie Ripperton held a note seemingly forever in a song called "Inside My Love." I'd love to see you run that note through the analyzer to see how good her pitch was, or wasn't. Incidentally, A Tribe Called Quest sampled the note in their song "Lyrics to Go." She holds it over the sublime electric piano of Joe Sample.
She had a high octave range so if she hit that naturally I wouldn't b surprised
@@gordonworth5461 Yes, Minnie Riperton sang so beautifully ! What was that one song - "Loving You" she went so high, it was amazing.. I'm not even sure Autotune was invented that far back, so there is that..
And she was Maya Rudolph’s mother
That note really is high and she holds it amazingly long, and it's beautifully slightly off-key.
perhaps we should look at what Dimash can do... he can sing higher than any female I've hear (including Minnie) and darned close to the lowest male I've ever heard.
In this example, auto-tune makes the whole song way too boring/"dead" and too perfect, too clean.
In my opinion, much of the musicality, interpretation gets lost that way.
If we really want every pitch that perfect, why don't we just play a midi-file?
I much rather take Freddie's raw voice, pitchy or not.
This whole generation has become so plastic they wouldn't know what is original anymore.
@@joetroutt7425 that's a fairly dismissive statement of all the existing music that is not necessarily popular today yet is actually pretty good
@@joetroutt7425 Ah yes the classic « generation argument ». It’s a systemic problem, not a generation problem. Boomers just as much as Millennials are using autotune. Autotune in itself is not a problem, it has its uses ; the problem is the excess use and the ‘’sterilisation’’ of artistry.
Or in simpler terms : that’s agism you fucking boomer.
@@Ogilla damn you sound really offended. You must use auto tune. Anything to make music easier for the masses
@@fzxfzxfzx I'm pretty sure auto tune is reserved for the pop culture and mass produced music that is pumped out on the daily bc they don't want to spend the time and money to keep going back to punch in and get the note right and even if the note is right it's just not right enough to the perfectionists that want it exact bc nowadays ppl are so programmed to hear perfect pitch that they wouldn't recognize natural singing anymore thus raising the bar for anybody else not using such pitch correcting tools and being impossible to compete without it. It's the equivalent of PEDs in sports
Buble actually does have an amazing live voice just such a smooth beautiful tone
That's why it's crappy for some snot-nosed producer to feel the need to monkey around with his vocals.
He has a great voice all by itself.
There are singers who would be unlistenable without AT.
He isn't one of them.
That's what frustrates me here. The man doesn't need autotune. He can sing quite well.
Most live performances have been using autotune as well for a while now. The only way to tell is to hear artists singing without microphones.....most would be terrified to test that theory.
@@Elvista yeah that is true Sam smith, Bruno mars and ed Sheeran are consistently good live
I love this channel ❤️🇺🇸 I played the piano for only 5 yrs and I was raised on all kinds of music. 50’s 60’s 70’s and 80’s. Although I loath music from 2010 to present. Born in 64’ so I appreciate all you teach and educate us.
This voice pitch analysis was so different and interesting.
it’s fascinating and i know Zer0 about it. so, Joan Baez voice didn’t ‘need’ auto tune? not saying that anyone’s does.
It's really one of the only videos that discusses the sibilance and breathing patterns in relation to autotune. The smallest details make the biggest differences hence why most artists record over and over to get the perfect feeling
Freddie Mercury's vibrato is not random, it's controlled and varied. You can clearly see how he goes into various frequencies of vibrato within the same vibrato run. That's not "uneven" or "random" in any way, that's soulful and masterful. I'm not a huge fan, but you can't deny the master craft there.
I think you are taking his use of those words out of context. He was clearly using them as a reference to the humanity present in Freddie’s vocals. The perfection of imperfection. It’s the same with quantized instrumentation being snapped to a grid. It removes the humanity from music, which makes it stale.
I would love if every artist/band was forced to record/produce a full album on analog, no digital. It would force them to accept “less than perfect”. Some artists/bands would fall flat in their face, while others would probably make some of the best music they have ever made. By no means am I saying digital production is bad, but it definitely trivializes some aspects of music recording (an musicianship by proxy) for the worse if let run unchecked.
