Hi,

Is this the right forum for a discussion on this topic?

Best Regards
Nigel

Sure, why not?

Majority of the PG community likes Melodyne. There are some folks here who use Antares AutoTune too.

I used all of them.

Melodyne is very time consuming, but the end result is natural, transparent, unnoticable, almost like cheating to win.

AutoTune is fast, effortless, but the result is robotic, inaccurate, with lots of artifacts. Graph mode is hard to manipulate. Not a fan.

WavesTune is garbage.

FL Studio NewTone is like Melodyne, but not as good as Melodyne.

Bottomline: In today's highly competitive world, you can not produce professional music without Melodyne.

Hi Folks,

So this is the right place - good.

I contribute songs to the "User Showcase" forum on this site and I also listen to all the other songs on that forum.

Many of the singers are out of tune. Some of them just a bit out of tune and some of them are total non-singers.

For non-singers the answer is obviously to team up with a good singer.

For the others the answer may be:

1. Before posting on the forum send your song to a friend/family member who you know has a "good ear" and most importantly is prepared to give you an honest assessment of your performance. They don't have to love the song - no the key point is they must tell you where it needs improvement. Only in this way can you improve the quality of your songs.

2. Pitch Correction. I don't use this myself but I do you use it on other artists' voices whom I have recorded or mixed. If used sparingly and musically then it can definitely improve a performance and a song significantly.
I think it can also act as a great vocal learning tool.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Pitch and Timing Correction but if you are new to the subject this video may be a good starting point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS1YDAc-f5I

Is it cheating - no IMHO.

I hope this may be of some assistance and look forward to the thoughts of members.

Best Regards
Nigel Spiers

It's a good topic to delve into.
I can't sing so use ReaTune and, sometimes, Melodyne.
Despite the above emphatic vote for Mel. it can be JUST as bad as any other pitch correction software: it's complex and subtilty is easy lost.
Many major studios outsource the "tuning" to pros who do it full time becasue it's easy to lose focus and awareness when in amongst it
It's very easy to produce well recorded and performed tracks in this highly competitive world if you have a singer who is a) good & b) prepared to learn the material properly.
For my part I'd much rather use a singer in collaborative way. I've often done so BUT I know that my songs aren't necessarily attractive to other performers so I, oft times, have to "do it" myself.
I record a scratch "vocal with the phrasing and basic melodic idea as best I can. I then tune it, often aggressively, with ReaTune as well as tweaking the melody and then try to learn the corrected version.
Frequently I get close but not close enough so I tune gently, render the vocal, then tune gently again to try to avoid too may obvious artefacts in the final result.
Tweaking gently in Reatune then copying/pasting that VST in a stack of two or three will also, slightly faster, achieve a gently successful result. Nevertheless. I always hope that some one will hear my final result and offer to sing it for me.
ReaTune is CPU hungry, Melodyne even more so. Also Melodyne is unhappy when in the same project with the likes of PSP Vintage Warmer 2, (another hungry one when set to fat), and can cause crashes.
If one can't really sing & has no access to singer for social or financial reasons I can't see a problem with a tuning prog used well.

I'm all for the use pitch correction. My feeling is that I should post the best version of the song that I can.

Heck, I've even tried to write pitch correction software.

I've used ReaTune, Waves Tune and Melodyne. I've even tried GSnap. Except for it having a much too small GUI, I like the sound of Waves Tune the most, but I'm trying to learn how to be less heavy-handed with Melodyne. RePitch by SynchroArts is supposed to have more transparent pitch correction, but I'm not yet convinced it's that much better than Melodyne.

Like rayc, I've often recorded my vocal, and then had a look at it with the pitch correction software to see where I've gone wrong. I'll also use the pitch corrected vocal as a guide track.

Now, the more delicate issue: telling someone they're out of tune.

One of the great things about this board is how welcoming it can be, especially to people of all levels of skill. Bringing up something like pitch correction requires a level to tact that I often lack. Obviously, it's best done via PM, rather than via post.

I did suggest to someone a couple months ago that their song would be a good candidate for showing what pitch correction software could do. He sent me his vocal stems, and I ended up doing a remix of the song. But not everyone is necessarily going to be so gracious.

I suspect that most people know they have pitch issues, but don't know about the tools to correct it. I do all my editing in a DAW, and have never tried to do pitch correction in BiaB. And pitch correction software can be intimidating to use.

