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MDNA vocals - WOW


Apples388

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Welcome back Madonna's upper register ("Love Spent")

Welcome back Madonna's nuanced emotive vocals (especially on the Orbit songs - no one else records her voice like he does)

Welcome back Madonna's beautiful vocal harmonies (especially "Superstar")

Welcome back Madonna's gravel-voiced deep scary/sexy spoken word voice ("Gang Bang")

Welcome back Madonna's clean middle register ("I'm a Sinner" bridge; "Falling Free")

And

Farewell scary deep/nasal register debuted on Hard Candy (aka 'Old Crow' - e.g. "sometimes I think what I need is a You INNAVENSHAAAUHHHN :zombie: ")

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Yeah, its good she is using her voice in different ways again, BUT there is an awful lot of auto tuning and pro tools going on.

I think she will struggle to sing some of it live. Is it me or does she sound like she had a cold when Falling Free was recorded?

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Guest jamesshot

Yeah, its good she is using her voice in different ways again, BUT there is an awful lot of auto tuning and pro tools going on.

I think she will struggle to sing some of it live. Is it me or does she sound like she had a cold when Falling Free was recorded?

It depends on many factors such as how much dancing she does and whether or not she really does some good, proper vocal training. No one could sing those songs like the record given the amount of dancing she does. Someone told me once that they were surprised Madonna could sing as well as she does given that trained dancers like Madonna supposedly are trained to take short breaths and sometimes to hold their breath when dancing. Don't know if that is true but it is interesting.

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As a musician that knows a lot about the studio, has studied audio engineering, and is in a studio everyday... I'd just like to say I have noticed the general public mentioning Pro Tools and Auto-Tune a whole bunch. I don't quite think they know what they are or what they do, and they especially don't understand that no amount of studio trickery will make you sound like an amazing singer. If you can't sing, it will help you to sound *maybe* passable, but you will NEVER sound great.

Also, people don't understand that there's a difference between NEEDING Auto-Tune and USING Auto-Tune. Madonna doesn't NEED Auto-Tune and never has. Contrary to popular belief, she has excellent pitch.

Auto-Tune was created as a way to slide vocals (usually certain notes) into the correct pitch. Often, even the world's best singers will lay down multiple vocal takes (from top to bottom) for the same song, and will end up with one take everyone loves, except for one bum note. Well, you're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water, and time is money. It's much easier to slide that one note (usually by a small amount) into tune, than it is to sing the part again, especially if you've already sung it 5-6 times, and you are inspired and want to keep moving. People with taste, use it in small amounts, much like makeup. But like most retouching nowadays, people misuse it and anyone with ears can hear how bad it sounds. Sure it's in pitch, but human beings don't sing in perfect pitch all the time. That is part of the beauty of the human voice. It's part of the beauty of music. It's why a symphony orchestra sounds full and bigger than life. When those small nuances are removed (to ridiculous degrees) by tools like Auto-Ttune, the human ear will notice it. The same way you'll notice a model on the cover of a magazine has poreless doll skin. Just listen to the last 30 Seconds to Mars record (or anything on the radio) for sickening examples of this. And it's a shame, because Jared Leto can actually sing well enough for what he does, and has decent pitch.

Pro Tools is industry standard software that practically every record you've ever heard in the last 17-18 years has been recorded into. It's a virtual recording studio inside a computer. Extremely talented people use it, and they're not using it to hide some sort of shortcoming. That's not what it was made for. For the laymen, it's basically the recording industries shift from multitrack tape, to the hard disk. It doesn't make you or any other instrument sound better. Sure you can comp vocals with it, but people were comping vocals with tape back in the day as well. Talented people. The reason you hear people saying "Pro Tools" as a negative, is because producers/engineers (with no taste) have *abused* the ease that it provides in sliding a performance perfectly into time. For example, if your drummer is falling out of time here and there, you can lock every drum hit to a perfect metronomic grid. If you have taste and REALLY know your craft, no one will ever know. If you don't...well...just turn on pop or mainstream rock radio.

