hey chris liepe here i know i'm probably gonna get a lot of
hate or arguments for this video because auto-tune is one of those things pitch correction in general
people get so polarized and angry about it and i can understand why it's ruined a lot of otherwise
good vocal performances and the abuse of it in modern music uh it sucks the life out of
the voice and particularly in certain types of genres the other thing that it does is it can
tend to take the thrill out of listening to a voice if you know it's been auto-tuned because
you can hear what's going on and it it pulls the the cool factor out of the voice again
if it's overused misused this is where i'm gonna get the hate because i can see a lot
of people exiting out of the video right now and saying not just because it's overused i hate it
i hate auto-tune i hate pitch correction it ruins everything ask yourself this question because i've
got replies and and comments like this from people like oh that singer uses auto-tune so we can't
learn from this or that singer uses auto-tune so he's not a good singer or i can totally hear
the auto-tune in that line so the whole song sucks if a singer uses auto-tune on something
can you still learn from that singer can you still enjoy that singer now the can you still
enjoy that singer maybe there's no writer there's no right or wrong maybe you can't
and i agree there's there's some things that are so heavily tuned that i i just kind of zone out
but if there is mild tuning once in a while here and there on stuff i i like lots of bands chester
bennington used tons of tuning on on his voice well the production had tons of tuning on it
breaking benjamin tons of tuning periphery lots of tuning these are some of my favorite bands
and favorite vocalists so can you learn from these vocalists can you
can you create and be inspired by these vocalists even if there's tuning ask yourself that question
now let's let's get disgusted first and then we'll get inspired here's michael jackson
tuned we've got this passage here which i just love from billie jean
become the jeweler hey the billy gene is not my love she's just a girl who
the claims is not my son
she says i am the one all right now here is where
modern music and modern production would go oh that's got to be tuned that's not right
and it'll and i'm going to show you it's going to totally jack it up this is the melody he's saying
it quote unquote right here she says i am the one i am the one those are the pitches but here
hear how he didn't he didn't walk down that pitch right quote right i am the one like
that the is not is not quite right so they'd go oh yeah we gotta we gotta lock that in
same goes for drumming uh and timing corrections you should just sing it well with a lot of
attitude you shouldn't fix it um but here here we go we're gonna we're gonna pitch correct this part
it's it's this note right here i am the we want it to be there
and then here the one whole step down incidentally working with pitch correction
really trains your ear forces you to to uh hear notes well and hear intervals and we're gonna
see how the vibrato is causing pitchiness i'm not saying this is the right thing to do but
this is what a lot of people do and how it gets misused ah heck let's just lock in the whole line
and we're going to make this
we're going to retune that so it's more precise ready
and you hear this all the time in modern music you hear it all the time hear how it changed the
format one it made it thinner it actually changed the tone of his voice right here
at the end there it's not cool now it's more accurate
it does not work now and you you put this in context so let's undo it listen
it makes it sucks the life out of it and makes it sound fake even if we were to do it uh
with less so if i if i undo that and let's just say we we get rid of of this one
and and maybe this one even now we're just going to correct that one
note the one that is certainly less noticeable but what we've done is we've taken a recording
that has existed for so long and that we know it in a certain way and these little imperfections
these little pitchiness imperfections actually enhance the overall free groovy vibe of what
we're hearing part of it is that we've heard it for so long but part of it is that as our ears
follow with a great singer like michael jackson if everything is too perfect we lose that sense
of anticipation and human connection so especially with stuff like this you just
you should don't focus on being perfect with your pitch and then and then don't go into auto tune
and try to make yourself perfect sing it till you get it and you can actually use auto tune
to help you see if you're off if you're hearing something that's that's weird but then use it as
a way to educate yourself and learn more try to don't use it as a crutch for you not to improve
or for you not to learn and certainly don't take michael jackson and tune him 2008 producers please
now let's go to the other side here and this is one of my favorite singers of all time
i've gotten a chance to work with him personally in the studio let's listen to this
the love we take and the grave mistakes the let me rape us
oh one of my favorite songs two satellites by periphery now this i know for a fact