I hate suggesting to people that they spend money that they might not have, or on something that might not fit their tool chain. It would also be great to suggest an option that works well with whatever they've got, be it a DAW, BiaB, RealBand, Audactity. It looks like the top free pitch correction plugins are:

• Graillon 2
• MAutoPitch
• GSnap

There's a larger list available here.

Singing is a production in itself. Once I'm psyched up and feel ready, I record several takes - often of the whole song, but sometimes by looping sections depending on the arrangement - and then I Comp in Studio One.

If the Comped vocal is decent, I bounce the Comped vocal to a new track and gently apply Melodyne as needed.

Is that cheating? Well, yeah, I suppose it is, but so what. We apply all kinds of effects to all kinds of sounds in order to present the best quality music we can. The Pros often highlight their 'vocal chains' which are aimed at making the best singers sound even better.

Pitch Correction Plugins? Go for it!

Hi David,

Yes I completely agree - it's definitely not our job to tell anyone on this forum that they are singing out of tune or are a non-singer.

This is why it's critical for all members to pass their songs by a trusted family member or friend several times and way before it gets to this forum.

They will reply:

1. Does not work - drop it.

or

2. Works:
- Fix vocals at 1:14, 2:10 and 3:30
- Needs a middle 8 for light and shade
- Too long - cut out 1 x verse and 1 x chorus

Best Regards
Nigel

FYIW - Tuning your vocal with pitch correction is no different than tuning your instrument with an electronic tuner. You want everything to be in tune.

As you all know I am not a singer but when I do sing I use Melodyne. Sometimes even that doesn't help

Some folks are slightly out of tune sometimes, sure maybe, but also I can tell they are pushing artistic boundaries, creating novel lyrics, possess a great degree of musical originality and are showing a certain genius in composition, while also playing some instruments themselves from time to time.

I would rather hear a person singing an original and compelling composition that is slightly out of tune any day of the week rather than sit through another 12 bar blues progression with a four note melody on the subject of baby just done me mean and I got da down home blues in perfect pitch.

But that's just me.

Reatune is better than some folks say, I actually like Waves Tune, and my favorite is the Pitch Editor that came with old school Nectar 2. I think it may be based on Melodyne, not sure, but it works fine.

However, I am most proud of the people who post who are in the "Bob Dylan" category who write truly original music, great lyrics and great melodies, and can also play an instrument on something as well, whether they can sing in perfect pitch or not.

I would not want them to stop posting and singing for any reason, because then all I would have to listen to is another piece of faux jazz or one more attempt at the 12 bar blues.

YMMV and all the other cute phrases.

It's probably safe to say that there are few, if any, studio recordings over the past 60 years that haven't used some kind of wizardry to get the production as wanted, whether that be just multiple takes, punch-ins, overdubs, auto-tune or whatever. In that sense I doubt there's been a single studio recording that hasn't 'cheated' in some way.

Most 'live' albums have probably had more than a little post-processing to get them nicer. That's also 'cheating' some.

IMHO, don't worry about it; use the plug-ins.

Outside of the world of commercial pop music, there are many artists who will not use it at all. Two words: Willie Nelson


Back to the OP.

Melodyne only works well on voices if the wave forms are simple enough. Otherwise, it can sound horrible. I have the latest version of Melodyne Studio—that's the high priced version. Many senior citizen voices cannot cannot use it all.

I also have PureDSP, ZTX and Zynaptique, the pro version, Autotune and a few others.

The only correct answer I can give is that it depends on the source material what I will use and when.

Mr. Halloran,

You said two words. Willie Nelson.

I have one word:

Amen.

Now I have a thought.

Who can touch him?

Two words.

No one.

Hi Mike,

I have to contradict here. I also use Melodyne Studio quite a lot and must say that the possibilities are incredible. I have used it not only to get really bad vocals right, but also on guitars, to remove unwanted noises, to mock up vocals with some artificial choir and a lot of other purposes. It has become one of my most essential tools.

Yes, it takes a while to understand Melodyne and to unleash it's full potential, but it is definitely worth the effort. Especially with the Studio version, the possibilities to tweak all kind of polyphonic audio material is absolutely brilliant. Celemony also offers very structured and excellent video tutorials and textual manuals. You just have to take your time, to learn, to understand and to practise.

Only the midi conversion functionality of Melodyne could be a bit better.

