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Does auto tune change the way new singers sing?


bp

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I recently did a local sound gig with an artist who had immaculate pitch. Almost to good. The movement between notes was too stiff. He actually sounded like his voice was overdone with auto tune.

 

Has hearing tuned vocals made the way new singers perform stiffer than vocalists who learned their craft before auto tune was around?

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Sure... people unconsciously (or perhaps consciously) emulate what they hear -- sometimes even if they don't like it.

 

I hear more people going for flattened out notes, instead of hitting pitch and then engaging vibrato, they're hitting pitch and locking (to the extent they can). I've even heard folks who seemed to be emulating note-jumping glitches.

 

Speaking of the latter, I've been listening to a lot of 60s era Brit folk and that neo-Celtic folk style incorporated some vocal techniques that, on occasion, sound eerily like A-T note jumping. I'm thinking in particular of Annie Briggs, June Tabor and others in that bag.

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Yes it is affecting young singers, or singers with good enough ears to copy what they are hearing. It is rather odd to hear someone do this and know that you probbably can't explain to them why it is strange.

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I was at a friend's house last night watching a video DVD of Toto performing in Paris in 2008. I listened to Bobby Kimball's high notes carefully and it totally sounded Auto-Tuned. My friend, who's a big Toto fan said, "Yeah his pitch is awful these days, you actually wouldn't want to hear him without it."

 

Also, keyboardist Greg Phillingaines sang "Africa" totally auto-tuned as well.

 

No, not in the Akon/T-Pain/Cher robotic way, but it sounds natural until you hear the way the notes subtly slide into each other - the Maroon 5 way.

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Part of the charm of Yes, to me was their slightly out-of tune harmonies, a la CSN&Y, when they would play live.

Then all of a sudden, in the late-90s, their harmonies started sounding immaculate, live.

I figured it was auto-tune, but I didn't want to believe that these peaceful old hippies and druids would resort to gear, such as that.

Bought a live dvd of theirs, and in the credits, they had a shout out to Eventide processors. Oh well. :idk:

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