novabrkr said:

It's used in abundance in the type of music that they play in shopping centers, supermarkets and sometimes even in public transportation too. Clothing stores are the biggest offenders in that regard - I like all kinds of music and listen to some silly crap too, but they just seem to pick the worst of the bunch to be played at those places. What I've found really irritating is that people are often using some really heavily autotuned songs as their ringtones. You're walking somewhere, minding your own business and then you hear "Uuuu-waAAA-aaa-Eeeh-yieeuuueeaah!" coming out of someone's goddamn pocket. As loud as possible, of course.

I never go to malls, because I'm not interested in overpriced clothes made in a sweatshop with someone's name on them. Music and eating is not allowed on the buses where I live, unless you want to pay a $500 fine. The stores I go into either has oldies or Muzak playing, so I don't hear it there either.

Mdizzles said:

novabrkr said:

It's used in abundance in the type of music that they play in shopping centers, supermarkets and sometimes even in public transportation too. Clothing stores are the biggest offenders in that regard - I like all kinds of music and listen to some silly crap too, but they just seem to pick the worst of the bunch to be played at those places. What I've found really irritating is that people are often using some really heavily autotuned songs as their ringtones. You're walking somewhere, minding your own business and then you hear "Uuuu-waAAA-aaa-Eeeh-yieeuuueeaah!" coming out of someone's goddamn pocket. As loud as possible, of course.

I don't like it how cheap it makes everything sound on decent playback equipment. On good speakers or headphones you can easily hear how thin and brittle the resulting sound usually is. It's filled with pops and clicks too. It's not smooth like an old-fashioned vocoder or a talkbox is.

yea but i think thats because you actually have to play the notes with a vocoder or talkbox. that and its analog.... vs autotune is pure digital.

[Edited 8/7/11 3:10am]

You do know...

Autotune originated as an analogue rack gear....

It became a plugin like most analogue pieces of gear.

Just like you find vocoder and talk box plugins.

So saying that you don't like cause it's digital is complete B.S.

Do you even know what "digital" means?

HermesReborn said:

Mdizzles said:

yea but i think thats because you actually have to play the notes with a vocoder or talkbox. that and its analog.... vs autotune is pure digital.

[Edited 8/7/11 3:10am]

You do know...

Autotune originated as an analogue rack gear....

It became a plugin like most analogue pieces of gear.

Just like you find vocoder and talk box plugins.

So saying that you don't like cause it's digital is complete B.S.

Do you even know what "digital" means?

Well, Autotune certainly didn't originate as analogue rack gear. The first units were rack units, but that doesn't make them analog. As far as I know, there is no such thing as an analog pitch shifter.

HermesReborn said:

Mdizzles said:

yea but i think thats because you actually have to play the notes with a vocoder or talkbox. that and its analog.... vs autotune is pure digital.

[Edited 8/7/11 3:10am]

You do know...

Autotune originated as an analogue rack gear....

It became a plugin like most analogue pieces of gear.

Just like you find vocoder and talk box plugins.

So saying that you don't like cause it's digital is complete B.S.

Do you even know what "digital" means?

This right here!

novabrkr said:

HermesReborn said:

You do know...

Autotune originated as an analogue rack gear....

It became a plugin like most analogue pieces of gear.

Just like you find vocoder and talk box plugins.

So saying that you don't like cause it's digital is complete B.S.

Do you even know what "digital" means?

Well, Autotune certainly didn't originate as analogue rack gear. The first units were rack units, but that doesn't make them analog. As far as I know, there is no such thing as an analog pitch shifter.

Half right

Pitch shifting was done, on analogue reel to reel tape machines.

The original Autotune rack mimiced this affect.

It only had one setting which was Auto mode, which mimicked the reel to reel effect,

which was similar to flanging and phasing.

The signal flow inside the rack had one A to D converter, for the input

and the output had a D to A converter, to combat digititis.

So while the processing was digital it was only momentary, was converteed quickly back into analog.

You can make an analog anything as long as you have good quality A to D and D to A, converters.

Autotune the plugin, is indeed a digital process.