So, you really can't make anyone sound like an amazing singer, and if you attempt to (and people have) it sounds comical. The best it can do, is make it seem like someone can carry a tune. But there's a lot more that goes into singing than just pitch and timing. No computer can make your natural raw vocal quality sound good if it isn't. Just listen to any Britney Spears record. I don't think there's anyone on the planet that will argue that she has anything even resembling vocal ability. And even with all of the Auto-Tuning, EQ, track doubling etc., she still doesn't sound like someone with anything even resembling vocal ability. Ultimately, she just sounds like a non-singer, that's somehow singing in key. People really need to remember that's all Auto-Tune can do for you. And even at that, it can't work miracles, as it does its best work within small parameters. If you're a horrible singer singing totally outside a key, Auto-Tune pitch correction will make you sound like a robot. And not good vocoder robotics (Nobody Knows Me), but really harsh, digital, glitchy, something sounds wrong robotics.

And just an aside (as an audio engineering nerd) Auto-Tune more often than not, sounds like SHIT. Melodyne is where it's at!

Anyway, just needed to say that, as WAY too many people mention Auto-Tune nowadays, without really understanding what it can and can't do. And Madonna hasn't even used pitch correction until *maybe* the Music record. Anything she's done since then (unless it's obviously a stylized effect) hasn't sounded like the HORRIBLE, and LAZY Auto-Tune abuse you hear elsewhere.

Much like plastic surgery cannot and rarely does make someone look beautiful, that wasn't beautiful already, Auto-Tune will not make your voice sound beautiful, if it isn't already.

Edited by Viktor
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Guest jamesshot

As a musician that knows a lot about the studio, has studied audio engineering, and is in a studio everyday... I'd just like to say I have noticed the general public mentioning Pro Tools and Auto-Tune a whole bunch. I don't quite think they know what they are or what they do, and they especially don't understand that no amount of studio trickery will make you sound like an amazing singer. If you can't sing, it will help you to sound *maybe* passable, but you will NEVER sound great.

Also, people don't understand that there's a difference between NEEDING Auto-Tune and USING Auto-Tune. Madonna doesn't NEED Auto-Tune and never has. Contrary to popular belief, she has excellent pitch.

Auto-Tune was created as a way to slide vocals (usually certain notes) into the correct pitch. Often, even the world's best singers will lay down multiple vocal takes (from top to bottom) for the same song, and will end up with one take everyone loves, except for one bum note. Well, you're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water, and time is money. It's much easier to slide that one note (usually by a small amount) into tune, than it is to sing the part again, especially if you've already sung it 5-6 times, and you are inspired and want to keep moving. People with taste, use it in small amounts, much like makeup. But like most retouching nowadays, people misuse it and anyone with ears can hear how bad it sounds. Sure it's in pitch, but human beings don't sing in perfect pitch all the time. That is part of the beauty of the human voice. It's part of the beauty of music. It's why a symphony orchestra sounds full and bigger than life. When those small nuances are removed (to ridiculous degrees) by tools like Auto-Ttune, the human ear will notice it. The same way you'll notice a model on the cover of a magazine has poreless doll skin. Just listen to the last 30 Seconds to Mars record (or anything on the radio) for sickening examples of this. And it's a shame, because Jared Leto can actually sing well enough for what he does, and has decent pitch.

Pro Tools is industry standard software that practically every record you've ever heard in the last 17-18 years has been recorded into. It's a virtual recording studio inside a computer. Extremely talented people use it, and they're not using it to hide some sort of shortcoming. That's not what it was made for. For the laymen, it's basically the recording industries shift from multitrack tape, to the hard disk. It doesn't make you or any other instrument sound better. Sure you can comp vocals with it, but people were comping vocals with tape back in the day as well. Talented people. The reason you hear people saying "Pro Tools" as a negative, is because producers/engineers (with no taste) have *abused* the ease that it provides in sliding a performance perfectly into time. For example, if your drummer is falling out of time here and there, you can lock every drum hit to a perfect metronomic grid. If you have taste and REALLY know your craft, no one will ever know. If you don't...well...just turn on pop or mainstream rock radio.

