Modern Music's Death By Auto-Tune 

Van Halen with DLR, hold my Whisky. Terrible live band musically speaking.

You can get a record deal as a writer instrumentalist producer or even mixing or mastering engineer

@@Dayandcounting dlr was never about vocal prowess, hes a front man and a showman and fronted the best work VH did, also a decent lyricist, they arent supper deep but its catchy and you can sing along to dozens of his songs which to me is the mark of a good songwriter

@@Dayandcounting Van Hagar was a bad ass live band though. Sammy is simply an amazing singer.

@@Dayandcounting I saw Van Halen in 1980 and they were the exact opposite of terrible.

68

Nice handle by the way, Sudo! ;)

TAKE A LOOK AT THESE HANDS Byrne's voice is great. Totally gave Talking Heads most of their character.

Your pseudonym has the subconscious effect of giving system admins an overwhelming urge to backup all their servers.

@@NorthernKitty Honour your mistakes as hidden intentions - Brian Eno Oblique Strategy cards

nah you have old ears

❤️❤️❤️

Plenty of singers can sing perfectly in key without autotune. Using the word "imperfections" sounds like you enjoy out of tune singers.

@@danielbentley7117 yes actually. That’s EXACTLY what they mean. Human imperfections, mistakes, are what make music have feel. Why do people double track instruments? For example, why do you double track a guitar? Why not just duplicate the track in your DAW? Because all’s it will do is make it louder, even if you modify certain parts of the copied track, it has no big, grand dangerous feel.

@@footos8511 Double tracking doesn't disprove my point. Doing multiple takes actually hides mistakes in timing and pitch because your brain hears the average of all the takes together, instead of the bad notes or phrasing of each individual take. Similar to how a chorus effect works, by shifting the pitch above and below the performance.

no it doesnt! It requires whatever it happens to require at that moment. Hard work and patience doesnt equate great music. It's not like building a house.

Thelonious Coltrane. Agreed in full. It is also one of the products of a plastic society; one where the average IQ of humans - all over the planet - is halving ever day.

@@atta1798 "progress", the word people use to ignore their moral compasses...

@@atta1798 There's more than one logical fallacy in that reply - and sadly nothing else. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

@@atta1798 Deflect more, buddy. It's hard to miss just how unhinged you are.

LOL

I feel ya brother

I've trained my whole life for this...

Ha!!!!

50 cents is still fixable, a few dollars isn't.

It was easier to because most of them could sing. Today when you can't sing. It wouldn't matter if you sang it a million times it would be bad. So you have to look they get the machine behind you and write your music and auto tune your terrible vocals.

If you make a mistake, do something creative with it. - Eno

If we could save people's brains in a jar to keep their knowledge, Rick's brain would be one I would choose.

@@heysolley not if I get to it first

@@sara505sings : That sounds like a challenge LoL

@@heysolley No need to save it in a jar, Rick is sharing it openly here for everyone's benefit :)

My playing has lots of character. 😄

Check out any Motown recording to feel what humans were doing on the level. …or Kind of Blue…in three recording sessions of probably 9-10 hours total. Daft Punk is cool too, but a different creative approach as mentioned.

Early painters used to purposely put flaws in their paintings because only God is perfect.

@@barrywerdell2614 Word mate.

Even most popular music is void of real people playing real instruments. With midi you can quantize and go back and correct notes.

YES!!! I loved that slip...

Music Co. Rights Holder: "When hell freezes over ..."

@@Markothunder Oh that would be loverly... May seems a decent fellow. He 'May' be up for it. See what I did there? 😊

I figured Pink Floyd would be an instant block. We shall see.

@@ryanhallwrites Pink Floyd demonitizes, but does not block. They want that cheddar.

I laughed when he cut himself off on the second track.

My favourite Rick is Pickle Rick.

I don't know whether Rick got himself some vocal coaching, but I would say his singing has improved a lot in the time that he's had this channel. In his early videos, I did think it a shame that such a talented multi-instrumentalist had such a terrible voice - but in the more recent ones I'd describe his singing as, at worst, 'average'.

I would suggest that someone who can't sing on pitch when required is not really a vocalist.

@@cjay2 The vocalist is a good friend who used to be a fantastic vocalist and entertainer, but due to a series of tragedies and health issues, needs help and a confidence boost. Just trying to help.

A " VOCALIST who had trouble with pitches " ....HAD TO STOP and shut up .!!!!!

I can see it being a good tool for learning. I play bass but can't sing, but wanna find my voice more or less.

@@jean-lucbersou758 Stfu dude, read his other comments before spouting nonsense.

