Meaningless Commentary on Autotune and Noise Floors

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Mr. Afternoon

Mixing Engineer & Artist
Joined
May 10, 2021
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Hi, friendly neighborhood music addict here, what's up?
Anyway, as some of you may know, I also make music. Wow, shocking, huh?
So basically here's what's been on my mind the past couple of days.

Autotune:
I used to think Autotune was cool. Then I thought it was stupid. Now I see it as a valid production/artistic tool. However, I don't usually use it and I'm not keen on using it, as I don't like how it changes the sound of my voice. Unless when I do, which happens 20% of the time. Anyway, staying robotically in tune like everyone else is hard. Before I didn't think many people used Autotune. Now equipped with a keen ear and something that isn't 10 dollar cheapo earbuds that you'd find in a grocery shop, I find it shocking how many songs are actually using Autotune, including those from singers who "supposedly" don't use Autotune. So, do I Autotune (which is noticeable to my ear because I'm working with isolated vocals that isn't buried in a mix) or do I not Autotune. That is the question. High standards for my first vocal release.

Noise Floors:
So I've also been obsessing over noise floors on certain elements (like vocals discussed above) and turns out that was all for naught because apparently after processing I'm getting better results than some major commercially released songs. Some of them have noise floors of -40 dBfs which is wild while I've been obsessing over my -60 dBfs noise floors.

Anyway, just wanted to get that out of my system. Till we meet again!

Moral of the story: if you can bury it in the mix like everyone else, you're good.
 
I haven't Googled what % of the population has perfect pitch (I don't).

I only know about Autotune being abused for the Cher "Believe" song.

Are there fidelity upgrades for (or planned for) the Autotune system?

Then there's this (maybe there's an opportunity for more out of tune singing):



Kirk Bayne
 
Autotune:
I used to think Autotune was cool. Then I thought it was stupid. Now I see it as a valid production/artistic tool. However, I don't usually use it and I'm not keen on using it, as I don't like how it changes the sound of my voice. Unless when I do, which happens 20% of the time. Anyway, staying robotically in tune like everyone else is hard. Before I didn't think many people used Autotune. Now equipped with a keen ear and something that isn't 10 dollar cheapo earbuds that you'd find in a grocery shop, I find it shocking how many songs are actually using Autotune, including those from singers who "supposedly" don't use Autotune. So, do I Autotune (which is noticeable to my ear because I'm working with isolated vocals that isn't buried in a mix) or do I not Autotune. That is the question. High standards for my first vocal release.

If no one in the broader population has heard your singing voice, does it really make a difference if you use Autotune?

Ain't nothing out there, Autotune or otherwise, that's gonna make my voice listenable. :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 
If you really truly want your band to sound like that one band with the robot voice...

Must be the same band, right? All the songs have the same robot voice. Sounds "cheap" too. So if you also want to sound cheap, autotune will do that for you.

Noise floor? Autotune is a pretty in your face glaring effect. The sound gets instantly lo-fi as part of that effect. I don't think we're too concerned with noise floor issues.

How did Autotune end up taking over from the Vocoder? I know the country singers wanted more of an autopilot correction that didn't have to be dialed in manually. These were generally good singers to begin with that wanted to clean up that last 2% to hit the full "plastic people" effect in the music. Now it's come full circle though with the talent mumbling in a monotone and programming the melody. We're back to vocoder style use.

Maybe there's a way to put these two devices in a feedback loop and make them fight! :)

It's funny how things have flipped upside down though. I hear autotune along with an obvious click track mixed into the final mix sans ever recording any drums and I think disappointing b-side from the '70s. Today they'd put that on the a-side and the track with real drums and a real singer would get the b-side.
 
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