So, you really can't make anyone sound like an amazing singer, and if you attempt to (and people have) it sounds comical. The best it can do, is make it seem like someone can carry a tune. But there's a lot more that goes into singing than just pitch and timing. No computer can make your natural raw vocal quality sound good if it isn't. Just listen to any Britney Spears record. I don't think there's anyone on the planet that will argue that she has anything even resembling vocal ability. And even with all of the Auto-Tuning, EQ, track doubling etc., she still doesn't sound like someone with anything even resembling vocal ability. Ultimately, she just sounds like a non-singer, that's somehow singing in key. People really need to remember that's all Auto-Tune can do for you. And even at that, it can't work miracles, as it does its best work within small parameters. If you're a horrible singer singing totally outside a key, Auto-Tune pitch correction will make you sound like a robot. And not good vocoder robotics (Nobody Knows Me), but really harsh, digital, glitchy, something sounds wrong robotics.

And just an aside (as an audio engineering nerd) Auto-Tune more often than not, sounds like SHIT. Melodyne is where it's at!

Anyway, just needed to say that, as WAY too many people mention Auto-Tune nowadays, without really understanding what it can and can't do. And Madonna hasn't even used pitch correction until *maybe* the Music record. Anything she's done since then (unless it's obviously a stylized effect) hasn't sounded like the HORRIBLE, and LAZY Auto-Tune abuse you hear elsewhere.

Much like plastic surgery cannot and rarely does make someone look beautiful, that wasn't beautiful already, Auto-Tune will not make your voice sound beautiful, if it isn't already.

Thank you Viktor! *Standing ovation* Please post more!

Everytime I hear certain singers on the radio, I say to myself "Oh, computer has a new single out" because that is exactly what it sounds like, a computer! I've tried telling people before that you cannot fake having a decent voice even in the studio. They have to have something to work off of. If you don't have something of a voice, your "voice" will sound so computerized it might as well *be* a computer because essentially that is what it is

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Guest FrozenEyes

I think MDNA has a lot of strengths, but the vocals may not be one of them. And that's ok, I love the album anyways. :)

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As a musician that knows a lot about the studio, has studied audio engineering, and is in a studio everyday... I'd just like to say I have noticed the general public mentioning Pro Tools and Auto-Tune a whole bunch. I don't quite think they know what they are or what they do, and they especially don't understand that no amount of studio trickery will make you sound like an amazing singer. If you can't sing, it will help you to sound *maybe* passable, but you will NEVER sound great.

Also, people don't understand that there's a difference between NEEDING Auto-Tune and USING Auto-Tune. Madonna doesn't NEED Auto-Tune and never has. Contrary to popular belief, she has excellent pitch.

Auto-Tune was created as a way to slide vocals (usually certain notes) into the correct pitch. Often, even the world's best singers will lay down multiple vocal takes (from top to bottom) for the same song, and will end up with one take everyone loves, except for one bum note. Well, you're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water, and time is money. It's much easier to slide that one note (usually by a small amount) into tune, than it is to sing the part again, especially if you've already sung it 5-6 times, and you are inspired and want to keep moving. People with taste, use it in small amounts, much like makeup. But like most retouching nowadays, people misuse it and anyone with ears can hear how bad it sounds. Sure it's in pitch, but human beings don't sing in perfect pitch all the time. That is part of the beauty of the human voice. It's part of the beauty of music. It's why a symphony orchestra sounds full and bigger than life. When those small nuances are removed (to ridiculous degrees) by tools like Auto-Ttune, the human ear will notice it. The same way you'll notice a model on the cover of a magazine has poreless doll skin. Just listen to the last 30 Seconds to Mars record (or anything on the radio) for sickening examples of this. And it's a shame, because Jared Leto can actually sing well enough for what he does, and has decent pitch.

