So, I called a guy at one of the largest musical products supply companies in the world that most of us use at least twice a year, and told him about our occasionally rude, obnoxious and childish tiffs on pitch correction and asked him what he thought.

He knows and uses all the big name plugins, and sells them, and also has a high demand studio and records and fixes vocals every day.

I explained that I myself was the most childish of them all, and gave him the lay of the land, and this is what he said:

"Dude, here's the deal. Most pitch correction plugins work fine. It depends on what you want. They all have pluses and minuses.

"But the thing is man, you don't want to use them any more than you have to. I would never spend hours using a pitch correction plugin on a vocal. Never. Never, ever.

"What I usually do is yell at the vocalist as many times as it takes for them to hit the notes. It's good for them and it's good for me.

"Once they have hit the notes, I will go do some tweaking, that's it.

"But bro', let me tell you something. Don't you dare run it all the way through. And don't you dare use it on a consonant or you will *&^6$vy! the whole thing up and have to start over. You can only pitch correct vowels and that's when they're already 95% there. If they aren't, record another take.

"Yeah, just yell at your vocalist. That's what I do. It's the only thing that works."

And I said:

"Man. That's exactly what I do. But the person I am yelling at is myself."

And he said.

"And well you should."

So there you have it.

Straw Man!!!

Ha ha ha! You know it man!

Guilty!!!!

I'm your favorite troll!

I have no problem with any of that.

Yep! That's what they're designed for. Not as a substitute for practice.

Same thing with punching in guitar tracks. I guess there are all kinds of "pro" studios. The ones I have been in are not willing to do a lot of "correction" of any kind.

There are usually agreements upfront about what the engineer is willing to do.

Pitch is just one of the many components of vocals.

Professional studios generally record professional musicians, so there are fewer problems to deal with.

Some of this "fixing stuff" is eliminated because of how much it costs to "fix stuff.

High-quality professional studios are pretty expensive. It can easily cost 1000 dollars and up per song without "fixing" much of anything.

Sony Studio in Tokyo is a good quality studio. Studio time runs about $280 per hour, plus an engineer at a bit less than $100 per hour. Abbey Road is about 2500 pounds per day plus engineering costs plus.

The acoustics alone in high-quality studios can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, to say nothing about the cost of microphones.

Bands often employ a studio musician to deal with parts they are not good at.

For the most part, the whole "home studio" thing is about everyday people being able to afford to produce songs. Some people find it fun to spend endless hours using software like Melodyne to try to make up for lack of vocal skill. It has its use but will never make an unskilled vocalist into a skilled vocalist.

On the other side of this coin, you don't have to be an excellent vocalist to have people like what you do. A little pitchy? So what. All this gets to be pretty subjective.

Billy

Hi David,

What your "professional Engineer" failed to mention was vocal comping and all instrument comping.

To my knowledge comping has always been the main method of getting a great vocal, guitar or any other lead instrument take. Plus to my knowledge it has never gone out of fashion for any of the world's great singers or musicians.

When I record a song - I do a minimum of 3 takes in one session. If I'm not confident I'll do 6 takes. Professional singers do up to 20 takes of an entire song in one session.

Then the engineer cuts and pastes the vocals to get the maximum feel and no bum notes. If an engineer is not prepared to do this it is normally because the song is a dud and not worth the work.

It's quick, it's easy, it's creative and has produced the greatest moments in recorded music history.

One trick - make sure all takes are done in one session with no breaks. Otherwise it doesn't work at all.

Best Regards
Nigel

Building a studio is one thing. The electricity bill is another. It'll kill you.


^THIS^
I can't remember a single song I've done with BIAB where I didn't comp a few instruments to get the best result, and even my digital girls get some comp-love when needed.
Easy comping: the best thing a DAW has to offer.

Thanks for mentioning that aspect Nigel. Indeed it is an important part of the process.

I don't think he failed to mention it, if anyone, that would have been me.

But I believe the essence of what he said--record until you get it right--could certainly include comping, and would not exclude it, you know what I mean?

At any rate, even if you are comping you have to record until you get it right, otherwise you don't yet have the right stuff to work with.

I really appreciated this comment:



I always noted some sounds don't pitch shift well. In my experience, no sense even trying. I will pay more attention to that vowels versus consonant thing. Recording vocals the past couple days in home studio. This morning I just finally decided to drop the key down a step and a half before my voice dies.

Well, if you put it that way, it seems pretty obvious.

Usually I'll just punch-in bits and pieces, but this makes a lot more sense.