It's really the same principle with more bells and whistles, to create effects.

Digital music is not the problem.

As sample rates get higher, and the smoothing effect of analogue mimicking devices like the pheonix, get more advance. The processing becomes less destructive then when it use to be in the early 00's

The problem is alot of producers don't pay attention to their gear, or soley use computers that have cheap converters, to record their music.

Cheap converters, preamps, are what make crappy music.

Also most music these days are compressed to oblivion.

Which also doesn't sound too good, if not used properly

So what people are really complaining about are producers who don't know how to produce...

.

Digital every year, is sounding more amazing.

Go to the movies, and listen to a Han Zimmer or John Williams composition

all those recordings sound amazing.

because they where recorded carefully at high sampling rates.

and they're DIGITAL

HermesReborn said:

Mdizzles said:

yea but i think thats because you actually have to play the notes with a vocoder or talkbox. that and its analog.... vs autotune is pure digital.

[Edited 8/7/11 3:10am]

You do know...

Autotune originated as an analogue rack gear....

It became a plugin like most analogue pieces of gear.

Just like you find vocoder and talk box plugins.

So saying that you don't like cause it's digital is complete B.S.

Do you even know what "digital" means?

i don't recall ever saying i didn't like it because it was digital, plus i'm talking about the plugin that everyone seems to love. i don't have a problem with things being digital.

[Edited 8/7/11 16:34pm]

Mdizzles said:

HermesReborn said:

You do know...

Autotune originated as an analogue rack gear....

It became a plugin like most analogue pieces of gear.

Just like you find vocoder and talk box plugins.

So saying that you don't like cause it's digital is complete B.S.

Do you even know what "digital" means?

i don't recall ever saying i didn't like it because it was digital, plus i'm talking about the plugin that everyone seems to love. i don't have a problem with things being digital.

[Edited 8/7/11 16:34pm]

No worries.

You said autotune is pure digital and I lost it.

People in this forum, love to talk out their ass on things they know nothing about.

So I apologize, if you're not one of those.

HermesReborn said:

Mdizzles said:

i don't recall ever saying i didn't like it because it was digital, plus i'm talking about the plugin that everyone seems to love. i don't have a problem with things being digital.

[Edited 8/7/11 16:34pm]

No worries.

You said autotune is pure digital and I lost it.

People in this forum, love to talk out their ass on things they know nothing about.

So I apologize, if you're not one of those.

its all good i was just responding to someone who said they didn't like the sound of it and a lot of times, to me, digital still doesn't have that same warmth initially. but i good tweak of EQ can fix that cold sound. that said i still don't like it for that whole tpain effect.

I never understood why anyone would want AutoTune in their song, because then it's impossible for anyone to sing along with you.

RodeoSchro said:

I never understood why anyone would want AutoTune in their song, because then it's impossible for anyone to sing along with you.

Good point. And I love to sing along.

RodeoSchro said:

I never understood why anyone would want AutoTune in their song, because then it's impossible for anyone to sing along with you.

Because they're douches following trends until it wears out.

Mdizzles said:

HermesReborn said:

No worries.

You said autotune is pure digital and I lost it.

People in this forum, love to talk out their ass on things they know nothing about.

So I apologize, if you're not one of those.

its all good i was just responding to someone who said they didn't like the sound of it and a lot of times, to me, digital still doesn't have that same warmth initially. but i good tweak of EQ can fix that cold sound. that said i still don't like it for that whole tpain effect.

Yeah,

I understand. No worries.

The warmth people are talking about when it comes to analogue consoles has to do with the natural compression, that colored the signal once you bounced it out from that algorithm.

It's a pleasant warm rich sound.

Basically what I do is run the outputs through an Alan Smart C2 compressor.

and you get that same warm feeling.

Alan Smart, was the person who created the original SSL Analog console in the eighties.

and he created the hardware to mimic the color.

It does the job.

it's nearly 3 grand, but it''s worth it.

There are plugins as well that acomplish this.

But I feel hardware has better results

Also checkout Cranesongs Pheonix plugins, which emulate tape machines.