That's what I love about singing. If it's a really hard note, like a Bb4 and up, getting that note is so satisfying for me because of how much work I had to put into getting it. Autotune just kills any satisfaction in singing.

Not strain, reaching for it. Straining for a note means poor technique which will damage the vocal cords. One of the singing technique channels does a series on how the voices of singers like Mariah and Whitney for example, changed over time. Both of them did damage to their voices - Mariah through bad technique and Whitney through her addictions, and even they started to strain. So, straining is a sign something's not right.

One… twenty one GUNS! Oh, not like that.

A good example would be Judas Priest and Iron Maiden for the metal genre. There are instances in their songs where the singers are doing as you described. Its awesome.

yeah, hard to avoid that crap. only headphones or earplugs

Excellent comment

They got famous because the fans like the sound. If they didn't they wouldn't get famous. Hate the fans not the artist.

@@danielj26 No I hate both.

@@Flippokid I'm saying you are the minority or they wouldn't be top 40. You also hate Hollywood makeup and driving cars instead of horses too?

You can have talent and still use autotune, there are many aspects of music that aren't vocals. People who usually use autotune as a tool in electronic or ambient music still have talent.

I wish he would grow out his hair just for a single reprisal of that beautiful intro

he was a babe.

@@No1KCfan6 110%

best comment hahaha

I don't know why this is so funny.

I hear a lot of added vibrato these days as well. Listen to Billy Ray on Old Town Road or a lot of newer Bieber tracks.

agreed. also congrats on the verification!!

Can you give us examples? I haven't heard a wide release record without autotune in 20 years, metal, rap, folk, etc they all have it, noticeably.

oh man, how i hate the overuse and abuse of autotune. just a little bit is fine, but nopes... they put the whole jar of autotune on everything

Truth. And it’s a damn shame.

At least high fructose corn syrup has good taste.

@@JasonTHutchinson but try downing the bottle

I was listening to Baby Love (Supremes) just the other day at it was like eating a plate of fresh vegetables after a month of eating fast food.

Only Daft Punk can makes A-T tracks masterpiece.

@@pearcy5206 like Auto-Tune, is only good in small doses.

Shocking and yet... not surprising.

Can't go wrong with Rush. The lyrics of "The Spirit of Radio" re. the music industry, ring true to this day.

coldly

@@camk6566 The way I interpret NP, he's saying studio technology is a good thing when used to enhance creativity, but it's a bad thing when it's used as a substitute for talent and skill -- 15+ years before AutoTune existed.

Great side note. Indeed. Neil was possibly as good A LYRISIST as he was a DRUMMER. Wait a second … Is that even possible?? Mind-blowing talent, that's it. I think.

From the same album: "Computerized clinics, for superior cynics, who dance to a synthetic band. In their own image, their world is fashioned; no wonder they don't understand" ~Natural Science

Not surprisingly, that producer was David Foster and it's on the "making of" video for "Tears Are Not Enough". Classic moment. The same video also has another sequence where Foster makes Anne Murray sing her part over and over again. She finally says something like, "I think I got it on the first take, David." He later admits she was correct.

@@deanjonasson6776 Foster is an ass. I was at a songwriting workshop where he said, without irony, that you should take the chorus and make that the verse and write an even better chorus - and then replace that verse with your new chorus and write an even better chorus. The circular, endless and ultimately useless logic in that escaped him.

@@lexusls4305 sounds like an interesting technique, to make better song, but for me personally, i often get a good verse and then making even better chorus is hard work, or long time waiting for idea to come by itself. but then usually the chorus is too good to be used as verse and it wouldn't work as a verse. guess every songwriter has their techniques

"Artists don't make mistakes, they make choices"

I was just listening to Queen's, "Love of My Life" on RU-vid. A gentle and romantic ballad with Freddie and Brian on his 12 string guitar... And then it was immediately followed by a commercial with a uber-loud, crazily AutoTuned version of "Jingle Bells." The dissonance was jarring! (Did RU-vid just give me 'the finger' or something?)

That stuff is offensively rampant.

And this is one of the reasons why I absolutely refuse to ever turn off uBlock Origin on RU-vid.

Just listen to William Hung

Music is a human expression. It's not supposed to be perfect. Perfect is void of the human aspect of musical expression

I've said for a while now that "nothing is perfect, but moments can be" This applies to music as well - the performance, timing and pitch may not be perfect, but the synergy, feel, and experience of the moment it creates can be perceived as perfect and profound.

@@ryo-kai8587 very true. Great insight.

