X-rated Bob wrote:
I think there's a difference here. Artists in the 60s - most notably The Beatles and Hendrix - did make full use of the technology available to them, but much of what they did still relied on them having to play their instruments, sing the harmonies etc etc.
True for the most part, but they
did use the tech they had fully. It wasn't uncommon to record the vocal at a slow speed so that the vocalist could reach the high notes. Cliff Richard would do anywhere up to 100 vocal takes and then the engineers would literally sit and razor edit and splice together the rare snippets where he sang in tune. Those engineers would have
killed for Autotune.
not quite the same as running a vocal track through software that will correct every bum note or even - a la Cher - manipulate the notes into something that was impossible to sing in the first place.
Good example of my point -
I Believe was innovative use of the technology (and no-one can accuse her of not being able to sing in the first place), but unfortunately it spawned a host of imitators. The problem lies not with Cher or her engineer, but with the record-buying public which only likes/buys what sounds familiar and the record companies which pander to them. Now
every pop song
has to have the "Cher effect" as far as the record companies are concerned - a perfect example of an innovative idea which has since been overused and abused.
Overdubbing was one thing, sampling and sequencing and auto-correcting pitch and timing are quite another.
Think about it - how are they different? They allow you to do things in the studio to improve the performance that you can't do live. Make no mistake - the tech cannot take someone who is complete crap and magically make them sound heavenly (A monkey in silk...). However, used properly, it can take a near-perfect performance and remove the "near" - no more throwing away a magical performance with one bum note in favour of a lacklustre one with all the right notes.
To use Autotune (or more correctly Melodyne, which is the pitch-correction effect of choice in studios) as a corrective tool you have to be fairly close to the mark already or it "guesses" the wrong note. Also the further a note is from the correct pitch, the more obvious the pitch shifting becomes. The engineer has to be able to set it up so it leaves the majority of the track alone (unless you want to use it as an effect), or it squeezes all the character out of the performance and makes it sound synthetic. Autotune as effect is the effect
du jour), totally overused - much like Fuzz was in the '60s - and will have the same effect of dating the music and giving it a limited shelf life. I content myself knowing that soon it will be unfashionable and every song recorded with it will quickly fade into obscurity.
Timing correction, just like Autotuning, has to be done in moderation and skilfully to be believable. We used to use things like compression sidechains in the studio to tighten up the timing of instruments (like bass and kick), now we can use Radar to fix those same things without some of the tradeoffs (although sidechaining is still often used - it has a certain charm of it's own).
Samplers are responsible for the accessibility to a wide variety of high quality instrument sounds without all the hassle of vintage gear. Remember, I'm talking
use of the tech here, not
abuse - just because some talentless git samples an entire song, overdubs some "yo" and "Uh-huh" vocals and has a hit with it, does not invalidate the creative potential and use of samplers in the right hands. Anyway - how is a sampler different from a Mellotron (aside from being able to spend more time playing a sampler instead of fixing it)?
I understand your point with sequencers, but as I've said before they fill a role - allowing a small venue to get a full band sound. Have you ever sequenced backing tracks? It's really hard to do well and takes a lot of skill. I wouldn't be able to sequence my own synth and drum tracks anywhere near as well if I hadn't spent a lot of time sequencing covers and also deconstructing good backtracks to find out how they managed to get them to sound good. Sure, some download free backtracks off the Net and use those, but in my experience, you get what you pay for with backtracks.
Look at it this way, it's just a
different skill set or an extra one. Someone has to be able to use the technology - and anyway, you can't use a harmoniser if you don't know what key you are playing in. Is Brian May cheating because he sometimes uses a harmoniser live for multi-voice parts? No - it enables him to improve his live performance so that it's closer to his exquisite studio overdubbing (which he still had to write), and anyway, it's still not the same as the recorded track - just closer. He can also pull it off the live performance with only one voice if he wants to, he's proved that often enough, but with the tech he doesn't have to any more. Harmonisers have a particular sound to them, and usually when they are used it's because you don't have any other option or because you
want that sound (Holdsworth's
Metal Fatigue for instance).
In short, I am saying that there is nothing wrong with any technology
per se - it's how it is used. Some use it as a crutch, some use it to further improve something which would be good regardless. There is also the correct application - you have every right to chuckle at someone who does a set in a folk club and relies heavily on harmonisers and/or backtracks, but I'm saying that to completely dismiss tech out-of-hand because it is abused by some is a short-sighted view.