[Edited 8/7/11 17:48pm]

SeventeenDayze said:

Ok, I am sick and tired of autotune. Will it ever die? It's sucking the life out of real music and I hate it. Will this ever die? What will it take for autotune to disappear for good? I saw a news article today that referenced Will.I.Am.Annoying as a "musician", really? GTFOH! LOL!

Talk into the little box when you say that. Your voice needs a little tweaking!

HermesReborn said:

Mdizzles said:

its all good i was just responding to someone who said they didn't like the sound of it and a lot of times, to me, digital still doesn't have that same warmth initially. but i good tweak of EQ can fix that cold sound. that said i still don't like it for that whole tpain effect.

Yeah,

I understand. No worries.

The warmth people are talking about when it comes to analogue consoles has to do with the natural compression, that colored the signal once you bounced it out from that algorithm.

It's a pleasant warm rich sound.

Basically what I do is run the outputs through an Alan Smart C2 compressor.

and you get that same warm feeling.

Alan Smart, was the person who created the original SSL Analog console in the eighties.

and he created the hardware to mimic the color.

It does the job.

it's nearly 3 grand, but it''s worth it.

There are plugins as well that acomplish this.

But I feel hardware has better results

Also checkout Cranesongs Pheonix plugins, which emulate tape machines.

[Edited 8/7/11 17:48pm]

i may need to chat with you more often... compression is still something i don't fully grasp. lol. i know what it does and how it works but whenever i use it myself... no bueno. also that plugin you mentioned doesn'y have an AU format....

[Edited 8/7/11 19:15pm]

Thanks everyone who tolerated my rant and then made it better by actually having informative info on here Yeah, I grew up in that 80s/90s era when you had a blend of analog/instruments with a few "digital" sounds *synthesizers* mixed in with it. Now, it's just overkill and I've lost a lot of interest in certain genres of music because of it.

SeventeenDayze said:

Thanks everyone who tolerated my rant and then made it better by actually having informative info on here Yeah, I grew up in that 80s/90s era when you had a blend of analog/instruments with a few "digital" sounds *synthesizers* mixed in with it. Now, it's just overkill and I've lost a lot of interest in certain genres of music because of it.

That synthesis in the 80's was still pretty much analog.

It's a weird amalgam of both digital and analog.

the mechanism of which the synth created the sound was analog,

the internal computations where digital...

The best way to understand what digital is to compare it with photography and pixelation.

Something thats digital, something thats read by a computer as a series of zeroes and ones.

Like a code 00111001100110011

each zero or one is somewhat like a Pixel, a series of colorized dots that make a picture.

except when it comes to music, it's samples.

in analog music, as in analog photography there are no samples or pixels.

just a smooth image.

The goal in digital photography and video, is to create better quality images by utilizing better pixelation resolution.

The digital machine ability to captures more pixels will creates better images.

IE High Definition.

Digital Music, accomplishes the same feat, except with audio.

The more samples that are caught in a recording,

the better it sounds.

The industry standard is 44.1 k or 44,100 samples of a recording are captured in a second

This has been the standard for a while now and frankly...

it sucks...

Most shit in the early 00's where recorded here.

Nowadays people are recording at 88.2 K or 88,200 samples (hertz)

double the samples then before

if you go into the film realm they record at 192,000 samples...

which is why movies or blue ray film music sound so pristine and better in comparison to music.

Now you ask, why doesn't everyone record at the highest sample rate possible?

simple.

Memory

Computers need to be able to intake more data.

The more samples a recording has the more memory it needs.

So the digital audio industry is forever tide to the hard drive capabilities of computers.

This essentially means as computers get stronger year by year the quality of music gets better and better, until eventually it reaches The Singularity, where the advancement of technology through the law of acceleration, reaches such a quickening pace that digital and analog would finally unite...

Mdizzles said:

HermesReborn said:

Yeah,

I understand. No worries.

The warmth people are talking about when it comes to analogue consoles has to do with the natural compression, that colored the signal once you bounced it out from that algorithm.

It's a pleasant warm rich sound.

Basically what I do is run the outputs through an Alan Smart C2 compressor.

and you get that same warm feeling.