To be honest, I don’t think Freddie trained himself to do vibrato properly, even though he sang a lot and was musically gifted. To some people, it comes easily, while others have to really work on it.
@@pro-v7500 Totally agree and I have found that some of the best pop/rock material came along long before digital began, and pretty much everything was through the analog chain, so no autotune etc. If you sucked, you sucked and granted, there were ways even then to make a person less sucky sounding if truly bad, but they usually got weeded out and never heard from again. Now, you can hide all that and even though they still suck, they are now stars, thanks to digital manipulation.
This is so inspirational for people learning/hoping to sing for a living. Even signing gods like Mercury, are flat at times, and that’s what makes it human.
Holy shit. I started trying to learn how to sing by myself couple months ago. People online recommended me to download a similar pitch monitoring app to see if I was singing songs correctly, but they forgot to tell me it was impossible to be perfectly on the lines for too long continuously. I have been kicking myself thinking I am trash because I can usually be close to the note, or at the note for some moments but there is always some going up or down past the note and I thought decent singers were supposed to be on the notes exactly, always. This video is very relieving.
I briefly took singing lessons as a bucket list item a year ago. I have GERD and it causes harshness in my voice at times. At other times it was as clear as a bell.I had a discussion with my teacher about what you'd experienced. Don't quit singing 🎶 and be like a thoroughbred with blinders on it's eyes
Opinion: autotune is just a tool that can make things better if you’re having trouble hitting specific notes especially after doing a dozen vocal takes. It’s okay to use it sparingly, the problem with it is that so many musicians lean on it so heavily that their vocal delivery ends up feeling very dead in the end.
Good pitch correction stuff won’t make every note perfect, it’ll just get things in the right neighborhood without losing nuance. And it’ll be applied sparingly and surgically, not done by turning a knob all the way and hoping for the best.
The greater the usage of auto tune the less skill someone possess. That was my previous thought. In the digital age, I see it often use as an artistic assistance rather than a creative crutch. That’s my professional forensic opinion.
Auto-tune is just a fashion, and has already been overused, just as those SAW delays used everywhere during the late 80s and early 90s. Give it 2 more years and it will sound so dated that it will be shameful to use.
@@doclee8755 Yeah, also it can be used for some interesting effects as well. It doesn't just have to be a way of making vocals sound uncannily-perfect.
Auto tune means you suck. Plain nf simple.
Auto tune is face tune for your voice. It’s deceiving when it changes the entire thing of who you are.
Face tuning a pimple out is different than shapeshifting your entire face and body to an unrealistic and unrecognizable person that doesn’t look anything like the real you.
Same thing with auto tune. Some go waaaay overboard and some add them as effects
I don't wanna sound like I'm sucking up to you, but you really are The Man. You're breadth of music knowledge is simply amazing.
Thanks!
thanks for sucking up --so the rest of us don't each have to apologize individually (instead we just give our thumbs up to your comment).
I always wondered about Linda Ronstadt because her voice always seemed perfect, even during live performances. Would love to see a chart showing her voice.
She has an AMAZING voice. She used a fraction of her range for her pop hits, but if you see her in Pirates of Penzance, she blows you away. (But Blue Bayou is still my favorite.)
@@pxxxbxxx1981 You should really hear the album _Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind_ that she did with Aaron Neville. Except for Blue Bayou, it's probably the first time I heard her singing material really worthy of her voice. The entire album is just amazing. There's one, more rock-and-roll type song, in which she holds a note for more than 20 seconds, rock-solid, then puts a super-strong ending on it. And she wasn't that young anymore, and it made no difference at all.
And now I have to go find her _Pirates of Penzance._
💫What a shame that “originality” of a song is now taken away in many cases. So many young people believe that all of their “idols” are perfect and they too, strive for the same be it in any industry. Often some, “kill” themselves in search of emulating others. (Literally or figuratively) We must teach the upcoming new adults that WE are all unique and individual. God has given us ALL special gifts and so much we now see or hear is not REALITY!!