Pro Tools is industry standard software that practically every record you've ever heard in the last 17-18 years has been recorded into. It's a virtual recording studio inside a computer. Extremely talented people use it, and they're not using it to hide some sort of shortcoming. That's not what it was made for. For the laymen, it's basically the recording industries shift from multitrack tape, to the hard disk. It doesn't make you or any other instrument sound better. Sure you can comp vocals with it, but people were comping vocals with tape back in the day as well. Talented people. The reason you hear people saying "Pro Tools" as a negative, is because producers/engineers (with no taste) have *abused* the ease that it provides in sliding a performance perfectly into time. For example, if your drummer is falling out of time here and there, you can lock every drum hit to a perfect metronomic grid. If you have taste and REALLY know your craft, no one will ever know. If you don't...well...just turn on pop or mainstream rock radio.

So, you really can't make anyone sound like an amazing singer, and if you attempt to (and people have) it sounds comical. The best it can do, is make it seem like someone can carry a tune. But there's a lot more that goes into singing than just pitch and timing. No computer can make your natural raw vocal quality sound good if it isn't. Just listen to any Britney Spears record. I don't think there's anyone on the planet that will argue that she has anything even resembling vocal ability. And even with all of the Auto-Tuning, EQ, track doubling etc., she still doesn't sound like someone with anything even resembling vocal ability. Ultimately, she just sounds like a non-singer, that's somehow singing in key. People really need to remember that's all Auto-Tune can do for you. And even at that, it can't work miracles, as it does its best work within small parameters. If you're a horrible singer singing totally outside a key, Auto-Tune pitch correction will make you sound like a robot. And not good vocoder robotics (Nobody Knows Me), but really harsh, digital, glitchy, something sounds wrong robotics.

And just an aside (as an audio engineering nerd) Auto-Tune more often than not, sounds like SHIT. Melodyne is where it's at!

Anyway, just needed to say that, as WAY too many people mention Auto-Tune nowadays, without really understanding what it can and can't do. And Madonna hasn't even used pitch correction until *maybe* the Music record. Anything she's done since then (unless it's obviously a stylized effect) hasn't sounded like the HORRIBLE, and LAZY Auto-Tune abuse you hear elsewhere.

Much like plastic surgery cannot and rarely does make someone look beautiful, that wasn't beautiful already, Auto-Tune will not make your voice sound beautiful, if it isn't already.

Thanks for the info! That was a good read on popular misconceptions of Autotune.

I haven't heard the record other than the few clips but she sounds passionate again, which is great. If Madonna properly rehearses her vocals like she does her dancing this tour then she won't struggle IMO. I think what was so glaringly obvious about the S&S tour was that she had fantastic stamina but she sounded like she missed alot of her vocal lessons in preparation. There's no way she should have sounded that God-awful on Human Nature, perhaps flat at worst like during the Drowned World Tour.

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Guest Sinisin

As a musician that knows a lot about the studio, has studied audio engineering, and is in a studio everyday... I'd just like to say I have noticed the general public mentioning Pro Tools and Auto-Tune a whole bunch. I don't quite think they know what they are or what they do, and they especially don't understand that no amount of studio trickery will make you sound like an amazing singer. If you can't sing, it will help you to sound *maybe* passable, but you will NEVER sound great.

Also, people don't understand that there's a difference between NEEDING Auto-Tune and USING Auto-Tune. Madonna doesn't NEED Auto-Tune and never has. Contrary to popular belief, she has excellent pitch.

