Yorkie wrote:That was my attempt at humour - the English as a second language thing again
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Nah, this was just your sense of humour.
Should have used a single exclamation mark, you know.
Yorkie wrote:Clearly you have a lot of expertise in this area
I have absolutely none.
I think that's one thing that needs to be emphasised before I go any further.
Yorkie wrote:OK, we are progressing. The issue is that I #thought# I knew what auto-tuning sounded like and I do not hear it on this video and nor have I heard it on any other Libera songs.
The thing is, intrinsically auto-tune doesn't really sound like anything. It's just a tool to alter pitch. Even as a "special effect", as most people know it, there are different ways of using it. That's why I'd rather use the term pitch correction, because people associate funny things with the word "auto-tune".
Yorkie wrote:I'll be honest and say upfront that discovering that Libera uses auto-tuning would be a disappointment to me but facts are facts. Whilst we can all have an opinion on whether the editing of songs by layering in vocals, adding synth effects, dynamic range compression, etc is a good or bad thing (and we might be closer together on that point than you think) nobody is right or wrong, but auto-tuning is a whole other ball game in my opinion.
This is exactly why I at first wanted to make no particular mention of any possible effects of using pitch correction. People tend to have really weird presumptions about it. As I said, generally it's used everywhere to fine-tune pitching or to smooth out small flaws in an otherwise fine recording. Essentially to create better recordings. When it is done with that as a goal and used skillfully, it will be pretty much impossible to tell where exactly it has been used. In those cases you can just make an educated guess based on two things: 1) well, everybody uses it, so it's very probable 2) whether the recording is immaculately in pitch or not.
Yorkie wrote:Now, I have never detected that on a Libera recording and I have defended Libera against accusations of auto-tuning on their YouTube videos but it now seems I'm wrong. I'm asking this not to as part of an argument but in order to educate myself and improve my knowledge - at what point (minutes/seconds) on the video do you hear the auto-tuning and on what other Libera tracks do you hear the auto-tuning (album, song title, minutes/seconds)?
This actually more difficult than I thought: the more carefully I listen to the recording, the more I hear all the natural aspects of the voice. One thing I paid attention to was the curious smoothness and steadiness of the longer notes, but that I think could just as well be compression. I suppose all of it could be, really... Just some weird transitions I think I'm hearing: around
Wo de qing bu yi / wo de ai bu bian / yue liang dai biao wo de xin.
Now can I just say one more time: whether or not the reason is pitch correction, it in no way suggests for instance that the original recording was not sufficiently in pitch. What I was worried about was the overall effect on the voice, and in that sense whether what I hear is auto-tune or a mix of the Chinese language and heavy compression (
which it could very well be) does not really even matter to me. I asked a friend of mine for an opinion, she is a bit of a purist regarding music and her answer (without knowing anything about Libera) was along the lines of "I really can't tell, but my guess would be auto-tune."
Never been bothered by that sort of a thing before on any Libera track, even on ones that have otherwise too many effects on them for my taste. That's why I mentioned it in the first place.
It rather terrifies me that I am suddenly the one "accusing" Libera of using "auto-tune", when that was never my point and not even the aspect I first paid attention to. The reason I am now speaking in such detail about it is because I have a tendency to over-analyse everything and anything I can get my hands on, and can do absolutely nothing about it.
It's all just speculation, so please don't read too much into this.
Yorkie wrote:I'll give an example. I remember hearing the Grayson Chance cover of Paparazzi by Lady Gaga (in the school concert, just him and a piano) and being impressed despite the odd flaw in his vocals which I thought just added to the recording. Fast forward to the release of his professional record. I read a review on iTunes where somebody was gushing about how great it was to hear real talent rather than Bieber like auto-tuned crap and laughed to myself because I thought the new Paparazzi studio recording was clearly auto-tuned (amongst other songs on the album).
Example at 1:36 (unfortunately the upload is poor quality; it is much more defined on the CD):
Yes, heavy auto-tuning is obviously used on the CD recording, but how much of it is actual pitch correction and how much is an intentional effect is difficult to tell. My guess would be mostly the latter, given that it's a professional recording of a good singer. It seems that in a lot pop music strong auto-tuning is
the sound, and it's used because that's more or less what people want to hear. Chance is obviously talented and has an excellent sense of pitch – it's not even possible to sing like that without one, it would sound rubbish. In the school concert video he seems to be kind of pushing himself beyond his capacity, and starts going flat when he does that... So I suppose that sort of a thing might need correcting also in a studio recording, but I'd still say it's done mostly for the effect.
People say a lot of silly things about musicians just based on whether they like them or not, and the Bieber-bashing phenomena is a prime example. They call him a bad singer because his character annoys them and well, yes, he obviously uses a lot of auto-tune. But if those people actually understood anything about music and had ever listened to a video of him singing in a street corner before getting famous or even now somewhere to his fans without a microphone, they'd know much better than that. He is a very talented singer.
A musician named David Choi made an excellent Youtube rant on the topic, but unfortunately the video is now private.