Love your channel. Always learn so much. ThanQ from Nashville.✨
Let me add that I hear many fantastic singers who are not famous and try to make it in the music industry. But, it’s unfortunate that many who are at the top, may not be the “best.” Often it seems, it’s who you know or….just being in the right place at the right time!
Always remember to be YOU!
Fil, this is perfect.
I begin most of my comments with a declaration that "I am not a musician." This case of auto-tune is amazing. I work at a company that plays music over a PA system and I, not a musician, find it to be, well, audio-Novocain.
I watch your videos and Rick Beato's and some others and begin to have an understanding of music, and what I am hearing is so gridded, auto-tuned, equalized, click-tracked and otherwise modulated to make it palpable to "everyone" that it becomes soulless pap. Audio Novocain. Completely soulless, pap.
I'd love to see you put Roy Orbison so the "auto-tune" test. I have no concern about how the test would come out, because Roy's voice is so miraculous that auto-tune would be stupid.
What about Donovan's vibrato? OMFG!
What would auto-tune say about that?
Voice is Voice. Humans are not perfect. Imposing "Perfection" to a human voice is, actually, a crime!
Great video. Bublé's upper notes sound horribly unnatural, as if someone had sampled his voice and was playing it on a keyboard. I would be interesting to hear some analysis of a live Bublé performance, one where he definitely hadn't been autotuned (say a TV performance rather than an official live album/DVD which will have been touched up)
You can auto tune live.
Yes you can autotune live....BUT...listen to Buble sing when he makes impromptu appearances, such as when he pretended to be a TV salesman from South Africa. Those clips were NOT autotuned, they were totally unaltered and he sounded fantastic. I know....as a mix engineer for the past 30 years I can hear even the most subtle autotune from a mile away. Buble is rumored to have fought with producer David Foster over the use of autotune on his voice. Buble, like Freddie, is a great singer and absolutely does not need autotune to correct his pitch. So why do they use it you might ask? Because a lot of producers and mixers have become addicted to it....if you suddenly have a tool that allows you to make pitch perfect vocals and you start using it a lot, well it's hard to stop. Suddenly every tiny imperfection that you hear you want to make "better". It's the closest thing to playing God in the studio. But also there is a certain aesthetic to it. You might call it a modern pop gloss.
@@FreddysFrets yes.. when you are an experienced listener, which you should be as mix engineer.. its actually hard to not hear it.
There’s not much difference really. The main reason artists like Bublé use auto tune is more to clean up heavily exposed tracks for the style of music that he plays. His one-off live performances are still very good. It has more to do with the fact that the way his music is produced; it’s all extremely clean. He’s not using it to cover up bad singing. Rest assured: the guy is very, very good. It’s just different production philosophies. Really, comparing him with Freddie’s singing style is a flawed system anyway. His vocals are extremely erratic on purpose, whereas Bublé is about extreme control on pitch with very little vibrato. It’s kind of like comparing a blues guitarist to a thrash metal guitarist: they’re both good in their own ways, but the styles are borderline incomparable.
@@Rainman316pwns the point however is, one sounds human, the other less so. If you like that or not has to do with taste. This video has to do with if and how you can tell it is being used.
I have always considered Andrea Corr of The Corrs to have one of the most naturally perfectly pitched voices. I would like to see how an analysis of her singing something like Breathless would look.
Really enjoy your videos. I've learned SO much watching. Thanks!
It’s those little nuances and “imperfections” that make Freddie’s voice so PERFECT! Sorry for the irony.
It's the nuance and imperfection that makes it art.
There was no irony.
Contradiction, perhaps. Irony? No.
I never liked his voice and it could very well be because he was pitchy. I definitely remember not liking his vibrato. Years later, I appreciate his talent a lot more than I did as a kid, but his voice is definitely not a favorite of mine. Hey, it’s my opinion. :)
@@drinkinslim - that's the thing though. You don't like HIS (Christians, don't get all excited, caps are just for emphasis) voice. You're hearing HIS voice. It's art. You don't have to like it. It's subjective.