Auto-Tune was created as a way to slide vocals (usually certain notes) into the correct pitch. Often, even the world's best singers will lay down multiple vocal takes (from top to bottom) for the same song, and will end up with one take everyone loves, except for one bum note. Well, you're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water, and time is money. It's much easier to slide that one note (usually by a small amount) into tune, than it is to sing the part again, especially if you've already sung it 5-6 times, and you are inspired and want to keep moving. People with taste, use it in small amounts, much like makeup. But like most retouching nowadays, people misuse it and anyone with ears can hear how bad it sounds. Sure it's in pitch, but human beings don't sing in perfect pitch all the time. That is part of the beauty of the human voice. It's part of the beauty of music. It's why a symphony orchestra sounds full and bigger than life. When those small nuances are removed (to ridiculous degrees) by tools like Auto-Ttune, the human ear will notice it. The same way you'll notice a model on the cover of a magazine has poreless doll skin. Just listen to the last 30 Seconds to Mars record (or anything on the radio) for sickening examples of this. And it's a shame, because Jared Leto can actually sing well enough for what he does, and has decent pitch.

Pro Tools is industry standard software that practically every record you've ever heard in the last 17-18 years has been recorded into. It's a virtual recording studio inside a computer. Extremely talented people use it, and they're not using it to hide some sort of shortcoming. That's not what it was made for. For the laymen, it's basically the recording industries shift from multitrack tape, to the hard disk. It doesn't make you or any other instrument sound better. Sure you can comp vocals with it, but people were comping vocals with tape back in the day as well. Talented people. The reason you hear people saying "Pro Tools" as a negative, is because producers/engineers (with no taste) have *abused* the ease that it provides in sliding a performance perfectly into time. For example, if your drummer is falling out of time here and there, you can lock every drum hit to a perfect metronomic grid. If you have taste and REALLY know your craft, no one will ever know. If you don't...well...just turn on pop or mainstream rock radio.

So, you really can't make anyone sound like an amazing singer, and if you attempt to (and people have) it sounds comical. The best it can do, is make it seem like someone can carry a tune. But there's a lot more that goes into singing than just pitch and timing. No computer can make your natural raw vocal quality sound good if it isn't. Just listen to any Britney Spears record. I don't think there's anyone on the planet that will argue that she has anything even resembling vocal ability. And even with all of the Auto-Tuning, EQ, track doubling etc., she still doesn't sound like someone with anything even resembling vocal ability. Ultimately, she just sounds like a non-singer, that's somehow singing in key. People really need to remember that's all Auto-Tune can do for you. And even at that, it can't work miracles, as it does its best work within small parameters. If you're a horrible singer singing totally outside a key, Auto-Tune pitch correction will make you sound like a robot. And not good vocoder robotics (Nobody Knows Me), but really harsh, digital, glitchy, something sounds wrong robotics.

And just an aside (as an audio engineering nerd) Auto-Tune more often than not, sounds like SHIT. Melodyne is where it's at!

Anyway, just needed to say that, as WAY too many people mention Auto-Tune nowadays, without really understanding what it can and can't do. And Madonna hasn't even used pitch correction until *maybe* the Music record. Anything she's done since then (unless it's obviously a stylized effect) hasn't sounded like the HORRIBLE, and LAZY Auto-Tune abuse you hear elsewhere.

Much like plastic surgery cannot and rarely does make someone look beautiful, that wasn't beautiful already, Auto-Tune will not make your voice sound beautiful, if it isn't already.

GLEE is a disgusting abuse of auto-tuning!

Sorry all, had to say it.

Some of MDNA contains creative use of vocal manipulation software.

And btw, loved reading your wall of text. :)

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LOL, thanks. Not long ago, I ran into someone with intimate knowledge of the goings on in the Glee studio. [FANS OF THE SHOW LOOK AWAY NOW]I was told not many of those kids can actually sing, and they HAD to use copious amounts of pitch correction/editing etc., to create something passable. They've also had to resort to certain measures that I won't mention here. I've never seen or heard anything related to Glee, so I have no opinion. Doesn't surprise me that it sounds awful though, if they truly lack vocal ability.

And yeah, Madonna has really been into the use of creative effects on certain vocals for years now. For some strange reason, some people mistake this as an attempt to cover up bad vocals. Many of these same people assume these creative effects are Auto-Tune. They are not.