Alan Smart, was the person who created the original SSL Analog console in the eighties.

and he created the hardware to mimic the color.

It does the job.

it's nearly 3 grand, but it''s worth it.

There are plugins as well that acomplish this.

But I feel hardware has better results

Also checkout Cranesongs Pheonix plugins, which emulate tape machines.

[Edited 8/7/11 17:48pm]

i may need to chat with you more often... compression is still something i don't fully grasp. lol. i know what it does and how it works but whenever i use it myself... no bueno. also that plugin you mentioned doesn'y have an AU format....

[Edited 8/7/11 19:15pm]

Yeah your using logic, I have logic as well, I just don't mix with it anymore.

But I think there is a plugin thats like cranesong's pheonix that works on logic, let me get back to you on that.

Compression is simple in what it does, but in actual practice its extremely difficult.

Simply because you need to know what you want to compress.

Alot of engineers compress the shit out of everything.

Which is essentially squashing all the dynamics of the instruments into one level.

I particularly blame Michael Jackson for this.

In the studio Michael wanted his tracks thumping all the time, so that every instrument could be heard, the bass and the drums literally thumped your radio.

This wasn't always the case prior to that

Listen to Don't Stop Til You Get Enough with headphones

And listen to all the instruments and their dynamics

not everything was in the forefront of the song.

Then listen to a track like BAD...

Every single fucking instrument is in the forefront.

Also notice that Don't stop, had more instruments,

whereas bad had few instruments, with the drums and bass being predominant.

Michaels technique became the industry standard because he sold so many records.

Plus it was a hell of alot cheaper, labels didnt have to hire that many musicians.

Once you hear these subtle differences.

You'll able to understand whats being done with compression a little better.

[Edited 8/7/11 20:47pm]

HermesReborn said:

Mdizzles said:

i may need to chat with you more often... compression is still something i don't fully grasp. lol. i know what it does and how it works but whenever i use it myself... no bueno. also that plugin you mentioned doesn'y have an AU format....

[Edited 8/7/11 19:15pm]

Yeah your using logic, I have logic as well, I just don't mix with it anymore.

But I think there is a plugin thats like cranesong's pheonix that works on logic, let me get back to you on that.

Compression is simple in what it does, but in actual practice its extremely difficult.

Simply because you need to know what you want to compress.

Alot of engineers compress the shit out of everything.

Which is essentially squashing all the dynamics of the instruments into one level.

I particularly blame Michael Jackson for this.

In the studio Michael wanted his tracks thumping all the time, so that every instrument could be heard, the bass and the drums literally thumped your radio.

This wasn't always the case prior to that

Listen to Don't Stop Til You Get Enough with headphones

And listen to all the instruments and their dynamics

not everything was in the forefront of the song.

Then listen to a track like BAD...

Every single fucking instrument is in the forefront.

Also notice that Don't stop, had more instruments,

whereas bad had few instruments, with the drums and bass being predominant.

Michaels technique became the industry standard because he sold so many records.

Plus it was a hell of alot cheaper, labels didnt have to hire that many musicians.

Once you hear these subtle differences.

You'll able to understand whats being done with compression a little better.

[Edited 8/7/11 20:47pm]

yea i think thats part of the problem... i don't have headphones that are "flat" sounding... more emphasis on the low-end...which makes for a pain with mixing and hearing any sort of subtlety. but i see what you mean...kind of goes with the whole "Loudness War" thing.

MickyDolenz said:

PlayboyOriginal said:

All of that plus Shitney Spears, Madonna Corpse and Gaga are all corny, cheesy, bubblegum Pop. Thank you for giving us the history.

I don't know about Spears and Gaga because I've never heard anything by them, but I have some Madonna albums and they don't fit the defintition of bubblegum. She's dance music. If you've ever heard bubblegum, you wouldn't call this modern music that. It has nothing in common with bubblegum. Bubblegum has a certain sound and certain kind of lyrics.