Producers using (and "singers" insisting on) Autotune is NOT the singer's voice.
If we had Autotune in the 70s, you may very well have grown up liking a pitch perfect, snapped to the line Freddie Mercury! Crazy!
The point is that you are able to appreciate his talent even if you don't like his voice, genre, or style. With Autotune, we never even know what a "singer" really sounds like. Is the vocalist talented or is the producer or software designer the talent?
Autotune is crap and any artist using it in a blanket way (as depicted in this video analysis of Buble's "singing") has zero integrity.
If you can sing, just fking sing, your A&R man be damned.
It's not just about taking away an expressive tool by snapping tones to notes. You're also harming the quality of the voice. Voices and instruments have rich, complex overtones that give them their unique sound. When you shift a note in autotune, it changes the ratio between the dominant and overtones. A big shift will give it a robotic quality, but a small shift just makes your voice sounds weak and constricted and a little sour. You may not hear it consciously but it definitely will impact your perception of the power and depth of the sound. For an autotuned voice to sound decent, it has to be so close you don't need it or else so far that it sounds like an intentional effect.
You are spot on. Auto-tuned vocals are so horrible, I'd rather listen to an old-school dial up modem. Sounds almost as bad, but at least it's legit.
@@charlesjoynes9497 I have not 'studied' auto tuning singers enough to tell the difference--yet. This was a very interesting video.
@Anthony Bullard Thank you for this comment! I’m not an engineer and always wondered why this was a thing!
Bingo. This is such a great observation.
Really great analysis. Fascinating, and really makes you think about how this stuff works.
That was really amazing Fil!! Seeing the actual graphic evidence is crazy. Really enjoyed this video!
I think anyone who listened to music before autotune became the “ go to tool “ for music production can spot it easier than someone who has never listened to music without it. It’s never about the perfect note, it’s about the notes in between.
My daughter, now 20, learned with amazing ease what autotune sounded like when she was 8 years old. We had an hour drive both to and back from school everyday and she loved to listen to music so she ran the sound. She loved symphonic music, eventually becoming first chair flute in her symphony band as a senior, and you can’t fault the pitch of someone in that chair. In the very early years I pointed out singers who were tuned and ones who were not. I didn’t editorialize much, just yay or nay. Within a month or two, she could nail it with just a few stanzas. This is partly due to the outrageous abuse of vocal tuning on pop music, which we listened to a lot. She loved Radiohead, Keisha, Pink, even Britney; all of whom have no use for the dreaded box. Eventually she could instantly tell that Katy Perry just had great pitch and a thrilling style, while similarly big-name singers, the identity of whom she did not know, were phoning it in and using the box. I was indescribably proud of her for that, but even more important, will never accept the copout that no one can tell. We can all hear it. Tuned singers are BOOORRRRING! Producers who tune them are hacks.
True 👌
I listened to music before auto-tune. I don't see how people can stand it. I know someone who has a beautiful voice, but he uses Auto-Tune. It doesn't make sense to me
Kirk Hammet has left the chat.
Maybe you are right. It isn't until today that I get down to researching wtf autotune is. But now I know that a lot of times when I heard that "the must have manipulated the voice electronically somehow", or however I would have expressed it, I was totally right. However, I don't really see why it should not be obvious to anybody.
I have made a living doing photo editing for more than 20 years and I also find it totally unbearable when photoediting is done in a way that makes the picture look obviously edited and unatural - when there is not a creative concept behind it that works.
Same thing with autotune.
Some of what people are calling Freddie's "imperfections" are really his individuality.
As with Brian May's guitar, Freddie's voice is instantly unmistakable. It is BEYOND perfect.
Brian May. The real life Buckaroo Bansai. Musician, scientist. Holds a doctorate.
Individuality is not what makes someone good. Horrible singers can be horrible and individual. Freddie had many elements that made him who he was.
Exactly. Auto tuning Freddie would make his voice sound worse. Maybe more "accurate", but it wouldn't have that unique sound that made Queen big.