Sure teach them to sing it right. Thats what vocal coaches do. That is what they get paid for. But when you are in the studio, and the clock is ticking, engineers get paid to bring in great tracks. The NOW sound. Autotune it Baby! Got bills to pay.

@@hal2098 I think you meant he doesn't understand soul sucking overproduction.

Breaking news: local man thinks he’s super cool for dunking on his child daughter.

@@KnivingDispodia it's only dunking if you ignore the fact that she can totally sing and autotune is mostly just an effect

I mean u are right lol. Selena Gomez is a very average singer, her live performances are trash.

​@@hal2098 this comment section is full of bitter failed musicians looking to blame someone for why they haven't made it

Bon Iver is another example of someone who can really sing, but has used Autotune as a cool effect.

The thing with Cher is that they didn't try to hide the fact that it was a vocal effect, and it really made her clean voice pop in the chorus. The way Autotune is used today, they essentially try to trick the listener into thinking the performer is a perfect signer.

yes, on "Believe" it was an effect, much like the vocoder was in the 1970s and 1980s

@@toddbernstein3407 yessss!! The song "Woods" on the early Blood Bank EP is actually one of my favorite examples of this!!

@@toddbernstein3407 same with Billie Eilish.

More like "sounds thin"

Small pipì

I was just think about that lol

Also sounds silly

All forms of quantization strip the real organic humanity from music.

@@EphemeralTao exactly they just lack that human touch

Absolutely! I thought about this a few weeks ago when I listened to Deep Purple's Fireball record. Would it sound as good if it was recorded with a click and locked to a grid? Hell no!

I had a friend who used to scream at me for not playing like a metronome all the time. He was a lifeless soul.

@@brushstroke3733 sounds like it. Real bands dont stay perfectly in time 100% of the time.

Yes! The major issue I have with autotune is that it allows singers to get away with being ordinary and not actually practice.

"You may not have noticed... *but your brain did* "

However, the lenny song is one of the best mix downs ever. Part of getting a mix to blow everything away is compression without destruction of the highs and mids so natural compression or in that Case compressing the background vocals to focus the lead is brilliant. The real-time compression unit reacts after the fact no matter how fast it starts pulling back its not before the do do happened with attenuation. That auto tune is a form of frequency band compression rather than volume compression. Cher used that effect appropriately for her purpose. There is no such thing as cheating... just if its in your face all the time. Im sure they did multiple tracks to thicken it again in chers case the engineer doesnt want you to put your finger on what's going on. Its just weird is a good thing. I'm sure do whop whop was ok on the first record too except in the Italian district. Ten years later, it was grounds for assault. There are a few things that make you want to kick the radio... auto tune is one, but its usually in combination with fake falsetto some dude who got it from the Stinkin Lincoln Continental Americaz got talent ? Then there is the warm up vocal sort of fake tape echo chant nobody used until someone made the judges cry, then everything music copy frenzy started swirling around the drain. No, it didn't sound like that and he had a better writer and that fad wasn't a fad only singers who havent worked with a band much. You don't need to sing heart attack yak yak yak. I think that was Billy Joels first over use of slap back on vocals and we can let it slide, it may have even been an effects unit. Im not as curious as Rick. However the recent trend is... Wow, you were in a small room and then suddenly you are in a Fake cave and can't afford an effects processor. My other problem is cover tunes that are worse than the original. Why ? Elton John doesn't need your help. You are reading the milk carton wrong.

As someone who worried in vfx and film, half of the time they just go..post will take care of it.. post can’t fix everything. It can but it’ll look somewhat fake. Do it well live. I was taught in film school, production is for making the shot and getting things right and post is for making the creative stuff you can’t do in real life. Not a bandaid for production’s laziness or mistakes. Although sometimes it is needed due to unforced circumstances but can’t be used as a crutch everytime.

@@KawaiiCat2 True words indeed. I've been there as well, the "we'll fix it on post" approach to things some have 🙄

Fleet Foxes first EP and album is probably the best harmonies I’ve heard in recent years.

Have you discovered Larkin Poe yet?

It's part of why groups like System of a Down worked for me :)

I was under the impression that most modern vocals were layered and harmonized. Something like the beach boys might have more acapella style harmonization with the addition of instrumentation, which isn't a typical modern sound. But just because most vocals aren't harmonized in that style doesn't mean they aren't harmonized. It's usually done subtly where you mostly hear the main melody and there's just some extra layers to fill it out.

Most people can’t understand the harmony of the spheres they just want a marching beat to help them mindlessly grind through the day back then people with money and taste actually had the sense to invest in actually masterful interesting music but now it’s just corporate bottom lines no extra money for experimenting with a risky band

Yes! I can’t believe that none of the other comments mentioned that!