We've all heard Madonna's voice for years and years now prior to Auto-Tune, Melodyne, and other digital studio technology. And you are hearing her voice now. She can sing.

I am always stunned when people say she can't. As far as any weakness, every singer has a sweet spot in their voice that really shines. Madonna naturally has a very high voice, so singing in a really low, low register is not as natural to her, and it takes a little more work for her to sustain it and keep the pitch. Even so, she still sounds good down there. To prove my point, if you listen to her live singing closely, you'll notice that she goes off key, or misses a note, almost exclusively when she's singing near or at the bottom of her range. Once she returns to the higher side of her voice, she soars.

Regarding Sticky and Sweet, I noticed that during the early part of the tour she seemed to have vocal problems. Later on she sounded much better (like herself), but likely occasionally experienced whatever hoarseness/strain every vocalist has to endure on tour. And by vocal problems, I mean she sounded as if she had been pushing her voice to the point of possible damage. Hopefully she didn't do damage, and if she did - being Madonna - she surely went all out to rehabilitate it.

Btw, I just revisited the Girlie Show DVD, and had forgotten how great she sounded. And this was prior to Evita.

I recently saw Kelis on television, playing some massive German music festival, and let me tell you, for anyone that says Madonna can't sing (or can't sing live)...you all have no idea what bad singing really is. YIKES!!

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Guest bluejean

Yeah, its good she is using her voice in different ways again, BUT there is an awful lot of auto tuning and pro tools going on.

I think she will struggle to sing some of it live. Is it me or does she sound like she had a cold when Falling Free was recorded?

Yes I thought that too about the cold. But it still sounds great. As for the vocal correction despite that Love Spent, Falling Free and Masterpiece are still miles better than any vocals on Hard Candy or even Confessions.

I don't think she will "struggle" anymore live than on other tours. I actually think these songs will compliment her live singing voice more than the Hard Candy songs. Most of the Hard Candy songs did not suit her voice imo and I think that's because she didn't write most of the melodies.

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Guest bluejean

LOL, thanks. Not long ago, I ran into someone with intimate knowledge of the goings on in the Glee studio. [FANS OF THE SHOW LOOK AWAY NOW]I was told not many of those kids can actually sing, and they HAD to use copious amounts of pitch correction/editing etc., to create something passable. They've also had to resort to certain measures that I won't mention here. I've never seen or heard anything related to Glee, so I have no opinion. Doesn't surprise me that it sounds awful though, if they truly lack vocal ability.

I doubt that. The main actress in that show is from broadway and they all sound like pretty capable singers despite the obvious use of pitch correction. Like you said, you can't make a shit singer sound good. Didn't they also do a live show? (I didn't see it so I have no idea how "live" it is.)

I would imagine the reason it has so much pitch correction is because being a TV show its probably recorded very quickly with a limited budget and barely any time for them to practice. The volume of songs they record is pretty big. Not forgetting that its very in at the moment. Which imo is the main reason Orbit has used it so much.

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Her voice is amazing. Loved hearing Orbit go on about what a technically great singer she is. People who say she can't sing annoy me to hell.

I agree with this. Madonna is a better vocalist than people give her credit for. But she doesn't always show it on tour (Sticky & Sweet is the best example).

When she actually put effort into it and is not lazy, her voice can be VERY good, even now.

Edit: Thank you for your messages, Viktor!! You expressed it better than me.

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Guest bluejean

Madonna naturally has a very high voice, so singing in a really low, low register is not as natural to her, and it takes a little more work for her to sustain it and keep the pitch.

That is true, those verses in 4 Minutes are so damn low. I have no idea why she/Timberlake/Timberland decided to arrange the song like that. Same as Dance Tonight, that song sounds bad on the record, I dread to think how that would have been live. I'm guessing that's why she didn't do it :lol: Jump and Like it or not, same deal.