@@buisyman Yes. He even has a month named after him.
@@j.w.8663 Good one, lol. I'm going to have to use that one.
Fil, I am thrilled to have found your channel. You are so talented and so knowledgeable! I enjoy every minute of your analysis videos. I would like to second the request for you to "analyze" Steve Perry's incredible, out of this world voice. "Mother, Father" live from Journey's Escape Tour in Houston in 1981 is an unbelievable, nearly perfect, live performance.
Wonderful comparison. Great video!
As a singer, songwriter, musician, and general lover of music, I couldn't agree more with wanting to hear the humanity in the music. When you remove all the imperfections and make everything "perfect", it just sounds robotic and unpleasant. I want to hear what it would sound like if the artist was singing to me in my house. Thanks for the video!
As a vocalist, I always felt under such immense pressure to record perfect tracks even though I refused for the longest time to use auto tune because I felt like it degraded the sound too much. It also erased the imperfections I _wanted_ in there. But in order to get the perfect takes people expected, I'd have to do hundreds of them and then piece them together phrase by phrase. It was an exhausting process, and sometimes I'd get the finished track back and find out they ran it through auto tune anyway. Like...what was the point?? Eventually, with too many deadline pressures looming, I've recently learned how to use auto tune for what it was actually designed for: preserving the timbre of good takes and tweaking the bits that are just a little too off pitch. That means less time in the studio and faster turn around time. I discovered a way to even out long notes without vibrato, or tweak just the beginnings of phrases if I scooped up to the first note too egregiously but had just the right emotion I'd been trying to get out of the performance, then turn it off again to preserve the humanity and imperfections in the vibrato at the ends of phrases and in the whole phrases that sounded fine on their own. Selective auto tune is a godsend. It helps me work smarter, not harder, because as a singer, it's often really difficult to get just the right feeling _and_ hit all the notes perfectly, and, sadly, our music culture really does expect it of us now. It's extremely hard to escape it. I do agree with others here that Bublé would sound much better without it. The way his vocals are produced sound too mechanical and that seems a shame considering how amazing his natural voice is. There is a way to use auto tune in much more subtle ways to great effect instead of just ramming the whole track through on a single setting.
Singers does not have any word over using autotune in post production?
As I am not a musician, I don't know the legal aspect of this job, but eventually that's your voice and that's your name written on it.
By this logic, someone could even sample it and play on a keyboard, saying that "I just did some minor pitch shifting" 😀 which would obviously be not right, yet auto-tune at post is accepted.
As a music lover, not the perfect pitch or grid-locked timing makes a song enjoyable, but rather the melody, the uniqueness and the emotions, and it is even better if the minor imperfections left in because that adds to the uniqueness and to the soul of a song, it is felt that it's made by a human, not a machine.
And I am saying this as mostly an EDM lover, which is made by machines 99% of the time, but when vocals or real instruments is in a song, then it is way better when it's in their natural form.
Well said!
A true artist does not cater to people’s expectations and does not make excuses.
@@pessi.zapler It's expected today because so many songs use plug-ins that already have perfect pitch. It wasn't like that in the 70's when your bass or guitar was a little out of tune and you couldn't really tell the vocal wasn't in perfect pitch. Nobody expected it to be perfectly pitched. It's not so today. A song with flat vocals won't get far when it comes to gatekeepers and algorithms. A "true artist" wants to share their art with more than just their parents and friends.
@@grandmaday9575 its not so today is the bane of humanity, just because many people doing it doesnt mean its ok and ITS SO TODAY, lol fk off. Nothing should be yesterday or today, it should be right.
autotune singer is not right, its like selling fake stuff, you said 100% nylon, but turns out its only 80% of it (trust me 80% is very generous), and then you go to the trash rap music maybe its only 50% real singer sound lol, i dont want to buying into that filth. A true artist wont use "cheating tools", there correct it for you.
Excellent analysis! Thanks so much.
Thank you for your videos. I am looking through all, so this is me catching up 😊
I think vibrato is the easiest give away. When vibrato gets crunched it's blaringly obvious.