that this was tuned very similar to the way that i showed you uh michael jackson's was tuned not all
tuned there but there were notes that were manipulated here and there and then on that
ending part here the background vocals were intentionally tuned and really tightened
those were really tuned now he sung these all of this on pitch i've watched him we were going
for a certain vibe here almost a scenty vibe on these on these notes at the end that the tuning
artistically creates a a certain effect much like you would be using delay or reverb
so this in this case the tuning isn't a crutch it's not spencer can't sing
and so we're going to use this it's like it's it's it's being used as an artistic
coolness that fits the genre and this honestly doesn't bother me at all yeah there's also some
light tuning on some of these other notes and the grave mistakes i can hear it here
take in the grave shake i can hear it on that word take and and i i mean i know
this pretty well so i know which notes are tuned and which ones are not the let me rape
but you can hear that they left that note is listen listen carefully that that really high
note there that that g or whatever is not tuned but then they they zeroed it in here
on on that note you have to ask yourself the the question then
i mean spencer is one of the greatest singers that i've had the privilege of working with and that i
i think listen to he emotes he can scream he can sing he has
wonderful rhythmic qualities to his voice so good so because they use auto-tune on this gang
vocal and he spot-tuned some of these parts does that mean does that ruin the recording for you
it doesn't for me what i'm trying to do here is instill some balance let's not bring out the clubs
and and beat people to death who use auto-tune it is pretty bad when recordings that don't
need to be tuned are tuned and it is pretty bad when a singer can't deliver a good performance
unless they use tuning both of those are misuses of auto-tune and then one more if it gets to the
point to where a a decently good performance is tuned more than it needs to be or tuned period
when it doesn't need to be just because the genre calls for it or whatever you know i don't get into
that but just because i don't get into it doesn't it doesn't mean i need to get angry about it
i do get angry about tuning michael jackson i absolutely do just as i'd get angry about tuning
freddie mercury or tuning a really good vocalist that hey just sing it more times you know when i'm
coaching people through in my own in my own studio and when i'm doing my voice just sing it till you
get it and then use auto-tuning as an intentional effect on background vocals or something like that
as opposed to making it a crutch that's where i draw the line but i also want to encourage you
don't get emotionally involved don't get angry about it i hate on our town we don't need to do
that it's a good tool that has contributed good in good things to music as well as bad things
just like lots of effects you could make the same argument with beat detective in you know uh
creating two perfect drums you suck the groove out of them yeah but moving a snare hit a little bit
to uh to make it hit a little bit better and you know drag is is that cheating well it is cheating
but it nobody heard it because it was a transparent edit
and it helped the performance of the song you could argue well in my day they didn't need to
well right and those recordings are great because they just played it over and over and over and
over again until they got it and that's awesome that's awesome and we should be doing that today
and digital recording has taken away some of that discipline but when you hear and when you
hear a band where they where you can tell they just they did it they did take after take until
they really nailed it they comp together takes or whatever that's always more rewarding to
to listen to and to do and like i said i know i'm gonna get a lot of hate and i don't care what you
say i still hate auto-tune or you're not a real singer because you like auto-tune in certain
don't take words out of my mouth i'm ranting here but i'm also trying to
keep you guys in perspective as vocalists as fans of vocalists and as students of your voice
and fans of lots of people that you probably don't know use auto-tune
that do i'm gonna say that again you're probably fans of vocalists
who you oh they don't use auto-tune and this guy does use autos you don't know you don't know one
of the guys on the channel that i've been doing a lot of uh stuff with is julian casablancas from
the strokes he uses auto-tune their new album is a great album it's a great vocal album there's so
much expression there but there is absolutely tuning don't be resentful and all bad mood-ish
because of auto tune look at the performance the performer does it resonate with you does
it connect with you emotionally no throw it out go listen to something else whether it has tuning on
it or not i'm done with my rant let's get into good music let's learn from it let's embrace
vocalists that we that we love and learn from those and experiment with those things regardless
of whether they use auto-tune or beat detective or do or do editing or let's enjoy the music or not