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Guest Evil M

As a musician that knows a lot about the studio, has studied audio engineering, and is in a studio everyday... I'd just like to say I have noticed the general public mentioning Pro Tools and Auto-Tune a whole bunch. I don't quite think they know what they are or what they do, and they especially don't understand that no amount of studio trickery will make you sound like an amazing singer. If you can't sing, it will help you to sound *maybe* passable, but you will NEVER sound great.

Also, people don't understand that there's a difference between NEEDING Auto-Tune and USING Auto-Tune. Madonna doesn't NEED Auto-Tune and never has. Contrary to popular belief, she has excellent pitch.

Auto-Tune was created as a way to slide vocals (usually certain notes) into the correct pitch. Often, even the world's best singers will lay down multiple vocal takes (from top to bottom) for the same song, and will end up with one take everyone loves, except for one bum note. Well, you're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water, and time is money. It's much easier to slide that one note (usually by a small amount) into tune, than it is to sing the part again, especially if you've already sung it 5-6 times, and you are inspired and want to keep moving. People with taste, use it in small amounts, much like makeup. But like most retouching nowadays, people misuse it and anyone with ears can hear how bad it sounds. Sure it's in pitch, but human beings don't sing in perfect pitch all the time. That is part of the beauty of the human voice. It's part of the beauty of music. It's why a symphony orchestra sounds full and bigger than life. When those small nuances are removed (to ridiculous degrees) by tools like Auto-Ttune, the human ear will notice it. The same way you'll notice a model on the cover of a magazine has poreless doll skin. Just listen to the last 30 Seconds to Mars record (or anything on the radio) for sickening examples of this. And it's a shame, because Jared Leto can actually sing well enough for what he does, and has decent pitch.

Pro Tools is industry standard software that practically every record you've ever heard in the last 17-18 years has been recorded into. It's a virtual recording studio inside a computer. Extremely talented people use it, and they're not using it to hide some sort of shortcoming. That's not what it was made for. For the laymen, it's basically the recording industries shift from multitrack tape, to the hard disk. It doesn't make you or any other instrument sound better. Sure you can comp vocals with it, but people were comping vocals with tape back in the day as well. Talented people. The reason you hear people saying "Pro Tools" as a negative, is because producers/engineers (with no taste) have *abused* the ease that it provides in sliding a performance perfectly into time. For example, if your drummer is falling out of time here and there, you can lock every drum hit to a perfect metronomic grid. If you have taste and REALLY know your craft, no one will ever know. If you don't...well...just turn on pop or mainstream rock radio.

So, you really can't make anyone sound like an amazing singer, and if you attempt to (and people have) it sounds comical. The best it can do, is make it seem like someone can carry a tune. But there's a lot more that goes into singing than just pitch and timing. No computer can make your natural raw vocal quality sound good if it isn't. Just listen to any Britney Spears record. I don't think there's anyone on the planet that will argue that she has anything even resembling vocal ability. And even with all of the Auto-Tuning, EQ, track doubling etc., she still doesn't sound like someone with anything even resembling vocal ability. Ultimately, she just sounds like a non-singer, that's somehow singing in key. People really need to remember that's all Auto-Tune can do for you. And even at that, it can't work miracles, as it does its best work within small parameters. If you're a horrible singer singing totally outside a key, Auto-Tune pitch correction will make you sound like a robot. And not good vocoder robotics (Nobody Knows Me), but really harsh, digital, glitchy, something sounds wrong robotics.

And just an aside (as an audio engineering nerd) Auto-Tune more often than not, sounds like SHIT. Melodyne is where it's at!

Anyway, just needed to say that, as WAY too many people mention Auto-Tune nowadays, without really understanding what it can and can't do. And Madonna hasn't even used pitch correction until *maybe* the Music record. Anything she's done since then (unless it's obviously a stylized effect) hasn't sounded like the HORRIBLE, and LAZY Auto-Tune abuse you hear elsewhere.