Me too!

The imperfections and her anger made that a great album... And maybe some Chili Peppers...

Excellent example. I wasn't a fan of it but man, could she sing

I had this album when first released but I cant stand her voice anymore. Does she sing awesome? Yes and the music arrangement is good. But I cant change the song quick enough now when it comes on. Lol

Adam Levine music is awful

You are preaching to the Choir!!!!!!!!!!!Alanis the best

@@PureHoney_ASMR Nonsense.

If you want to detox go check Superstar by The Carpenters, Karen had the voice of an angel

Start checking out the many “first listening” channels. They’re a blast! There are plenty of people in your age bracket who are just discovering the classic tunes from the fifties through the nineties. It’s especially fun if the listeners are black, have been raised on rap, and just figuring out what The Beach Boys could do with close harmony on “Don’t Worry Baby.” Or for that matter watching SRV’s fingers while playing “Voodoo Child” at El Mocambo. Good hunting!

Good for you - if music has a chance to "recover", it will be because of young people like yourself realizing that there is an organic quality to music that touches peoples' souls and striving for that sort of natural excellence. Good luck to you.

@@TheSilverGate easily one of the best ever in pop.

If you want to hear an astonishing natural voice go listen to some Elvis studio recordings, they kept going till it was 'right'

i'm always in perfect pitch in the shower with all that water and echo effect. giggle

@@lovemusic324 young musician and producer, some of us still practice ❤

Preach

Yes, pre-COVID I sang with a symphony choir and we probably put in a similar amount or more in terms of rehearsal time together, not counting self-practise at a piano and with sound files. I also took over a hundred lessons with a voice coach before I auditioned. The upside is that I learned how to sing and appreciate great singers (I have even more appreciation for the Beatles now - or contemporary singers like The Good Lovelies) but the downside is that autotune and poor pop singers bother me even more.

@@AdAstraCan yeah -_- that tends to happen :/

That was "Tears Are Not Enough", the Canadian version of We are the World. But yeah, Neil just doesn't compromise!

Lol

"A man needs a maid" is pretty near the knuckle but then again, he can sing alongside CSN and fit in perfectly. Then again, check out "Don't be denied" where his harmony singers are Ben Keith and Jack Nitzsche - hardly the world's best sets of pipes - and yet it really works.

@@hal2098 Awesome. Do you always get things wrong?

@@crankfotton So since some of these comments were made while ago,supposedly what was I arrogant about exactly? Because whatever comment I was arrogant about seems to have been erased,so tell me why you would be mad that I was arrogant,without knowing what I was being arrogant about?

Same think with Karen "One Take" Carpenter.

The same with A. Franklin etc..

Same with Donna Summer.

She was insane in another way.

Imagine auto tuning Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, The Temptations, The Supremes, Aretha, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, the Eagles, or Celine. Auto tune? Nah! It’s just another step towards soulless emptiness in my worthless opinion. I’m just a fossil. I grew up in the fifties when singers could sing or they didn’t make records so what would I know about good music? Oh!!’ Sorry! I used the “G” word. How pretentiously judgemental of me. Don’t worry though young folks. My generation will soon disappear into oblivion along with our antiquated values and the world we destroyed with our disgusting meritocratic tyranny and you’ll all be truly “free” to soar to new heights of “inclusivity”.

yes, the perfect imperfections!

i went to a club gig and the singer was using some kind of auto tune/ harmonizer .sounded perfectly boring

@@l.t.w8985 REO is a lot of fun live! I saw them before Covid.

it's literally his job... so... not really surprising but wonderful nonetheless.

one of the best,period

Cool that you mention Steve Perry...when Rick was talking about the three part harmonies and the variations of them I had to stop the video and play "Girl Can't Help It." (The live one from 1986) The acapella harmony at the end is just that freakin' good. :D (Aw heck, the whole song rocks. XD)

Autotune didn't exist until 1997.

Auto-tune exhibits a characteristic robotic sound that vocal double-tracking (including Steve Perry’s) does not, and cannot, have.

Didn’t they use some device in the late ‘70s - ‘80s called “vocal harmonizers”? Usually for the back-up vocals? I could swear that Journey and Van Halen used it for the back-up vocals, (Especially like on Journey’s “Feelin’ That Way/Anyway That You Want It”).

Those lyrics are awful. I would have been embarrassed by them. They sound like temp lyrics.

