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> in all genres of music I get where you're coming from. I remember Celemony announcing their polyphonic tuning engine a little over a decade ago, and remember

> in all genres of music I get where you're coming from. I remember Celemony announcing their polyphonic tuning engine a little over a decade ago, and remember buying it as soon as it came out and re-tuning a load of Imogen Heap tunes and loving it, in something like Reaper v2. I know how prevalent Melodyne is, I know the commercial and production related justifications for its use. But I also know for a fact that this is not the case 'in all genres of music'. Sometimes, I want to listen exclusively to music with real vocals. I love the first CHVRCHES album, it's one of my favourite albums of the last decade. As it happens, it took me ages, a couple of years, to figure out that the reason I liked it as much as I did was the lack of autotune. I (ironically) figured this out when they released their second album which _did_ utilise autotune. I never made it all the way through listening to that second album.

mjr00 4y ago
I guarantee that the music you're listening to that has "real vocals" has used Melodyne, you just don't notice it. Even if the artist themselves thinks they didn't use it, if they worked with a professional mixing/mastering engineer, they likely did vocal correction without the singer's knowledge. You may as well say "I don't listen to music that uses EQ" or "I don't listen to music that uses compressors."
- boomskats 4y ago
  > You may as well say "I don't listen to music that uses EQ" or "I don't listen to music that uses compressors." Not the same as either of those things. You might as well be arguing that I'm claiming that volume knobs shouldn't exist. Pick an equivalent like photography. In the photography world, EQ is like a fill light. A compressor you could compare to a polarising filter. Autotune (or drum quant) though, is like photoshopping. Removing all of the skin blemishes and imperfections at best, and at worst and more often than not, it's fake disproportionate waist and ass booty enhancement.
  - mjr00 4y ago
    This doesn't make any sense. Vocal compression alters the source signal significantly more than pitch correction, generally. Like getting -10, even -20dB of compression across multiple compressors (some of which are "character" compressors like the 1176 or LA2A, so doing more than just dynamics) is not uncommon. Every vocal runs through a de-esser (a specialized compressor, really) that removes sibilance, which is much more analogous to "removing all of the skin blemishes and imperfections".
    - boomskats 4y ago
      It does make sense. Compression is a uniformly applied filter. It's like a contrast adjustment or colour curve. It also affects amplitude only. (It can also be done really badly - I'm not a huge fan of its abuse in the loudness wars, but that's not what we're talking about here.) Compression is an effect that's applied. Selective tuning, like quantisation, is the result of an _interactive, selective edit_. It's the equivalent of photoshopping out the spots on my ass and making my hips a little narrower. Sure I could have not had that ingrown asshair, and maybe my hips would be narrower if I worked out. But the reality is different. (Also IMHO ratio is a better single indicator of severity of compression, rather than dB)
      - mjr00 4y ago
        If you're seriously interested in this topic, you should look into some vocal processing courses or videos on YouTube, because you are quite misinformed on some of this stuff. > Compression is a uniformly applied filter. It's like a contrast adjustment or colour curve. It also affects amplitude only. Very incorrect. Many famous compressors are known for the color (saturation, technically speaking) that they add to the sound. Hell, some are known for how badly they destroy the sound, like the Level-Loc. Analog-style compressors (which most engineers still use for vocals, in particular) also react very differently to different input gains, so it's not a uniformly applied filter. > (Also IMHO ratio is a better single indicator of severity of compression, rather than dB) It is not. Talking in terms of total gain reduction is more indicative of the effect on the sound. Using a 100:1 ratio (in practice, a limiter, something like Pro-L on Safe mode) is very common on vocals to catch quick peaks, but only catching a few dB of gain reduction. You won't notice that a limiter is being used on vocals this way. But you would notice if I used a 2:1 ratio on a vocal and set the threshold all the way down, crushing the dynamic range. You also can't talk about ratios when talking about using compressors in serial, which again, is standard vocal processing.

mjr00 4y ago

I guarantee that the music you're listening to that has "real vocals" has used Melodyne, you just don't notice it. Even if the artist themselves thinks they didn't use it, if they worked with a professional mixing/mastering engineer, they likely did vocal correction without the singer's knowledge. You may as well say "I don't listen to music that uses EQ" or "I don't listen to music that uses compressors."

boomskats 4y ago
> You may as well say "I don't listen to music that uses EQ" or "I don't listen to music that uses compressors." Not the same as either of those things. You might as well be arguing that I'm claiming that volume knobs shouldn't exist. Pick an equivalent like photography. In the photography world, EQ is like a fill light. A compressor you could compare to a polarising filter. Autotune (or drum quant) though, is like photoshopping. Removing all of the skin blemishes and imperfections at best, and at worst and more often than not, it's fake disproportionate waist and ass booty enhancement.
- mjr00 4y ago
  This doesn't make any sense. Vocal compression alters the source signal significantly more than pitch correction, generally. Like getting -10, even -20dB of compression across multiple compressors (some of which are "character" compressors like the 1176 or LA2A, so doing more than just dynamics) is not uncommon. Every vocal runs through a de-esser (a specialized compressor, really) that removes sibilance, which is much more analogous to "removing all of the skin blemishes and imperfections".
  - boomskats 4y ago
    It does make sense. Compression is a uniformly applied filter. It's like a contrast adjustment or colour curve. It also affects amplitude only. (It can also be done really badly - I'm not a huge fan of its abuse in the loudness wars, but that's not what we're talking about here.) Compression is an effect that's applied. Selective tuning, like quantisation, is the result of an _interactive, selective edit_. It's the equivalent of photoshopping out the spots on my ass and making my hips a little narrower. Sure I could have not had that ingrown asshair, and maybe my hips would be narrower if I worked out. But the reality is different. (Also IMHO ratio is a better single indicator of severity of compression, rather than dB)
    - mjr00 4y ago
      If you're seriously interested in this topic, you should look into some vocal processing courses or videos on YouTube, because you are quite misinformed on some of this stuff. > Compression is a uniformly applied filter. It's like a contrast adjustment or colour curve. It also affects amplitude only. Very incorrect. Many famous compressors are known for the color (saturation, technically speaking) that they add to the sound. Hell, some are known for how badly they destroy the sound, like the Level-Loc. Analog-style compressors (which most engineers still use for vocals, in particular) also react very differently to different input gains, so it's not a uniformly applied filter. > (Also IMHO ratio is a better single indicator of severity of compression, rather than dB) It is not. Talking in terms of total gain reduction is more indicative of the effect on the sound. Using a 100:1 ratio (in practice, a limiter, something like Pro-L on Safe mode) is very common on vocals to catch quick peaks, but only catching a few dB of gain reduction. You won't notice that a limiter is being used on vocals this way. But you would notice if I used a 2:1 ratio on a vocal and set the threshold all the way down, crushing the dynamic range. You also can't talk about ratios when talking about using compressors in serial, which again, is standard vocal processing.