Much like plastic surgery cannot and rarely does make someone look beautiful, that wasn't beautiful already, Auto-Tune will not make your voice sound beautiful, if it isn't already.

Thanks for this.

How authentic would you say the pitch on Madonna's vocals on Love Spent ae?

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I wouldn't say that she has pushed herself vocally with this record but she still sounds a lot better than she did on Hard Candy. I like the variety, intonation and texture of her vocals on Gang Bang, Beautiful Killer, I'm A Sinner, I Fucked Up, Love Spent, Masterpiece and Falling Free. There are vocal effects on her voice for sure but it's done in quite a subtle way so that the voice doesn't sound overly processed. I'd like to hear her singing in a slightly lower and more mature register on her next album because on many of the MDNA songs it seems like her voice has been sped up to sound annoyingly girlish.

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Guest Sinisin

LOL, thanks. Not long ago, I ran into someone with intimate knowledge of the goings on in the Glee studio. [FANS OF THE SHOW LOOK AWAY NOW]I was told not many of those kids can actually sing, and they HAD to use copious amounts of pitch correction/editing etc., to create something passable. They've also had to resort to certain measures that I won't mention here. I've never seen or heard anything related to Glee, so I have no opinion. Doesn't surprise me that it sounds awful though, if they truly lack vocal ability.

And yeah, Madonna has really been into the use of creative effects on certain vocals for years now. For some strange reason, some people mistake this as an attempt to cover up bad vocals. Many of these same people assume these creative effects are Auto-Tune. They are not.

We've all heard Madonna's voice for years and years now prior to Auto-Tune, Melodyne, and other digital studio technology. And you are hearing her voice now. She can sing.

I am always stunned when people say she can't. As far as any weakness, every singer has a sweet spot in their voice that really shines. Madonna naturally has a very high voice, so singing in a really low, low register is not as natural to her, and it takes a little more work for her to sustain it and keep the pitch. Even so, she still sounds good down there. To prove my point, if you listen to her live singing closely, you'll notice that she goes off key, or misses a note, almost exclusively when she's singing near or at the bottom of her range. Once she returns to the higher side of her voice, she soars.

Regarding Sticky and Sweet, I noticed that during the early part of the tour she seemed to have vocal problems. Later on she sounded much better (like herself), but likely occasionally experienced whatever hoarseness/strain every vocalist has to endure on tour. And by vocal problems, I mean she sounded as if she had been pushing her voice to the point of possible damage. Hopefully she didn't do damage, and if she did - being Madonna - she surely went all out to rehabilitate it.

Btw, I just revisited the Girlie Show DVD, and had forgotten how great she sounded. And this was prior to Evita.

I recently saw Kelis on television, playing some massive German music festival, and let me tell you, for anyone that says Madonna can't sing (or can't sing live)...you all have no idea what bad singing really is. YIKES!!

Ok, thanks for the info on GLEE. I cant watch the show, PERIOD, because I sing for a living, everyday for 6 hours, 5 days a week- and when I hear how bad the auto-tuning is it infuriates me. :lmao:

And Madonna is a Mezzo, not an Alto- so the mid to high-ish range notes are always gonna sit comfortably and ring like a bell! :)

Girlie Show is a magnificent example of how good she can sing. Vocally she kills it- and I can tell you- rib reserve breathing while dancing does not make singing an easy feat, especially for 2 hours straight. In the case of stage musicals (my forte), most will hire "pit singers" so the onstage performers can have beefed up vocals because of the breathe issues, or just use canned vocals- which again angers me to no end. SO Madonna is beyond gifted, more than likely due to her Olympic trained physique.

And also, Im not afraid of the tracks on this album going live, shes gonna slay it, no worries! :madonna2:

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I find it funny how people are bashing her vocals on MDNA..

The contingent of idiots who bash her vocals have been around since 1983, though. Saying she can't sing is one of those foolish statements that somehow became myth, and you hear people say it who have probably never really listened to her and don't even know.

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