Everything in this song sounds so derivative yet i still like it

@@rumblehat4357 who cares man, he is a successful artist and millionaire, he just don't fkn care for others opinion or whatever.

This is something only native english speakers notice. To a foreign non-anglophone audience, these primitive rhyme and the no-rhyme get away/fly away sounds pretty natural - and I say that as a portuguese native speaker. However, these first verses are really annoying to anyone with a basic comprehension of english.

Ricardo Proença true, he probably doesn’t care but it’s amazing what Hollywood connections can do for people.

Perfect description!

Are we talking about Cher again?

@@renejean2523 :-)

...& with that, Michael Jackson was guilty of both- he used plenty of "auto-tune" for his sound AND look. Some instances more obvious than others.

@@m.c.ruckus2032 I think back to all of the big MJ hits - I don't think they used AT on them? Now I definitely think his face had a-lot of auto something.

exactly this

Video Killed the Radio Star.

Sounds like Katy Perry

Lazyness on the part of producers, just seeking attractive people to make an image with no talent let alone musical or singing ability. eg K-Pop, and most music on the charts at the minute.

@@IncredibleGoliath Massive time saver, ie lets make some money. What about making music that means something, that will stand the test of time - that is art.

And now, a lot of drummers play with a click during concerts. No more problems of tempo, they don't need to listen to the other musicians. That also is taken out of context, I understand you do that for a recording, or in a show with many things happening, but to play with a band ?

Of course, once it becomes an accepted option to edit one or two bad notes, now the competition is on. Who can have the most perfectly tuned recording? Who can do it fastest and cheapest? Before you know it, you're not even sure which artists are actually good singers, especially since it works on live performances in real time.

@@deltab9768 Unless it's used as an effect like a vocoder, sparingly it's B.S. Now that I think of it, there is one recording of K.D Lang where she struggles to hit the note on record. On a compilation it was fine. They must have cleaned it up. I appreciate the rawness, fraility of the first recording.

Hello verified RU-vidr

Geebz on Rick's channel. Must be in heaven

Key Of Geebz!! Love your reactions to TOOL. Subbed!

Love your page, Geebz

hello fellow hoooman

I always felt that Steve Perry was the result of a studio doing what studios do. Man was I wrong. When I saw that guy live it was unbelievable. You know someone else who gets left out is Steve Walsh of Kansas. His live performances (before he smoked and coked himself out) were just incredible.

He's a great example of an amazing vocalist with great accuracy who still had tons of imperfections. To me imperfections add character and aren't always a bad thing. If singers like Freddie didn't try cover their imperfections up I don't see why the industry nowadays wants to.

Because he didn't cheat. He was a true artist, a genuine singer. He did the hard work and it paid off.

Some of their vocal harmonies were sublime

But you do have to cringe a bit when you listen t the harmonies on “Monday, Monday…”

Bluey

I hate it. 😫

Well said sir!

Awwwww mine said the same when I was a kid! A good teacher stays with you forever

Someone I know would say that she sings "blue", which I love and is an art in itself.

as for autotune, i dont mind as long as it is used creatively and sparingly. what i cant stand is when they slap it on bad singing. i hear some songs that are so autotuned, its unbearable.

This shocked me as well.

I had to go back and watch it again!

@@mikeorr7567 Me too!

I too was caught off-guard seeing young Rick 😂😍

I adore Karen Carpenter. One of the most naturally pitch-perfect singers ever to live. But even she and Richard weren't immune to the desire to make choruses pitch perfect (and thus "small"). If you compare their early 1970s multi-track vocals (Close to You or Rainy Days and Mondays, for example) with their latter work (Good Old Dreams, Touch Me When We're Dancing), the earlier recordings are warmer, richer, fuller, deeper, and bigger. The later songs (which I still enjoy) sound thinner and smaller and "airy" -- not just because Karen's voice changed a bit and she was using her upper register more (or head voice) -- but because Richard was overlaying only the most pitch-perfect of overdub tracks, robbing them of the slight variations that made them sound more natural and bigger.

I always sing along with as much psychic sincerity as I can muster with calling occupants. I'd like to make 'a contact' with them but still nothing.

Absolutely. And Olivia Newton John is the other one, perfect pitch.

@@SteveBonario She played the drums on those early albums. Singing was secondary to her drumming and it was these later albums where they forced her to just sing and that is why they are weak.

her voice had real depth to it. she didn't have to force anything to sound good. no adorning with her singing. natural

Can´t be more true that that! :D

I always think of Mary Ford singing How High The Moon.

idk... that's almost a grandad-thing to say. I bet there are still amazing singers out there, no matter if they are Annie Lennox or some young talent rocking out in a local band. I mean, I thought blues was dead for years and then John Mayer showed up and made it sexy to listen to, even among teens. Kemper wasn't the death for tube amps, and autotune won't be the death for great vocal talents.