I am also an old guy and it took me a while to learn. But understanding the concept behind the tool made things a lot easier. I never had any horrible results since.

Cheers
Roland

Nothing that some practice won't fix.

So, you don't do what I do yet you somehow know I must be wrong. I can send you some files.

Melodyne can do quite a bit. It cannot work miracles. I wish that it could.

Melodyne Studio is an incredibly deep program, but it can't do everything. Pros may use its many tools right down to syllable levels. But unless it's something really out of whack I'm probably going to just use the slider at about 85% instead of spending a couple of hours.


Hoarse, breathy vocals can have density added using clippers like Karzog's KClip to increase RMS energy and also using super heavy paralleled compression with something like a Fairchild plugin.

It's recommended to tune first, but there is no harm in experimenting.

And Willie proves that the most compelling thing is performance. If there is no feeling, nothing will make it sound great.

Yep,
and as you've suggested, sometimes the "out of tune"ness is right for the song.
My singing was once described as aggressively atonal by some one who actually liked the song they were commenting upon.
The tendency, with pitch correction, to squeeze all of the human out of the vocal by making it "perfect", & I don't mean by getting into the robot artefact area, can kill a song stone dead. I know, I've done it more than once.
Most pitch correction doesn't recognize "blue notes" for example. Where would pop'n'rock be without those?

Guys, unfortunately, in Melodyne, you can't cut corners.

You think you can first select all notes, then use the Macro slider to instantly fix every thing? You can't.

You can macro fix the pitch drift. You can't macro fix the pitch.

Because when you macro slide notes to pitch center, you are centering the yellow blobs, not the red lines.

The blobs are just containers of average pitch, the lines are the actual pitch you need to align.

There are many times you need to cut/chop a blob to pieces, in order to align different portions of a line.

One song takes several hours to Mel. It ain't an easy job.

Yeah ..... I was recently rebuffed for suggesting.....(redacted a fair amount of what I was going to say).....

That said, yes absolutely. Everyone should have it and use it. it's a rare singer today who doesn't need a touchup here and there and rather than recording it again on an otherwise good take, a tweek in melodyne is quick and easy.

I use it on every single vocal that goes through my studio. I've used it to fix instrument tracks as well.

I have to agree with what MusicVillain says here. Macros alone will never do the job. It needs some additional manual treatment and help for the program to properly understand what was intended. But then the results sound very natural.

It is also obvious, that well sung vocals are the best choice. The less treatment necessary, the better. Unfortunately often enough that's not the case. Good vocals require a lot of training. You just can't do a marathon if you are not fit. I often discover that with my own voice. I can hear that something is wrong, but I can't control it. The vocals are just unstable and shaky. And the older I get, the worse it gets.

My spare time is limited and I have to decide whether to spend it on vocal training, on my instruments or on production. Whatever opportunity there is, I try to find the best balance.

Here's a great use for melodyne.

Yes we all know that it can fix a pitchy vocal but ultimately, isn't the goal to track a better vocal from the start? Of course it is.

Melodyne can help you achieve that goal. Once you've sung the track and loaded melodyne it displays the vocals in what are called blobs on a grid. Not only does it show you the flat and sharp and off time stuff but there's actually a lot more information on your vocal techniques in the blobs if you know what to look for.

Just one example. On a held note, usually at the end of the vocal phrase.... Does the blobs remain consistent in shape all the way to the end of the note or does it change shape at some point before the note ends? Often, a singer, including myself, will tend to pull back or "swallow" the note. We don't pay attention to what this actually sounds like but it's not the Hallmark of a good singer.
A quick glance at melodyne's blobs and you can see all the swallowed notes. Using the punch features, go back and rework the note and sing it with power and see the difference in the blob and the sound of the note. It's where we move from chest voice to throat voice in the middle of the note without realizing that we're doing it.

This is but one thing you can do to actually improve your initial singing on the front end of the process. Vibrato and volume fading notes are two more things you can see and work on to get better on the tracking of vocals.

In essence, melodyne is a vocal coach.

I never thought of autotune as a diagnostic aid, but what you describe could be supremely helpful to a singer, even a no-autotune purist.

All.

please dont 'yap' at me , but heres some ideas ive developed over the years not only recording my vocs..but others vocs….and singing in everything from church choirs thru' rock/metal groups n' various other genres.
(i enjoy doing different vocs in different styles n' different personas etc etc. whether i'm any good i'll let others judge my songs..lol.)

