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Seal's new album - System


Mr. Botch

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Some folks just take too long between albums.

 

Seal's new release wasn't even advertised in most of the ads this last Sunday, one mentioned it's release this last Tuesday, I grabbed it and have been digesting it since.

 

He continues his penchant for somewhat disturbing cover art, but I can live thru that.

 

So good to hear That Voice after a couple years! Many of the tracks are very dance-heavy, but still listenable on a lyrical level. He does a duet with his supermodel wife; I'll say, uh, she sings better than Britney. Overall, damn worth the price to us 26 folks who still buy CD's! :thu: :thu: :thu: :thu: :thu:

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I'm listening to the lead track from System now and though it doesn't really connect with me, the problem isn't his pitch liberties.

 

Frankly I'd much rather hear someone with human imperfection than the hideous wrenchmarks of Autotune on vocals.

 

Maybe I'm just 'oversensitive' to AT artifacts but, damn, I hate that sound.

 

Plus, most people who use Autotune seem to go for the equal-temperament interval (it's right there on the grid, after all :eek: )and that often rubs my ear wrong in two different directions.

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it doesn't matter when it can't be heard

 

If you're talking about AT -- I agree. But I hear it a lot in stuff where it's clearly not being used as an effect. I've heard it in Ricky Skagg's bluegrass recordings for crying out loud. And on more than a few vocals by contemporary artists with jazzy pretensions. (I'll flick on my cable TV jazz channel when I'm pausing a DVR program for a while so as not to burn in the TV screen... they have a lot of stuff on that I wouldn't seek out.)

 

And then there's stuff that's crazy obvious but still seems like an attempt to make us think it's actual singing. Spurred by mention in a thread at GearSlutz, I listened to a track from the new Duran Duran album. Hoo boy.

 

I don't have a problem with people using it to correct a problem if it is truly transparent. I don't think there's anything wrong with making a studio recording as good a package as you can; I think a certain amount of editing and fixes are expected.

 

But just as I don't want to hear a pop or rhythmic glitch on a tape or computer splice -- I don't want to hear the wrenchmarks of heavy-handed Autotune use to distract me from the illusion that I'm hearing someone perform (on some kind of level).

 

Obviously, if someone is using AT as an effect, as in the new Britney Spears album, that's another matter. No one would ever think she's trying to make us think she sings like a cross between a robot and a sampler. I think there's considerable more integrity in such an approach.

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Artist which have a strong concept of intonation do not need any tuning with processors like AutoTune.

 

The threshold of what a person detects as sounding out of tune is at an individual mark. I simply can't enjoy any music which is above my threshold of detection, that's a real problem for me and leads sometimes to embarrassing situations; at the start of an rehearsal I told the conducter to stop and told the englishhorn to tune his instrument 14 cents down. A single instrumentalist can make a whole orchestra unusable.

 

There are more phenomenon, i.e. singer who intonate relatively far from known temperaments but sound perfectly right, for example David Bowie is such an artist with a very unique intonation.

 

Another fact is, some singers are flexible and adopt to the tuning of the instruments in the accompaniement, in other words intonate slightly different when sympathetic to a pianoforte then when singing with instruments with flexible intonation such as strings.

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Certainly agreed that singing in an environment heavy with equal temperament instruments is working in a minefield of harmonic issues... do you sing the mathematically correct (Pythagorean) harmonic interval and risk being 'out of tune' with organ pads and the like?

 

I was listening to a wild and wooly gospel combo (The Violinaires) earlier today that used organ accompaniment -- they just seemed to mostly go for it and so were out with the organ -- but I wasn't entirely sure that sometimes they were entirely consistent with themselves, either. :D Still, the passion and exuberance in the music carried it for me.

 

A lot, if not most, of my favorite vocal ensembles wisely keep sustained equal temperament instruments to a minimum in their music, giving them freer rain to stay in harmony with each other.

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I'm excited to see Seal has another album out. The track I head; "Amazing" was ..uh..very good!

I enjoy his stuff.

 

 

 

at the start of an rehearsal I told the conducter to stop and told the englishhorn to tune his instrument 14 cents down.

 

 

Sorry to get off-topic, but I'm curious. What exactly do you do?

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