# Musicians is it unusual for a modern recording to be out of tune? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 20, 2017, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951 "2017-12-20T22:11:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/21 "2017-12-21T15:22:43Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > I think you mean to say Lennon’s voice is considerably lower in the second half of the song, when the tape is slowed down. Actually, his voice as heard in the recording is the same range of pitches for both parts. It’s the TIMBRE of the voice that’s different — lighter and livelier in the first minute, heavier and sleepier in the rest — due to the changing of speeds to the recorded tracks (which were ORIGINALLY sung at different pitch ranges). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/22 "2017-12-21T15:26:52Z")
Sorry, I had that backwards — the heavy, sleepy timbre is in the first minute. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/23 "2017-12-21T21:46:33Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Sorry, I had that backwards — the heavy, sleepy timbre is in the first minute. No problems, mate! It’s easy to mix them up—I do it all the time. 😉 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Moris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moris/32/2846_2.png) [@Moris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moris)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/24 "2017-12-21T21:57:53Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I meant modern compared to Peter Paul and Mary or the Kingston Trio. > > For me the 80’s are quite modern. Macs had sound cards and the first DAW’s were coming out. Not yet. DAWs were lightyears away. Analog synths were still there, and the recording was on the tape. First fully digital recording was “Electric cafe” by Kraftwerk in 86 IIRC. Regardless of digital instruments, if it was all recorded on analog medium it’s quite possible that some of it is a bit flat or sharp. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/25 "2017-12-21T22:29:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I meant modern compared to Peter Paul and Mary or the Kingston Trio. > > For me the 80’s are quite modern. Macs had sound cards and the first DAW’s were coming out. > > Most recordings are pretty close to standard pitch. Music students learn by playing along with records. It’s the closest experience you can get before playing in a band. > > Some recordings are a few cents off standard pitch. > > This one is close to a half a semi tone off. Most records can be played along with I guess. But I hear artificial higher and lower voices all the time on records. Maybe they are all older ones, I can’t remember them all. But I can’t imagine producers or engineers care about musicians trying to learn it. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/26 "2017-12-21T23:10:10Z")
> [@Moris](#): > > Not yet. DAWs were lightyears away. Analog synths were still there, and the recording was on the tape. First fully digital recording was “Electric cafe” by Kraftwerk in 86 IIRC. Regardless of digital instruments, if it was all recorded on analog medium it’s quite possible that some of it is a bit flat or sharp. _Bop Til You Drop_ by Ry Cooder was the first digitally recorded album. That was in '79 or '80. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/27 "2017-12-22T01:53:29Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > _Bop Til You Drop_ by Ry Cooder was the first digitally recorded album. That was in '79 or '80. McCartney’s Tug of War (82) was also digitally recorded. I recall the DDD symbol on CD’s when they came put as well, which referred to (if memory serves) recorded—mixed—playback. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/28 "2017-12-22T02:45:58Z")
> [@Moris](#): > > First fully digital recording was “Electric cafe” by Kraftwerk in 86 IIRC. > [@jaycat](#): > > _Bop Til You Drop_ by Ry Cooder was the first digitally recorded album. That was in '79 or '80. I had thought it was Rush’s _Moving Pictures_, released in 1981. It’s possible that it was recorded analog and simply mastered digitally (is that possible?) But I was going to mention Rush’s “Xanadu”, from their album _A Farewell to Kings_. That song is ever so slightly out of tune (sharp, IIRC) with the rest of the songs on the album. I understand it was because the rented tubular bells they used on the song were slightly out of tune, so they tuned their instruments to the bells (the bells themselves were fixed-pitch and couldn’t be adjusted). Of course, this made it maddening when playing along with the album, because we bass and guitar players would always have to retune our instruments for that one song, then tune them back for the rest of the songs. Thankfully, somebody uploaded an MP3 of the song that had been digitally pitch-corrected. I burned a copy of the original CD and replaced the original “Xanadu” with the corrected version so that I no longer had to deal with that nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/29 "2017-12-22T05:28:01Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I had thought it was Rush’s _Moving Pictures_, released in 1981. It’s possible that it was recorded analog and simply mastered digitally (is that possible?) [This article](http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19810211mppremier.htm) mentions a digital master. But the Wikipedia article mentions a later remaster from an analog copy [I wonder why, though?]; that would explain the confusion. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/30 "2017-12-22T07:21:26Z")
It could be that George Michael had the Juno-60 synth out of tune and simply didn’t know it. Although he played everything on the track he didn’t actually know how to play any instruments and played the keyboards parts laboriously with only two or three fingers at a time. His engineer Chris Porter discussed the recording a few days ago here: [Still saving us from tears: the inside story of Wham!'s Last Christmas](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/dec/14/still-saving-us-from-tears-story-george-michael-last-christmas) > [@](#): > > The 21-year-old wrote, produced, performed and painstakingly played every single instrument on the track. Having gradually rid the recording process of interfering producers, managers, record company executives and even his bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, the only people admitted into the Last Christmas studio were Michael’s engineer, Chris Porter, and two assistants – not that they had much input. Porter remembers “desperately wanting to play sleigh bells”, but like everything else, they were jangled only by Michael himself. and > [@](#): > > Later, on Last Christmas, what had been accidental became deliberate. Accompanied only by a LinnDrum drum machine, a Roland Juno-60 synth and those Christmassy sleigh bells, Porter and Michael began recording a Christmas song in high summer, in a studio the assistant had adorned with paper chains and Christmas lights. But the process was more painstaking than heady. “George wasn’t a musician,” says Porter, “he had no training on instruments at all.” He nevertheless insisted on doing everything himself. “It was a laborious process, because he was literally playing the keyboards with two or three fingers,” he says. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951/31 "2017-12-22T09:25:08Z")
What a cool article. 😉 Last Christmas is a great song. It’s even better knowing how it was recorded. Gwen Stefani recently covered Last Christmas for her new holiday album and tv special. Thank you for the link. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-is-it-unusual-for-a-modern-recording-to-be-out-of-tune/804951.md?page=1)