1..dont be too hard on yourself. REMEMBER even the best vocallists have 'bad days'.
2..if you tell yourself your a bad vocalist you will be,
JUST GO AT IT AND ENJOY IT AND HAVE CONFIDENCE.
3..listen to old classic hits lots of 'booboos'. didnt stop em' being hits.
4..when developing songs in biab/rb FIND YOUR BEST VOC KEY FOR THE SONG.
ie if you find one key isnt working transpose the chord sheet n' try another.
5..try different vocal 'characters' n' personas. eg maybe a straight voc doesnt work but maybe another character vocal does. maybe a high voc dont work but maybe a low one will or vice versa.
for example (n' it cheeses me off daily") i used to be a v high male soprano in church..but as i age …i'm loosing upper registers…so i am forced to adapt.
6..practice breathing excercises. (see net for more info.)
7..ok so you have great lyrics…when singing em' to get control dont record the whole shebang at one take if you have probs..try maybe a phrase or two. maybe a few takes of each n' comp from the best takes. yes i know its laborious but it can often work.
8..one of the best ideas i can suggest is the following…do practice warm ups.
human nature being it is even some of the best vocallists get nervous in a big studio that cost millions and they are put in front of an expensive mic.
i remember my first time in such…at home on my own rig i could do the voc…but in the big studio i became a 'nervous nellie'...and fell apart...till i did a couple of takes with a cuppa tea…lol.
9..ALWAYS do a guide first voc if your nervous.
what ive often found is (and its due often to fear of failure n'other psychology) one is often nervous on a first take. when i recorded others on a first take i would just say 'this is a practice voc take for levels/set up etc.'...BUT often that first take was the best cos the person went 'phew i can relax its just a guide trak'.
10..psychologically.. having a guide voc first take down n' hearing back ive found one sings better on second n' subsequent takes. COS YOU HAVE A BASE REFERENCE.
(its the same if i play gtr…normally the second n' subsequent takes are better, dunno why.
i put it down to human psychology).
11..i dont personally use 'tuning software'...cos i think the fact that its available makes one not strive as much. so i would respectfully suggest to only use it once everything else has been tried. (ie dont become over reliant on it.)
12..maybe read up on the net various tips from vocal coaches n' others.ABOVE ALL REMEMBER TO ENJOY THE SONG CREATION PROCESS n' as DR G says have fun. thats why i do songs.

happiness to all with your vocals.
hth/ymmv etc etc.

om

This exactly! I am still trying to wrap my brain around how Melodyne works but first and foremost would be a performance that had feeling . . . Then I'll see what I can do if something is a tad off.

~Russell~

I don't, I use it manually. You assume too much.

Not everyone who posts here on the forum is a professional singer.

So, what would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?

If it becomes a requirement to sing on pitch and only to produce professional-sounding vocals to be welcome on the User Showcase, then about 99% of us need to go home!

There are some excellent vocalists here on the site. We all know who they are. Can any of them sing as well as Willie Nelson or Whitney Houston? How many of us have a five-octave range?

The idea that we somehow need to control the level of quality of everyone who comes here is at best distasteful.

Now, Melodyne is an excellent software that requires a substantial learning curve. The same goes for Autotune Pro. They can not fix everything. They are useful for good vocalists and less useful for a very poor vocalist. In some ways, it is like computer software...GIGO

For someone who uses BIAB, it seems ludicrous to call using any software "cheating."

I was not aware this was a test.

Billy

I hope sharing information about how to improve a vocal production ... if that's what someone wants to do ... isn't construed as disinviting or discouraging anyone.

Certainly not why I'm following this thread.

DFT

Both good singers and poor singers should be welcome to the User Showcase forum.

How about an implementation of like button bumping algorithm?

Like how Instagram works, if a singer is on tune and the music is produced in high quality, her song will be bumped up based on the number of likes she received.

If a singer is out of tune, he can still post, he just doesn't get many likes, so his song is not showing on first page of the forum.

User Showcase forum should be promoting, not hurting PG Music sales.

Imagine if a new customer is interested in buying the software, and visits the showcase forum to check things out. After listening to a few songs bumped on the top and only finds those songs out of tune, is he still going to make a purchase?

My thought is someone looking to purchase Band-in-a-Box will hopefully understand Band-in-a-Box provides the instrumental elements of a song while the User Showcase song poster provided, or had someone provide, a lead vocal.