I disagree I think it's most obvious when there's a multiple note quick melody line. Especially with like 3 notes or so that are more than a couple notes apart, if it's dead on, you can REALLY tell.
Of course, vibrato is highly valued in classical voice. Pitch correction is, I would think, rare in classical voice, although some instrumentalists use it to correct a single note from an otherwise good take.
I think this it be an interesting exercise to run some classical singers through this analysis, because you would have a large number of examples of the same leap in the song to compare how close various singers get. I suggest the octave leap in the opening of "O mio babbino caro" by Puccini.
The problem would be, of course, getting isolated vocals. So perhaps a recitative would be better.
His vibrato is so crushed for pitch it sounds like tremelo .
Not saying it's bad it's just the fashion at the moment
I am not a musician nor a sound engineer but I was able to follow that explanation. Thanks for making this so clear and understandable to those of us who don’t have a great ear nor a deep understanding of music theory.
Excellent video.
Great explanation/demo, Fil! Thank you!
Thanks for the breakdown. Very educational.
Louis Armstrong singing ‘What a wonderful world’, Tom Waits ‘Tom
Trauberts blues’ or Randy Newman’s
‘I think it’s going to rain’, would have
the graph lines going right off the chart, but these songs can make you cry, because they are perfectly imperfect and human.
Thanks for another great informative video.
Exactly...
If you loaded all of Tom Waits' songs the software would probably just give up and uninstall itself.
Easily the songwriter I never tire of turning to.
Perfection actually sounds bad to most people and they don't even know it. It's the little imperfections in music... a drummer not keeping perfect time, a bassist not keeping perfect rhythm, a guitarist hitting one wrong note in a chord or having one string slightly out of tune, or a singer being slightly off pitch... that make music interesting to our ears. It's why people still prefer analog records over digital music, and why electronic studio created backing tracks will never replace live bands.
a drummer or guitarist not keeping perfect time missing rhythm or hitting a wrong note is totally unprofessional, singing is different.
And also why modern music is often not as good as older music.
@@ison5622 There is a world of difference between inhumanly perfect, on-the-grid drumming/playing, and being locked into a groove while still being an imperfect human being. It's not unprofessional to be the latter.
@@tehberral practice and never correct me miss. ever.
thats me, when people sing Radiohead's creep perfectly i get slightly bit annoyed lol.
Fascinating. I hadn’t seen this kind of analysis before. Love Freddie’s voice. Truly awesome.
This was great!! There is so much I didn’t know!! Great content, easy to understand and fun to learn.
It would be fun to see a Beatles song analyzed.
Thanks for this! I can't stand autotune, even heard BIllie Eilish using it on her most recent album. People were singing on pitch for millennia before autotune came around! I've been developing my voice over the past year, and it's gone from shit to acceptable, and I love feeling the reverberation of the notes in my chest when I'm playing my guitar and singing, and getting the notes right on or very near pitch. If I can do it, there's no excuse for anyone to need autotune.
How about a STEVE PERRY analysis - I know he's not autotuned, but he sounds pretty good to me. I'd like to see how he looks against the software. ( Obligatory "like", love your channel !!! )
Look for vocal coach Ken Tamplin's analysis of Steve Perry's vocals. He played the recorded original vocal vs an autotuned version and, clearly, the original human vocal sounds much better.
@@MarkusRill or maybe don't look for ken I have a huge ego and no talent tamblin. He is truly full of himself and really doesn't offer any viable information except for strictly opinion. I say this as a musician and a singer.
