Mark Ronson - Watch The Sound

[john]

Hey

 

I've just been watching the first episode of "Watch the sound" on Apple TV. It focuses on the evolution of Autotune and treating the human voice. Pretty good! Mark speaks to a lot of artists and producers about how they use both Autotune and Harmony Engine.

 

Autotune has come a long way from Antares first version. The view of the purist that it is cheating to exploring using Autotune and Harmony Engine as a purposeful effect is ultimately interesting. Music production has always been about using music technology to do something different. The level of control and invention for the human voice is quite amazing.

 

Check out the series. I'd be interested to hear what you think

 

Cheers

 

John

[john]

I am not a fan of using it to mask bad singing. A bit like Mark Ronson at the start of this… it feels a bit too much like cheating. That said it is interesting. I like to think I am open to considering the possibilities of exploring an effect.

[john]

8 hours ago, Popthree said:

it's reason for existing to hide bad notes?

that was an original intention (and why I thought of it purely as cheating) but pretty soon it was adapted as an effect (Cher, life after love), and it has evolved. The addition of the harmoniser engine takes it well beyond disguising bad vocals.

[john]

Robot voice is definitely cheesy, though auto tune does go pretty far beyond that, and the harmoniser particularly. It is interesting to me from a music tech perspective. That is a big part of my background. It is like it is on a journey, but hasn’t got to it’s destination yet, and to me it is an interesting journey.

 

Episode 2… still to watch. That’s this evening’s TV taken care of!

[john]

1 hour ago, Popthree said:

a former bandmate of mine purchased some sort of vocal processor pedal and he's totally addicted to it.  since he's getting older, he feels like he's lost some of his vocal power and he compensates with this thing.  i can't stand it.  we got together awhile back and played through some songs, with him singing backup vocals.  we used to sing well together. now i can't stand to sing with him at all, so i don't.

I remember seeing a video people online were raving about, a cover of Toto:

 

 

It’s quite subtle until the last chorus, where the auto tune earns it’s money. In the early parts you know it sounds surreally “right” but it’s hard to nail down what is up. That sets the alarm bells ringing. It’s not very obvious. That last chorus though? Well it’s working very hard on the high notes lol

 

I am sure it’s still quite a capable performance with out it. My guess is they are using something like this:

 

 

With a little practice you’ll hit every single note with minimal artefacts to give the game away. There are other more self contained solutions.

 

As ever, it has musicians getting acclaimed as amazing… and of course they are not giving auto tune any credit. Ask any audio engineer… I am sure they would give the same answer.

 

 

I first noticed Mark Ronson as the producer for half of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black album. A brilliant Jazz / Pop fusion with Motown style production. Well worth a listen.

He co-wrote this:

 

 

And for that more Martha and the Vandellas type arrangement and production:

 

 

He is passionate about music and rooted in classic recordings.

[john]

I posted that just as further info on Mark Ronson, not intending to direct the convo away from his new series.