In the same manner, what if the User Showcase song is an instrumental and all the instruments sound professional except for the lean piano it's pretty easy to guess which part the song poster provided.

Finally, potential customers can find demo songs throughout the sales information.

I started reading this thread not knowing it was focused on vocals. I can't help there, but I do have Melodyne Studio and I do use it very occasionally.

You know I play wind instruments, and they haven't yet built one that is fully in tune with itself, no matter who plays it. Further, each one of my trumpets has its own nuances and I have to compensate depending on which horn I have. If I really miss on an otherwise good take, I may employ a little help.

I listen for the songs, for the ideas, for the use of BIAB, for the improvement, for the communication and for fun.
Man, you're full of suggestions, criticisms and comments but get a grip on life, the universe & the User Showcase Forum.
Some folk get a heap of listens and comments because they always present high quality productions of high quality songs.
Some folk get a heap of listens and comments because they present high quality songs.
Some folk get a heap of listens and comments because they leave generous/kind/helpful or supportive comments for other folk.
Some folk get some listens and some comments because that's how the folk on the forum feel at that stage/age/day/hour etc.
The forum showcases how some people with limited access to musical instruments, perhaps with limited access to money, with limited mixing/editing/tracking skills can create a song with BIAB. As such it's a BRILLIANT promotional tool to & for people who want to make songs. If something is out of tune it's likely the vocalist BUT BIAB doesn't make the vocals so pitchy vox aren't a slap at the program. Your perspectives are very interesting but in a place where most folk make music because they love to, because they simply MUST, because they want to get a message across or for what ever reason your perspective seem to be lifting the bar in a way that prevents folk doing what they want to do. Most hits songs from the 1940s to the 2000s aren't pitch perfect, aren't perfect. If you're after bland perfection you're in the wrong place.

Have any of y'all ever not enjoyed a song just because it didn't exhibit inhuman levels of perfection in timing and pitch that can only be generated artificially?

Ray,

I have been running a 4-way factorial Anova test of variance in a controlled longitudinal study of posters on music forums for 20 years and have just released the results.

With our p values against the null hypothesis so low, we can now say with a degree of 99.99989989 certainty that people who post threads asking people to improve their forum music or else are usually writing the very worst crap that has has been written in the history of the world 99.9999999967698765 % of the time, and that the only solution is to ship them off to the North Pole where they can design another funny animated mask to wear and maybe sharpen their skills on the Shamisen.

Also, we have proved that the more time people spend not reading these "educational forums" the better their songs are by a factor of 10,000 percent, and they also seem to be writing more of them.

What is hindering our research though, Ray, are those who are talking but who have written or posted Zero songs, since zero is hard to factor into any equation of this sort.

What we don't know is if they were so terrified of writing after writing such preposterous boasts that they inflicted paralysis on themselves, or if they came to this thread because they already had the paralysis beforehand in conjunction with colitis and constipation.

That will require a higher level of Fourier analysis and we expect the project to be done in 5 years.

By that time, BIAB should have made enough adjustments to help everyone write at least one acceptable tune, since Peter Gannon has promised to make one house call per customer to show them how to generate a track.

I will keep you posted Ray, since I know you are a man of keen wit, and a shrewd intellect, who likes to stay ahead of the pigs, as we say here in the country.

Your Harvard friends here send you greetings from Cambridge. Our chess and brandy nights have been lonely without you.

Do pop over as soon as you can, and please bring that delightfully 60s punk sensibility of yours. It is all the rage here again, thank God.

Hi Peter, Andrew and other Forum Moderators.

I think it may be time to end this discussion.

I started it with what I thought were a couple of positive suggestions as to how we may improve the quality and in particular vocals in submitted songs.

But it has descended into acrimonious and argumentative comments - none of which relate to the theme of this thread.

Hoping you have a method of deleting this thread.

Thanks & Best Regards
Nigel

You blinded me with Science!
Would that Thomas Dolby was Thomas Dobly instead.
You thesis is worthy of Theseus & Theus.
Should we apply Mohs' or Calvin's Scale to this situation?
I've not considered applying those to myself as I'm more inclined to scratch & sniff.
I always fall back on the hardness axiom: a diamond in the rough is difficult to chip and harder to putt.

Perhaps if you click RESOLVED & orthe Notify Moderator buttons it will no longer attract activity.
Worth a try.

