Vocal pitch correction outboard gear?

[sax4blues]

I record to a standalone Yamaha AW4416. What kind of outboard gear is there for vocal pitch correction? Is it used during the actual performance or during mixing? This is home recording so I'm not looking for top$$ options.

[CSS]

An Antares Autotune AVP1 is what you are looking for. These are inexpensive and do a great job. Lots of other effects such as mic modeling, doubling, etc. Check out the Antares website.

-Craig

Originally Posted by sax4blues

I record to a standalone Yamaha AW4416. What kind of outboard gear is there for vocal pitch correction? Is it used during the actual performance or during mixing? This is home recording so I'm not looking for top$$ options.

[Tim Armstrong]

I can understand the justification for a professional studio to have pitch-correction (they have to pay the bills), but I profoundly believe that us home recordists are MUCH MUCH better served just practicing and doing takes until we can sing in tune!

Seriously, if your guitar is out of tune, you wouldn't "fix it in the mix", you'd just tune it and get on with it, right?

Shortcuts don't help you improve as an artist...

Cheers, Tim (the curmudgeon luddite)

[mudbean]

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

I can understand the justification for a professional studio to have pitch-correction (they have to pay the bills), but I profoundly believe that us home recordists are MUCH MUCH better served just practicing and doing takes until we can sing in tune!

Seriously, if your guitar is out of tune, you wouldn't "fix it in the mix", you'd just tune it and get on with it, right?

Shortcuts don't help you improve as an artist...

Cheers, Tim (the curmudgeon luddite)

+1

mud

[FirstBassman]

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

Seriously, if your guitar is out of tune, you wouldn't "fix it in the mix", you'd just tune it and get on with it, right?

Shortcuts don't help you improve as an artist...

And how many of us tune a guitar with our ears and how many tune with a tuner.

A tool is a tool is a tool.

[cacibi]

Originally Posted by FirstBassman

And how many of us tune a guitar with our ears and how many tune with a tuner.

A tool is a tool is a tool.

We use guitar tuners because very few of us have perfect pitch. However, virtually any vocalist can learn to recognize relative intervals in an established key - with practice and dedication. And I think that's what Tim is saying, don't use a tool to replace a skill set you should be working toward as a musician.

Some shortcuts end up hurting you in the long run - like the person who has auto-tuned everything in the studio - and now is trying to get a live gig and has to deliver the goods onstage.

However, if you're working in some sort of deadline-oriented part of the music production industry (commercial music production) I can definitely see the value and time-saving benefit to this sort of technology.

[Tim Armstrong]

Originally Posted by FirstBassman

And how many of us tune a guitar with our ears and how many tune with a tuner.

A tool is a tool is a tool.

Apples and oranges! A guitar tuner is a tool to help us prepare for a performance, while a pitch corrector is a tool to repair a shoddy performance.

I prefer to aim for a good performance!

Besides, I don't know anyone who uses a guitar tuner who doesn't then give the guitar a listen to make sure it's REALLY in tune!



Cheers, Tim

[sax4blues]

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

...but I profoundly believe that us home recordists are MUCH MUCH better served just practicing and doing takes until we can sing in tune!
Cheers, Tim (the curmudgeon luddite)

I'm not the singer (it would probably take three of these units daisy chained together to improve my singing). I record mainly high school age kid’s rock bands for their fun and mine. We'll do 1-2 songs on a Saturday afternoon and these guys can only keep focus for 3-5 takes. I could tell the singers to be better but they just may not be great right now. I'm not looking for real polished solutions but occasionally they hit a sustained note that just stands out and I'd like to be able to easily correct that.

My system does have a manual pitch correction feature but it's real hunt-n-peck for me. You set the section and increment of correction. But I don't have a good feel for the amount of correction required. So I go round and round till it sounds good, very tedious.

[getbent]

The new tc helicon stuff is great... you put it on the live performance and capture it 'corrected'... there is a family of these... they are good.. Guitar Showcase carries them as well... I have the TC Helicon Voicelive (more expensive) but I've been seeing one for sale on the SF craigslist for awhile for 450... they are complex but really powerful for corretion and harmonies...

I'd say the smaller unit (like the one I linked) would work great for your application....

One more thought... you could record without correction and run it back out through the unit and back in.. the only worry I'd have is bleed... Also, if the kids are way way off pitch you'll get some funky artifacty stuff that you'll need to recut the track...

I take no sides on the correction argument.... it would be great if everyone could sing on pitch all the time... but, you wouldn't have asked if your bands had that ability...

It is a fact that folks do clean up pitch issues on voices, guitars, fiddles, basses, you name it using tools like antares and celemony's melodyne... What you hear on the radio has nearly all been cleaned up a bit with those tools...

