opinion Peavey XR-AT or XR-S

[drmax]

Have read some here, and reviews. Wanting 1st hand experience on either subject PA head, just for dinking around in my bonus room. I can sing pretty decent and usually in tune, but sometime struggle to get to higher keys. Would the AT help with this, or is it just not worthy? My young daughter has a harder time singing in key. And we do like to harmonize. I wouldn't want to get something, that would just equal confusion. If that be the case, I'd just find a refurbished SR-S and call it a day. I may again (previosuly 30 yrs ago 80's band) play out again and either head would be big enough for what I'd ever do. Thx for any advice. DM

[Chris Loeffler]

I actually have a review unit in hand and will be writing up a review in the next few weeks.

 

RE:Autotune- you can dial it in to be as subtle (or not) as you like. Sure, you can get the hard-stepped glitch sounds that Kanye and Cher made famous, but you can get some pretty natural sounding "correction" as well with less exaggerated settings and a decent voice.

 

What you are describing is what it was originally intended for; gentle corrections when you run a bit flat or sharp. The first time I played with auto tune, we thought it was broken because the female singers voice sounded normal. Face palm when we realized you actually have to sin out of key to make it work! If you're way off, it might not hit the note you were shooting for, but at least it should be in key.

 

My two cents- Autotune could certainly be used tastefully, and it is a blast with kids. Every party we had the kids would ask to sing in the microphone at some point :-)

 

As for the PA itself, I haven't logged in the time to give a fair evaluation, just powered it up to make sure it works. It sounded great for the price, but I need to run it through the paces to answer your question. I'll drop back by in a week or so with an update.

[WRGKMC]

Some people can sing very well with autotune. I'm not one of them. I use it for correcting vocals occasionally on recordings but I cant sing with it live. If I were singing fixed pitches that would be one thing but I do vibratos and note bends it makes the autotune glitch all over the place. I have a tough enough time just singing.

 

Autotune can help maintain a pitch but there's allot more to singing then keeping pitch. Pronouncing words clearly, vocal tone, breath control, timing the words to the music correctly are just as important as pitch and cant be fixed using autotune. In the long run you're much better off learning to sing without it because it can mask serious issues you need to focus on. A voice changes in tone when it changes in pitch because the vocal chords and resonance behind them changes. When you only correct pitch the tone in back of the pitch can be off. If its only a little bit it may go unnoticed to a casual listener, but a trained ear hears it quite easily.

 

Personally I do better using echo or reverb keeping pitch. You can hear pitch variances in the resonances occur in the trails of sound and steady them up. It may not help with hitting notes on pitch but it trains you up much quicker then an autotune program/device will.