Nah.... This baby's just getting a good head of steam.

My thoughts: use the tools you need and/or can afford to make the best possible song that YOU like.
If that means autotuning vocals, guitars, and your kitten's "meow" to your liking, then do it.
If not, don't.
It's your song, and you have to like it first.

I've been trying to ignore that, but it's been getting to me. Sorry.

By "some kind of wizardry" I most definitely did not mean that everyone uses some kind of pitch correction. I did mean that top flight singers and others will at the very least do occasional retakes and that the recordings will almost certainly have some level of mixing/production done on them. And I also recognise that a fair number would avoid even that as far as they can.

What I meant was that if pitch correction gets someone a production with which they are happier, then don't be shy/embarrassed about using it.


I agree entirely.

I feel exactly the same also about the amount of compression and 'ducking' used in so many modern recordings. It makes me feel like someone is squeezing my head.

I have seen in many cases, when a singer pubished a well arranged, well composed, well vocal tuned, well vocal EQed single, it gets more views/attentions/recognitions than another singer's ten albums combined.

The wisdom is, modern music is not about quantity, it's all about quality.

In older days when there was no pitch correction software, a singer would record her vocal twenty times, then have the producer spending a whole week doing comping on each take to get the most on-tune result possible.

In nowadays, so many young people want to achieve fame and money via music and internet, and it's hard to stay in the competition without mastering the vocal tuning skill yourself.

I think this thread reflects a simple fact: people use the Showcase for different reasons.

If you aspire to modern professional productions you will need to know your way around pitch correction. If that is not your aim, then you don't.

Pitch correction never has written, played or sang a single song ... and never will. It is simply a sophisticated tool to create something, a near perfectly pitched vocal, many people have come to expect.

What is and always will be much more important is writing, playing or singing a song.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the story, but I remember reading that since so many people listened to music compressed into lossy MP3 format, they actually preferred that sound for cymbals over the true sound, since that's what it "should sound like" to them.

The same thing goes with pitch correction. What I might hear as the sickly-sweet sound of auto-tuning, others hear as normal.

Just last week, I saw a plugin that allowed you to emulate the "classic" sound of pumping, a byproduct of compressors having an overly slow release that's often associated with dance music. It's not usually considered a good thing, but again - people have gotten used to the sound.

Railing against pitch correction seems to me as akin to complaining about drum machines. It's just a tool.

Ha !! I use pitch correction on all my songs. I want the vocal to sound as best as I can make it and pitch correction helps tremendously. My choice is Autotune live so I can hear the correction as it's happening. If it's doing too much correction I'll try to change my delivery on the vocal. Maybe I'm trying to do a passage that's either too high for me or I need to "glide" into the phrase. I do think the forum should be for eveyone regardless of skill level. Having said that I'm also a bit in the Nigel camp where I have trusted music friends that will tell me if I'm "way out there" :-) Nothing makes me drop a song quicker than hearing a totally out of tune vocal. Sorry bout that. I also think that when people want to go back to the so called "good old days" they forget how much processing was done on those vocals. Though not pitch correction but a lot of reverb, delay, EQing, Microphone placement (and quality such as a Neumaan (sp) U-87), comping, etc.. to get the desired sound. I have a very good range (probably 4 octave) but I don't post a lot of music in the forum because my songs with the highest adoption rate are not composed in BIAB. I just haven't conquered that yet. I just can't seem to write the stuff I really like with the software. Of course that's on me. I'll leave one comment that some will disagree with but I'll never list Willie nelson or Paul McCartney as GREAT singers :-)

Knowing that I'm on BIAB, McCartney just called me, and he was sobbing. I mean inconsolable. He couldn't believe that Henry Clarke would say that about him. He told me that he just realized he was an utter failure and his whole life was a joke, and none of his songs would ever compare to the utter majesty that can be achieved on a music software forum.

It broke my heart.

I don't think he's going to be able to recover from that Henry.

You should call and apologize. He was pretty upset.

It seems The Getting of Wisdom is only by dental extraction then.
in my opinion the statement isn't wisdom: it's opinion...they've in common only O, I!

A matter of quality is subjective and the specific aspect ought be made clear.

You'd best start providing citations with the latter day axioms.

I think Willie makes the point for me regarding QUALITY.
He sings as song, he sells a song, he gives the impression the song & narrative are personal. Willie sings up to and slides from a note, he uses blue notes and more. He connects with an audience and that makes him a great singer. I don't much like the stuff Willie sings but that's a matter of taste.