Don't know if it makes it right or wrong... it just makes it is.

[Tim Armstrong]

I recorded my nephew's band a couple of years ago, and their singer had some pitch problems (they were such a loud band that he never could actually hear himself sing, so he hadn't developed very good control!). My solution was to have him sing 4-8 vocal takes for every song, and then I'd comp them into one good vocal.

Which is just as much of a "cheat", I suppose!

Like I said, I understand why commercial facilities use pitch correction, and I understand why sax4blues would use it. I just dislike how it sounds!

Cheers, Tim

[tjalla]

Just a side-note on this matter for live applications. A good friend of mine uses the Antares live into the PA, and it actually serves an interesting vocal training function as its used.

When the pitch corrected signal is fed back through the monitors, anything off pitch is heard as a chorusing effect, but only by him - as in a full band context ones acoustic voice isn't loud enough to create audible chorusing for anyone else. Kinda like tuning a guitar to 5th fret harmonics.

So onstage, a good pitch-correction serves both as a performance enhancer (band+audience hear a perfect vocal), and as a tool that lets you, and only you, know when you're out so you can correct your pitching until you don't hear anymore chorus.

Sax4blues - if you gig out, this could be a secondary reason to get outboard gear. Over time, you need it less when recording yourself.

[toadman]

anyone whose heard our drummer sing(?) will know why i am on the verge of putting some kind of autotune in our rack! he's also the guy who eternally wants "MORE ME IN THE MONITOR"!!

unfortunately he's also the boss!

[hayseedtele]

I know a guy who uses that Antares thing ha! Theres some people that are just beyond technological help... I just wear earplugs live so i can hear myself. I slip one of the headphones off when i record so i can hear the room along with the track being played that usually helps a lot.

[CSS]

I am not so sure the original poster was asking for personal opinions of why or why not to use outboard pitch correction. Looked pretty cut and run to me that he was asking "What kind of outboard gear is there for vocal pitch correction".

[David Barnett]

Pitch correction almost always sounds phony. However, the kids he's talking about recording grew up hearing pitch-corrected stuff on the radio, and like the effect. There's no accounting for taste...

But yeah, either the Antares or the TC Helicon would do what he wants.

[Tim Armstrong]

Originally Posted by CSS

I am not so sure the original poster was asking for personal opinions of why or why not to use outboard pitch correction. Looked pretty cut and run to me that he was asking "What kind of outboard gear is there for vocal pitch correction".

Since when has an OP's actual question ever guided a discussion around here?



Seriously, I gave him exactly the same answer I would have if we were having a conversation together over a couple of beers. It just seems to me that slapping a hardware or software pitch correction device onto a recording if you don't have to for pressing financial reasons is the kind of shortcut that keeps people from learning how to sing on-pitch.

And I think that's a sad thing...

Cheers, Tim

[CSS]

You got that right...... On a related side note, even my Boss BR600 has pitch correction...Imagine that !

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

Since when has an OP's actual question ever guided a discussion around here?

[Darcy Hoover]

Can I get one of those things to fix my pitch as it comes straight out of the mic?

[robbysturgis]

I can see it as a gimmick, but then again, that gimmick has been done. The first time I remember was Cher doing [Do You] Believe [in Love after Love].

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Believe_(Cher_song)- they used the DigiTech Talker:

http://www.digitech.com/discontinued/talker.htm

[CSS]

A cut n paste.

"According to the Boston Herald, "Country stars Reba McEntire, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have all confessed to using Auto-Tune in performance, claiming it is a safety net that guarantees ticket buyers a good performance."

Auto-Tune is recently receiving a lot of attention after the increased use by major Hip-Hop artists like T-Pain, Kanye West and Lil Wayne. In addition, it is rumoured that the whole of Kanye West's new album, 808's & Heartbreaks, will be sung using auto-tune."

[David Barnett]

Originally Posted by robbysturgis

I can see it as a gimmick, but then again, that gimmick has been done. The first time I remember was Cher doing [Do You] Believe [in Love after Love].

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Believe_(Cher_song)- they used the DigiTech Talker:

http://www.digitech.com/discontinued/talker.htm

You know it's not usually that unsubtle, don't you? I mean it still sounds wonky, but the robot-voice thing only comes at extreme settings.

[robbysturgis]

Originally Posted by David Barnett

You know it's not usually that unsubtle, don't you? I mean it still sounds wonky, but the robot-voice thing only comes at extreme settings.

Yeah, I guess you could dial it back, for sure.

I've been looking at the Vocalist - but not sure the $300 will be a great tool, or just a gimmick in the basement.