@@PlayGtr be that as it may, I found the Steve Perry video interesting
@@PlayGtr As someone who plays piano and have family play various different instruments, we came across this Tamplin chap and noticed he had serious pitching problem in his own singing when doing covers of tenor singers (ostensibly flat notes) however, while he failed to recognise his own intonnation issues; he is an ardent critic of singers who intonation is excellent for a human voice. No auto tune. I would be very apprehensive of a self claimed vocal coach who narcisstically name their course "How to Sing Better than Anyone Else", charges several hundreds of dollars an hour and fails to hear his own pitching problem. The Wings of Pegasus channel appears to be a very credible source of discussing and analysing all types of music and vocals respectfully. This Fil chap does it humbly for a man who has a lot of talent himself. Subscribed. 😊
@@PlayGtr I agree for many reasons but his saying Kelly Clarkson is too fat to hit high notes was the end for me. Fatphobia and inability to hear are real breakers for me! Check out Cheryl Porter for great vocal coaching!
I love how much fun you have making these videos
Excellent visual evaluation!
I have zero musical ability and zero music education. Yet, i find myself completely intrigued with your analysis.
Same here!
First of all, Freddie Mercury was a BEAST! Miss him so bad! Second, thank you so much for this illustration. I am a visual learner and this was tremendously helpful. This really helped to "see" what I'm hearing and I think it will really help recognize AT going forward. You are just scary knowledgeable. I've never heard anyone explain music the way you do! Love your channel!!!
I am amazed by this. Thank you!
I loved this analysis. Thank you.
“Perfectly snapped”. That’s such an accurate phrase. I’m from the building trades and to “snap” a chalk line on your work is to achieve a perfect line to perhaps make a saw cut.
Nice analogy!
I don't think that was an accident, either. I do believe he has seen chalk lines being snapped!
A great vocal is about expressing emotions. Great singers push the notes and timing to get over the message of the song. Autotune is souless and robs the song of expression. It defeats the whole object of personality in the vocal. Perfection is not essential but many modern producers don't seem to get this.
It would also help to convey emotion if there were more than 4 words in a song and not just auto tuned Jami jami jami jami jami jami jami jami jami jami jami jami for 5 minutes straight.
Amen. Why would you want to autotune vibrato in the voice? Ridiculous...
That's not the point..so many singers today can't actually stay near pitch so they MUST be auto tuned it they'd be unrecordable! See some if Gaga's non auto tuned recordings. Oh my!
@@js0988 that's because they're not actually 'songs '. They're CHANTS. ppl seem dumb to this.
@@soulthriver-oz6470 Gaga can actually sing very well. I saw her on a documentary performing rearranged versions of her hits in a London nightclub. It was a revelation. Also with Tony Bennett. I might be wrong, but I don't think she was tuned on those sessions.
Freddie was a treasure. 😢
"Drop of a hat she's as willing as
Playful as a pussy cat
Then momentarily out of action
Temporarily out of gas
To absolutely drive you wild, wild"
There will NEVER be another Freddie Mercury, (or a Whitney Houston) who can change so many vocal levels with ease. The lyrics I just posted are a perfect example of that. Freddie was pure talent, one that we'll never see again.
💝
One of the great things about growing up during the 70s and 80s is having music without auto tune. It wasn’t invented yet. The music was pure and wonderful! I don’t know of any of the musicians from then that are still performing and recording today that use auto tune. Even though Steve Perry’s voice has changed with age, he hasn’t used auto tune on his recent recordings. He doesn’t believe in AT.
Auto-tune was once acceptable as an effect for studio use, as it could help give a distinct other-worldly sound for certain sections. The last twenty years, it has been used not as a selected effect but more often to pitch correct vocalists. It is not difficult to hear auto-tune, for me at least. It is like fingernails on a chalkboard and unmistakable. The spectral analysis is a perfect illustration.
In nature, pitch is not precise, usually flat or sharp to some degree, often influenced by energy or emotion. The oscillation, when natural will not have exact amplitude mirrored above and below the pitch, be it the natural relative pitch of the moment or the artificially derived perfect pitch. It is much like the bends in a guitar solo. They will, just as the human voice miss the perfect pitch, and the player is able to make emotional connection through this inexactitude they same way a natura vocal does. Call it style, musicianship, or gift … I’ll take it every time over the sterility and alien sound of auto-tune.
In the old days of analog, tape could be sped up or slowed down to gain some pitch correction. I find that to be easier in the ears than auto-tune, possibly because it retains imperfect pitch from a relative perspective.