Madonna's music sucks to me so she falls under that category. Like A Virgin, Papa Don't Preach and etc are the definition of bubblegum, hun

A friend of mine is drummer in this R&B reggaeton kinda band and there line up has worsened from the beginning :p i was listening to a track of theirs and all the sudden i heard some auto tune rap and i was like COMMON! who likes this shit haha . I dont get it either , you listen to a song for the beauty of a voice at least i do .

HermesReborn said:

novabrkr said:

Well, Autotune certainly didn't originate as analogue rack gear. The first units were rack units, but that doesn't make them analog. As far as I know, there is no such thing as an analog pitch shifter.

Half right

Pitch shifting was done, on analogue reel to reel tape machines.

The original Autotune rack mimiced this affect.

It only had one setting which was Auto mode, which mimicked the reel to reel effect,

which was similar to flanging and phasing.

The signal flow inside the rack had one A to D converter, for the input

and the output had a D to A converter, to combat digititis.

So while the processing was digital it was only momentary, was converteed quickly back into analog.

You can make an analog anything as long as you have good quality A to D and D to A, converters.

[...]

That's complete nonsense.

Autotune is and always was a DSP unit. There's nothing analog about it and neither does an AD / DA conversion process make it an analog unit. That's exactly what makes something a digital signal processor in the first place. It doesn't matter how "quickly" an analog signal is converted into the digital domain and then back to analog. Every digital unit does this in a matter of milliseconds in any case. The quality of the converters has nothing to do with something being considered "analog" or "digital".

There have been a few attempts to do realtime pitch shifting in the analog domain, but none have produced results that would have been satisfying. Changing the playback speed of a tape machine has barely anything to do with what Autotune does. Autotune has never aimed to mimic the behavior of reel to reel machines. It's an automated pitch correction device allegedly based on on phase vocoding technique (the approach it uses might be less sophisticated than that in reality, but that's what the manufacturer has stated it is).

Tell me this song isn't catchy as hell though!

novabrkr said:

HermesReborn said:

Half right

Pitch shifting was done, on analogue reel to reel tape machines.

The original Autotune rack mimiced this affect.

It only had one setting which was Auto mode, which mimicked the reel to reel effect,

which was similar to flanging and phasing.

The signal flow inside the rack had one A to D converter, for the input

and the output had a D to A converter, to combat digititis.

So while the processing was digital it was only momentary, was converteed quickly back into analog.

You can make an analog anything as long as you have good quality A to D and D to A, converters.

[...]

That's complete nonsense.

Autotune is and always was a DSP unit. There's nothing analog about it and neither does an AD / DA conversion process make it an analog unit. That's exactly what makes something a digital signal processor in the first place. It doesn't matter how "quickly" an analog signal is converted into the digital domain and then back to analog. Every digital unit does this in a matter of milliseconds in any case. The quality of the converters has nothing to do with something being considered "analog" or "digital".

There have been a few attempts to do realtime pitch shifting in the analog domain, but none have produced results that would have been satisfying. Changing the playback speed of a tape machine has barely anything to do with what Autotune does. Autotune has never aimed to mimic the behavior of reel to reel machines. It's an automated pitch correction device allegedly based on on phase vocoding technique (the approach it uses might be less sophisticated than that in reality, but that's what the manufacturer has stated it is).

Wow...

Now I know you don't know what your talking about

Producers where riding reels and pitch shifting audio since the 60's

The Beatles used it periodically

And phase vocoding IS NOTHING like autotune.

In vocoding a synthesizer is used, and the pitch and formants of the human voice act as a controller. Much like a keyboard to a synthesizer module.

The Phase-flange effect that it utilizes is to mimic the riding the reels technique, that producers had been using for decades to pitch vocals.

Thats how phase and flanging was discovered, some dipshit, touched the reels of the tape, which effected the pitch and formants of the audio.

But I guess there are like two songs I like that have autotune but it's because I know that the actual singer can SING

"Blame it on the Alcohol" Jamie Foxx

"Incense & Candles" by the Purple Yoda

Everything else (oh yeah, I forgot about that Bed Intruder song which made me laugh all 20 times when I watched it) on Autotune just sounds like cheap suburban mall on a Saturday afternoon crap...