@@Mr_Bollie "a grandad-thing to say".. is that supposed to be an insult? Someone who is older like Rick, or "grandads", are perhaps in a better position to evaluate how music has changed over time. We shouldn't disregard the opinions or insights of older individuals simply because of their age. In fact, we should value their opinions and consider that perhaps they possess a wisdom that maybe younger people do not. Of course, you can disagree, but it's sad to say "that's a grandad thing" like its an insult.

@@Mr_Bollie Nobody is saying there aren't amazing singers out there, but the mediocrity of the music industry is a summation of a lot of little things, autotune being one of them. It's not a "grandad" thing to expect quality and excellence...or wait, maybe it is.

I like that song just fine. Cher can sing great in pitch. Listen to her old stuff. She is spot-on. On Believe it was done simply for effect, not because Cher needed to have her intonation faked. The problem was when it became the new cure-all for everything rather than an occasional creative tool.

T-Pain be like: hold my beer

They played that damn song constantly on the radio. Like everyday going to school it would be on the radio. Same with coming home, lol

The Eagles were just copying Ian Matthews arrangement of Seven Bridges Road. Our local classic rock station has taken to playing the Matthews version.

both songs, the harmony is just amazing. great examples of a 'bigger' sound.

I haven't even heard those songs, but I know those bands & exactly what you mean. Their harmonising emboldens the sound so much

ok boomer

That’s what makes music great to listen to. I hate hearing music that has vocals that sound absolutely perfect. Music is art. IMO subconsciously, you lose the human connection when the music is pitch corrected, you cant hear the emotion in the music. Imagine if Willie Nelson’s music used auto tune. Auto tune is why new country music is so awful sounding.

Everyday there is something new to learn...I learned to play accordeon as a child, but i had never heard about that.

Dry tuning is no tremolo. Wet tuning is a heavy tremolo. But you also have diatonic accordions tuned to play harmony chords and chromatic accordions tuned to equal temperament. A well tuned accordion can make a big difference to an out of tune one, as a number of reeds are played for each button/key across 2, 3, 4 or 5 reed blocks. This leads back to Rick's video. You can auto tune, but if you dont auto-tune harmony correctly, it sounds wrong. Sing a major chord with the 3rd -14 cents flat and the 5th +2 cents. Its better. The barbershop quartets did it. The Beach boys did it. Hohner Harmonicas did it for the Blues. And diatonic button accordions do it.

Additive synthesis with sine waves has the same issues except more extreme. I quit doing it and now look to recording IFFT results into a wave table. What you typically want is a smooth bump (maybe gaussian distribution) in the spectrum around a pitch rather than a zero-width line, and then harmonics that are also smooth bumps. So a natural sounding 440hz has some 439.825 Hz mixed in as well as thousands of other frequencies between that and 440 Hz as well as above. This creates timbre and helps us hear chords vs harmonics of a single voice. It also smooths out mathematical problems in equal temperament tuning whereas pure sines require perfect just intonation to avoid dissonance and low frequency beat notes. Adding a second detuned reed is basically the same concept. It does sound tremolo of course since there are only two. But if you had 30 or so slightly detuned reeds that would be a very rich sound.

Thank you for sharing.

also one of the hardest instruments to play so im told.

Looks a lot like Mike Patton to me :D

Haha

Have you seen old pictures of Rick with a beard? He looks like a completely different person

Daft Punk were masters of vocal effects. That’s really more of a vocoder, BTW.

Agreed! That song is a masterpiece! But the thing with Daft Punk is that they actually want to sound like robots. Acting like they are robots is in their DNA. But as Rick states it, the problem is when you a human character sound like a robot. That's not great. It's intellectually, and emotionally dissonant.

@@fran6b Autotune has always been a huge part of EDM. It’s kind of obligatory.

@@5roundsrapid263 Yes. And it makes sense as electronic music emerge to echo the predominance of industrialisation, and specifically the sounds of the industry, if I'm correct.

@@fran6b well put. This is the problem. Fine if you are pretending to be robots....

I'd wager most of them are actually garbage.

@@fl00d69 I'll bet if some of them actually tried - & the producers forced them to sing it many times - they would improve.