Cut it out Dave !! hahahahahahahahahaha

I would call him but he's "Band on the Run"!! :-)

The same with the "sound of vinyl"or the sound of a "decent" HiFi system. Yes, they are learnt expectations and preferences.
When I listen to the newer remastering of the ancient Lou Reed Live with the Velvet Underground 1969 I don't hear the tape hiss that I spent years getting used to and now the clean version sound white washed.

For those of you in the forum who are hyped up about trying out pitch correction technology after reading this thread.

Today is your lucky day.

There is a built-in pitch correction feature right inside Band-in-a-Box, called "Audio Harmony Fix Tuning Intelligent Mode".

Fire up BiaB, drag your vocal in, close your eyes, and wait for the miracle to happen.

You are welcome. Don't thank me, thank Peter Gannon for giving it to you for free.

This feature was also added to the new Powertracks

https://www.pgmusic.com/powertracks.features.htm
.. along with vocoder ..

Hi Folks,

I see PGMusic took no notice of my request to end this discussion - probably a good thing as there have been some witty and amusing posts since.

Now that we are well and truly off the point and discussing the merits or otherwise of Willie Nelson's voice. It takes me back to 1978 and the only album I have ever bought of Willie's music - "Stardust".
I only bought the album because it featured IMHO two of the greatest ever songs (regardless of genre) "Stardust" and "Georgia On My Mind".

Boy - Willie really nailed those two songs. They both have some really challenging notes and phrasing for any singer.

Sure he was helped by some magical backing and super production by Booker T Jones plus a really gutsy decision to stick Willie's vocals way out front in the mixes.

But it really worked!

Best Regards
Nigel

In the FWIW category ... traditionally country music vocals are near invariably 'way out front.'

Bet Willie called it that way.

That is so true. I couldn't agree more. That's why when "Nashville advocates" tell an RnB guy how he should sound he's way out of his element and I just ignore their comments. It's not that they are wrong. They just see producing from a different perspective. I mean you won't find Sam Smith, Ne Yo, or Bell Biv Devoe being produced in Nashville. Maybe Kanye would go there ?? hahahahahaha

"Runaway" by Del Shannon was number #1 from four weeks in 1961. His song was 'pitch corrected'

Here's the story:

Quote from "The Riff" by Frank Mastropolo 3.25.21

Harry Balk of Detroit’s Talent Artists arranged for the pair to record “Runaway” in January 1961 at New York’s Bell Sound Studios with Balk producing.

(Max)Crook brought his Musitron from Grand Rapids to New York, where he set it up before skeptical engineers at Bell, then one of the first four-track studios in the world. Shannon’s website explains that when Balk returned to Detroit, he felt that Shannon’s singing was flat and should be re-recorded. Instead, Bell engineers sped up Shannon’s vocals to nearly one-and-a-half times its original speed.

When Shannon heard the way his voice was manipulated, Balk recalled, he was angry.

“He said, ‘Harry, that doesn’t even sound like me!’ I just remember saying, ‘Yeah, but Del, nobody knows what the hell you sound like!’ Two weeks after its release, forget it! It’s selling 50,000. It’s selling 60,000. Eventually, it topped off selling 80,000 records a day. After ‘Runaway’ became a million-seller, Del came in and thanked me for what I had done.”

End Quote.

That was a year before Willie Nelson signed his first major label recording contract, with Liberty Records.

This is a great story. Thanks!

But just so those new to the topic aren't confused, this isn't what is meant today by 'pitch correction.'

Whatever key Del sang this in his relative pitch was fine. The overall pitch of his vocal was simply raised. Which begs the question, what about the back up music? I imagine the entire original production was simply sped up, not just the vocal.

'Pitch correction,' as currently used, is used when a singer does not have correct relative pitch across a performance even if most notes as sung are correct.

The famous introduction of auto tune by Cher in 'Believe' was actually a deliberate misuse of the software's purpose for an exaggerated effect. I'm sure Cher has more than acceptable pitch control.

If he sang flat against the backing then raising it all would've meant he was still flat. Lifting the speed THAT much seems extreme - he'd have had to have been more than flat.
THEN synching the sped vocal to the backing would've been a nightmare too - particularly with a tape fourtrack....the vocal would have to be dubbed, cut, diced n spliced then run back into the 4 track.
Perhaps it was just a case of speeding up the whole song so it sounded more exciting.
If the vocal was raised to fit the backing then it's definitely been "pitch corrected".