Another fine analysis, Fil. Rock! 🤘🏻
Absolutely agree. I mean to a certain degree you want to get as close to perfection as possible as a musician and especially in classical music and jazz this is one of the appeals. But even they aren't perfect. Nothing in nature is. That's why it really sticks out when you correct it. There are algorithms to stimulate a little bit of imperfection and randomness to mask it but it's like CGI. It's still recognizable.
As a 90's kids I grew up with real explosions in movies so it is quite baffling to me that most people today don't seem to notice or to care when they see animated fire or blood. It looks nothing like the real thing even taking into account one of the best examples. That's why these horrible filters are usually applied to movies that makes them look like a Photoshop experiment gone wrong. Everything is orange and teal and looks "soft". Maybe to mask the CGI I don't know.
But I digress... What I wanted to say is that there are even ways to stimulate randomness (with CGI fire) yet our brains still recognize the order in the chaos. The algorithm that will always be an approximation but not the real thing.
@@EbonyPope - Right on! It’s not too different from how blues and jazz musicians stray from the precise beat of a metronome or click track comparison tempo. Both of these styles would collapse like a house of cards if strict tempo were enforced. Although one can program algorithms to stray from the precise tempo, this approximation would lose the emotional feel that is so very integral to these genres, yet the same hold true for classical, prog rock, or any genre. The proof is in one’s ears. Just as my ear was developed with the mono and stereo music of the 60s & 70s which has led to a preference for lower frequencies ambient rumble of the stylus of a turntable to the digitally sampled production of more recent times - it makes me wonder how those growing up today might find themselves accustomed to auto-tune as I was to the technology of audio recordings of my youth? I had a stereo test record that included pipe organs to attenuate the low frequency crossovers and maracas and piccolo to do the same for tweeters. When applying a spectral analysis to CD audio, one could see a significant drop off of the low end on the digital sample vs the analog. Many my own age have a preference for old masters of recordings as the remasters often lose part of what our ears expect. It will be interesting if the generator of todays artists’ audiences develop a similar affinity for auto-tune? After all we tend to go with the familiar in such subjective things. I for one prefer classic room making with minimal production for symphonic, jazz and opera with the goal of the recording reproducing the concert Hall effect. Placing effects upon the musicians after the fact seems a disservice, eh?
Thank you! That was perfectly correct and perfectly written! I wish we could force all the talentless numbskulls in the music industry to read that analysis and watch this video...and believe both and take the truth of them to heart. Assuming any of them have hearts. Which is doubtful.
Having read the two replies prior to mine, to this comment, I must say that I agree wholeheartedly with all three of you!
I wish all the pinheaded numbskulls who think all music is created equal, who I argue with frequently about modern music being far worse than the 60s and 70s, could read what you guys wrote here!
They simply don't get it. And they don't get that they don't get it.
The reality of the fact that their so-called "music" sucks monkey "privates", and that they simply lack the experience, ability and musical taste to even be able to hear that it clearly does so...is beyond them.
The music teachers of yore would have broken a whole Woolworths worth of wooden rulers over the knuckles of the knuckleheads who presume to make the music of today.
I have lost patience with all of them myself, lol.
But then I gave up on "modern music" in the early 80s at the tender age of 16, and would only listen to the Oldies stations from that day forward. I could hear music gradually going to the absolute DOGS when I was 12 years old. So I guess I was an old soul as a kid.
Autotune absolutely makes my skin CRAWL when I hear it! It's the "uncanny valley" of music. It's like the corpse eyes of CGI. Or in this case, it's like a corpse trying to sing to me. With it's soulless dead vocal cords. Reanimated temporarily with a combination of electricity...and programming. Nothing about it sounds alive or human! Or full of soul.
@@duckduckgoismuchbetter There is one young singer today that grew up on old school jazz. Try I Put A Spell On You by Angelina Jordan, oh, btw she’s 9 years old. Went viral with Gloomy Sunday at 7. Would love to know what you think of her?!
Fascinating job, Fil.