I agree! 100%. Music is created by human beings. Not computers looping 1 4 5 in a key over and over. Auto tune, beat quantization, etc. it’s all just simulations of music. It’s not real. Would you create a hockey team of all robots? Of course not, robots are near perfect, they make no mistakes, the game wouldn’t go ANYWHERE. The game revolves around mistakes, I’m no hockey guy but I understand the just of the game, and I know that when a player makes a big mistake, it can result in a big change in how everything plays out. It’s the same with music. We need the human element, the slightly off tune, or beat, it gives the feel, the suspense, the giant sound to a song.

I get your point... Listen to Zep at the Live Aid concert in 85' wish the band all had auto tune that day. :)

@@Keeping-It-Real-55 😂😂😂

Well said, Vince.

That's awesome, I'm picturing this is an old Econoline van with graphics on the side, like a lightning bolt or a wolf howling at the moon, and the little circular windows near the back doors. Please tell me I'm not wrong

Same. I really miss when vocals were at the forefront. I think it changed when EDM and hip-hop took a heavy hold. I still listen to some Korean music, but it is mostly soloist. Even a lot of them have lost the soul/blues vibe.

Yeah, I think this is right on. We'll rubberband back in the other direction as we're certainly hitting the limit of how far we can stand stretching in this direction.

There's been plenty of that. It just doesn't usually chart. The 20th century concept of popular music is dead. These days it's just models who dance, sing, and take on whatever personality their fan base wants to see. It's not about the music anymore. This is why I invest zero time looking at top hits or charts. Just listen to whatever you like. It's not worth lamenting over. 1950-1995 was a great moment for music. Things have changed too much. I don't expect to see something like that again.

Yes !

She sort of squeaks on the third "murder!" and you can hear someone, Jagger, I think, shout "woah!" or similar. It's a great moment.

her backing vocals elevate the song from 'good' to 'great', in my humble opinion.

Heard the isolated vocal in the documentary "20 feet from stardom" and actually cried. Don't know why, just did. Phenomenal vocal and a phenomenal film. A must watch.

@@alecr666x there's a RU-vid video of all the songs tracks isolated can't remember what it's named though but you should be able to find it.

I know, right, he spent so much time on the negatives, but almost none on the positives, personally, I am for autotune, because it can’t fix your bad singing, get somebody truly bad, no amount of vocal editing will fix it.

Great example. One could write a thesis on this

Perfect example. Greatest back up singing ever. Autodumb would pour bleach all over it.

@Jugizet Good point. Gimme Shelter voice crack was one of those perfect happy accident musical moments. Usually, voice cracking doesn't sound that good because it's off pitch. "Imperfection" in music can be great and necessary, but most imperfection is bad. Great music is still 99% perfect

Very good example!

And The Stones knew that and left it in.

Hard work and passion.

Instead of pressing a couple buttons on a computer, he poured time and effort into training his ears and mind to pitch, to understand, but not to rely upon what’s at his fingertips, to learn and not to be done. To sing, and not to be sung.

In live shows, Queen used Eventide Vocal Harmonizers. I don't know what they did in the studio, probably just multitrack.

@@darkprose that’s not auto tune or pitch correct, thats dozens of takes until you get the right one. Pitch correction wasn’t available in the 70’s and 80’s

The amazing part is we have digital recording now. Back in the day they had tape and limited resources. Today we can literally take as many takes as we want and it's easier than ever to hit the record button. Yet it's made us lazier.

Auto-tune is also great when you have one or two bad notes in an otherwise killer vocal take.

@@MyMotherTheCar one or two "bad" notes, create the unique feelings of the song

@@taezakny They can also be very distracting. You can still keep the uniqueness by just lifting it a little closer to pitch, instead of "snap to grid" of course. It obviously depends on how bad these "bad notes" really are and how detrimental they are to the performance. If it adds character, I agree, keep it.

@@hillie47 ha you're right, I just realize now I'm wrong a little bit, because I was not talking about the bad notes very far of the good pitch

@@taezakny Yeah, I don't think one should iron out every tiny unevenness and make it sound smooth and fully unnatural, but just patching up a mistake or two, I don't see a big issue there.

was he doing a Nirvana cover?

Dude I am so jealous! RIP Chris Cornell, legend 🖤

When everything snaps to a grid (vocals, drums, rhythm guitar etc) you don’t have music, you have a graph.

@@paulyguitary7651 Yes when you have perfect copy paste guitar tracks... why bother with guitars to begin with?

Yep, well I love on those older recordings when I hear some human effort, such as a crash cymbal that comes in very slightly off after a crazy fill, that high note on the Bb trumpet that wobbles just a bit, that high violin note that's just a bit off after a huge leap up, that awesome jazz piano lick that's not perfectly clean.... So much better.