Idle speculations.

So ... as sometimes happens when singing ... Del might have grabbed a note that was a 3rd or 5th above the note he was supposed to start on, i.e., singing harmony. And also been a little flat.

If you multiply a frequency by 1.5 you get a perfect 5th ... essentially what speeding up 1.5 times does. But Del would still be flat if he was flat on the harmony note to start with. So he'd have to be sped up a little more than 1.5. But it says "almost 1.5 times?"

But then how could the lyrics have fit into the arrangement even if the vocal was now in key?

Must be more to the story in some dusty closet in an abandoned recording studio.

Or memories have become less accurate...or any number of things I suppose. Del's not going to offer a definitive.

OK, this is "Runaway" slowed down to 67% tempo, which, if the above is true, would be the original speed:

https://soundcloud.com/mark_hayes/runaway-at-67-tempo

The Musitron solo is at 01:44.

It's pretty obvious this wasn't Del's actual singing. But that Musitron solo does sound like this here could have been the original performance.

I'm guessing the "one-and-a-half times" is true of the Musitron but not the voice (which, according to Wikipedia, was only tweaked a semitone.)

I know how all you Nashville folks have a lot of dislike for Autotune but I have known for a long time that almost EVERYONE today uses it no matter what the genre. Check out this short clip from a Grammy Winning NASHVILLE .. yep I said "Nashville" producer.

link: https://youtu.be/SGGCU31rUHQ

Personally, I hate AutoTune, for several reasons.

Wrongful Correction
If you are out of tune less than 50 cents of a semitone, congratulations, AutoTune snaps you back to the pitch center.

If you are out of tune more than 50 cents of a semitone, even by going over a little bit, AutoTune snaps you to the pitch center of the next flat or sharp note, makes you out of tune even more.

Integrity Damage
Vocal expressions such as vibrato, legato, etc, would be detected as out of tune pitches, and trigger false positive corrections, damage the integrity of formant articulations.

Retune Speed Dilemma
Set too high, generates a robot like artifact. Set too low, won't do much work.

Graph Mode
Cumbersome and hard to use. Much less intuitive than Melodyne.

So, that's why I hate AutoTune.

Try melodyne. It's not the same as autotune.

Ahhh ... I think he does.

I love the first comment to this video: ":I'm sorry but if they use autotune or anything else, they should not be in the industry. For years people did without it, Sinatra, Presley, and the list goes on. Pink does not use autotune and neither does Celine or Kelly Clarkson."

Me: I don't know why you are using that jawbone drone thing. Singing doesn't need that accompaniment.

I don't get that piano. The harpsichord is perfectly adequate.

C'mon who wants to listen to that weird wax thing when you can hear real music? You'll probably have to put a picture of a dog in your advertisements if you want to attract any attention.

Why are you amplifying that guitar? That is not necessary. You think people are really going to want to amplify everything?

Who needs a synth, we've already got pianos?

Pitch correction?!#*#

Non Sequitur.

MV offers:
"Wrongful Correction
If you are out of tune less than 50 cents of a semitone, congratulations, AutoTune snaps you back to the pitch center.

If you are out of tune more than 50 cents of a semitone, even by going over a little bit, AutoTune snaps you to the pitch center of the next flat or sharp note, makes you out of tune even more.

Integrity Damage
Vocal expressions such as vibrato, legato, etc, would be detected as out of tune pitches, and trigger false positive corrections, damage the integrity of formant articulations.

Retune Speed Dilemma
Set too high, generates a robot like artifact. Set too low, won't do much work.

Graph Mode
Cumbersome and hard to use. Much less intuitive than Melodyne."

Just because it says AUTO on the lid doesn't mean you can't use it manually.
What you outline are also problems with Melodyne to some degree and are dependent upon the user. I use ReaTune & Melodyne manually so that I only correct what I feel needs correction. Any artefact that gets through is a result of my laziness. Though I might use the program to create an arty fact..but I don't.

Aiming for the centre isn't always a good thing


& then there's this which is quite revealing..

That was VERY interesting Mr. Hayes. I think it also points to the recollections cited being a little blurred by time.
The Musitron really makes the song great.

Being dead does have that effect.