Autotuner Q

Cafe Society
1

Has anybody–just for kicks–ever played Bob Dylan vocals into an Autotuner?

2

I haven’t, but it looks like at least one person has. I’m no music expert, but I think it sounds really bad. It also sounds like it was done purposefully awful.

3

I’m not an expert either but you can tell it’s not really autotuned properly - most of the autotune you hear on popular songs and the like is done with respect to the original singer’s notes changing naturally on the lines. You’ll notice that the autotune on that video seems to go into overdrive and make (even) weird(er) sounds on certain notes because the person who did that would have just put the autotune on one general setting and fed the song through it.

Bob Dylan autotuned by a professional in a studio might sound quite different.

ETA: Not that I think it would sound good (I like autotune when it works with the song, but I doubt it would work on a Bob Dylan track), just different.

4

That… was disturbing.

5

I don’t know about awful, but, generally, if you’re going to go to the trouble to Auto-Tune something for effect, you want to make it as obvious as possible. In fact, when people have asked me to Auto-Tune stuff with my cheap rip-off plugin, I’ll often tell them I can’t, since it sounds to much like the original.

6

OP: I have no idea but

  1. In my own personal experience with autotune, it helps an actual performer (the same way a shower does), rather than being something that is a postproduction fix.

  2. I don’t understand why it’s used AT ALL (except on the super rare occasion where a robotic voice is needed such as in a gay dance club remix). Especially on Glee. There are other post or at production methods that work much much much better, especially those that try to make one person sound like more than one person, rather than those that try to make one person out of tune sound in tune.

I mean, seriously. I’m a mostly Average Joe. The only advantage I have over truly average Joe is that I happen to have seen an autotune in use in real life, and I also happen to have seen a voice multiplier (make it seem like more than one person singing) in real life. Otherwise I have no professional or industry knowledge.

And me, stupid layman audio man, says: voice multiplier is one billion times better and more convincing and more aesthetic than autotune.

So, what the fuck! Why don’t professional audio people get a clue? I mean, really! Aren’t these people paid much more than me? Why is something obvious to me that should be super obvious to someone with much more experience and pay grade than me?

Fucking get a clue.

7

“Never mind the notes - how did they magically improve Bob Dylan’s diction?” asks a sceptic.