Agreed

@@andyp7449 indeed as many industrial groups do just that

Because of a little singer who sucked named "Bob Dylan". Great lyricist but horrid vocalist!

Gotta say, I never liked Jimi's voice either tbh

@@spencercollison1695 your voice isnt even heard lol

@@overdrive112 😆

Real musicians can have a disadvantage and still sound good. Like the Def Leppard drummer. Or all the singers that sound like bleached dead frogs but still make it work like lemmy and Alice cooper

Listening through some of Lenny's albums is like eating whitebread.... You ate something, but you'll be hungry again soon for something more substantial. Idk., Prince, Al Jaerreau are for some reason better at kneading my synapses. And I think it's because of all these small little things adding a tad of grain on top of the music: Things being slightly out of pitch or rhythm.

"Now" is another word that lazily gets rhymed with itself.

@@Mr_Bollie I find much of Lenny’s music just falling short; from the writing to the production. It’s like soul-lite.

@@paulburns1333 how?

@@SeekerGoOn2013 rubber soul never gets old

Agreed, and besides Cher is a good singer without it. She can reproduce her parts live without trouble. AutoTune will not make a bad singer sound like Freddie Mercury.

@@Timliu92 if you’re a good singer then why use auto tune? That’s part of the problem.

@@chrismarple It's used as an effect to spice things up.

Exactly. It was obviously an effect, just like you'd use on any other instrument.

Gotta grow lamb chop side burns

That mindset is Hollywoodish, don't you think....its what got us to this point of Brittney spears Disney club characters and non existent boy bands.

Shoot, I'm turning 67 in a few weeks...and just like Draxtor, I wanna be like Rick Beato when I grow up. But like Nic, now that I've retired, I find I ain't never had to grow up at all!

@@victorhawkins3461 you give me hope! I am working towards that direction. Currently inside I am 17 although my wife alleges I am more like 13. Ah well, tiny diff ;)

Rick is like Wolverine’s father!

I heard this when I was a music student, but I'm pretty sure it is apocryphal. No matter how phenomenal his voice was, he was still human, so I don't think it is possible to purposely sing in phase with a recording of yourself for any length of time. Certainly not an entire take, a melodic line or even for more than just a split second.

That's what session singers and musicians are for.

@@orlock20 LOL XD I laughed way too hard at that XD

Bahahahahaahaha.... 😂🤣 That was bloody brilliant mate... 👍

ROFL

You have obviously never seen the Boss brand "talent simulator" pedal for guitarists! 😂

Adam Levine is actually a weak vocalist, and what's worse is that ge has got shitty musicality and goes off the pitch often. Contrary to someone say the lead vocalists of the beatles who were actually weak vocalists as a whole, but they had excellent musicality and great projection. (edit: sry for my English)

I honestly would be the last guy to defend Adam Lavine. But when I heard his cover of "Seasons" which is one of my favorite songs by my favorite singer C.Cornell , I was sold and convinced the dude can sing.

Crap band ... Everything they released is and was Crap ..

Wait he coached ? I don’t think he can even sing a complete song without auto tune. It’s 100% because he is popular that he coached in my opinion, for the marketing

@@realasadoughnut Yes. It's all about the type of song he is singing. He has the perfect voice for soulful jazzy types of songs. But the high power belted pop songs are not suited to him unfortunately.

agreed

Tim, I'm confident you have plenty of game without the benefit of Rick's hair. Player play on!

spot on.....

THIS!

Guys, I have a friend who was at a Country Music awards event in the early 2000's My friend, she's a 9.5 (Was as she was 21) She has zero musical abilities, zero. ZERO! She was offered a recording contract... For real. Needless to say the industry has fed us people who are appealing to the eyes 1st and the ear appeal part is obviously a distant 2nd.

under rated comment. 119 thumbs not enough

Sky net likes its own music! lol

See: "Prolefeed"

Roll it in glitter? Halarious.

Absolutely true. But what people forget is that music with autotune present is a specefic genre/style. Therefore it is a tool/instrument. It's not artists cheating you to think they can sing. It's a sound they go for. Same with Phil Collins reversed gated reverb, specific sound he was going for.

@@Nicolailund15 sometimes...I don't think some studios have ever "turned it off" since it was "turned on" regardless of who enters the studio! If it was used an effect sparingly then I would agree with you more but it isn't. It used to such an extent that you often can barely tell what the voice of the singer sounds like. Then they do something live and it is utter crud sounds nothing like the studio version and people wonder why when a half decent band can actually play their studio stuff live and sound similar it is held up and lauded as amazing!