So this unnamed engineer didn't actually read the forums and comments. Allegedly, this was commentary from a phone call.

There's always more than one way to do something and a quick search will net you dozens of people who have opposing views on how to do it.

I could, point to a number of engineers who agree with the OP and also point to an equal number who disagree.

I heard that one big pop star had over 100 vocal takes/tracks on just one of her huge radio hits. You can't say that each of those tracks contained the same level of enthusiasm. The amount of time and vocal stress required to record all those tracks is mind boggling.
The flip side of that is to record just a few tracks where the song is well rehearsed before they set foot in the studio. You get a good level of enthusiasm in each track and where you have issues with timing and pitch, you can nudge it with melodyne in a very transparent manner. No one could tell that it wasn't sung perfectly to start.

Here's my process. I learn the song well, then a few dry runs and then no more than 3 takes. I choose only one of those as the lead and use M.E. on it. Not everything gets corrected. Only the things I can hear that stick out.
I can hear extremely minor tuning issues. Neither of the other tracks are fixed but timing issues are generally punched.

Anyway.... Just my 2¢ worth on a topic that's been beaten to death here of recent.

Billie Eilish comped over 80 vocal takes for her song "Happier than Ever".
That's insane considering you can hear at her live performances that she can very well do that in one take.
Over-perfectionism...

I'll take a live vibrant one take with a few warts over a many multi-take track but a dull track. That is true for vocals and instrumental leads. YMMV

Roy Acuff, on the “Circle Album” said something to the effect of, “let’s try and get it right the first time because you lose a little something each time after that.” I’ve recorded our bands, other bands and individuals since the 60’s and all I can add to that is, “when record time comes be ready.”

FWIW, boatloads of salt, etc., etc.

Bud

If the world were black or white, I would agree with you, no question.
But a good engineer with a good singer will take vibrant multi-takes and create a vibrant track without those warts.

The saying "you can't polish a turtle" implies that you start with a turtle.
But you can also start with something almost perfect and make it perfect.

With all of Janice’s note dancing and slipping and sliding around (what we called bent note singing back in the day) I’d guess my Mac would explode if I even opened up Melodyne on her vocal.

I do like pitch editing an RT note here and there for segue notes of my choice, etc. And I certainly understand its appropriateness for many vocal situations but we’ve simply decided not to go that route … for better or worse!

Bud

Since we're on talking about multiple takes, here's the anecdote of Cilla Black singing "Alfie".

Cilla had been offered the part, but didn't want to do it. She later said the demo sounded bad, and "For a start—Alfie?? You call your dog Alfie! ... [Couldn't] it be Tarquin or something like that?"

Instead of turning it down directly, she said she'd only sing it if Burt did the arrangement.

Which, of course, Burt said yes to.

She then added that Burt would have to come to London and play piano at the session.

But Burt was more than happy to do that, so she found herself at an Abbey Roads recording session was a 24-piece orchestra.

It was booked for three hours, and Burt used the entire session, doing an estimated twenty-nine takes... with the full orchestra.

Cilla said "It was ever so difficult, the range in it was unbelievably hard. It was hurting me."

Burt said "I kept going [thinking] can we get it a little better... [add] just some magic. Cilla was great and wound up delivering a killer vocal as she did on so many of my songs."

George Martin was in the control room, and said Cilla nailed it right on the fourth take.

Hi David,

That's a great story - good singer, great composer and wonderful producer/engineer - no wonder they had a hit!

Best Regards
Nigel

The great story of which David were you talking about this time?

Actually no, it wouldn't explode. LOL!

It would however, let you edit the notes that were off a bit and ONLY edit the ones that, according to your ear, needed to be edited. That's the beauty of Melodyne and using it in the manual mode. You don't really have to edit anything that you don't want to touch. Because, like you, I feel that not everything needs to be, or should be, fixed. Some things simply are great like they are and add a character that can't be improved upon, while at the same time, some things do need a bit of finessing.

I always edit manually, one phrase at a time. Always.

Glad to hear there would be no explosion!

I have a freebie copy of Melodyne from Izotope and Nectar has a decent pitch editor. But my go to for changing instrumental notes is the pitch editor that is part of Logic Pro X. It's intuitive to use and always there. And, yep, all the editing I have done was manual ... from a few cents cleanup to another note. I assume Melodyne does this but it's also easy in Logic to stretch a note which I find very helpful on RT intros and tags.

Bud

My Melodyne didn't explode when it tried to correct my singing. But it did uninstall itself!

Hi,

The post by David Cuny re Cilla Black recording session.

Best Regards
Nigel