Jump to content

StrikeItUp

Advanced Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    357

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by StrikeItUp

    MDNA vocals - WOW

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    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.

    Hair

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    I agree! The show was great but that was one of the most boring hairs ever!

    Absolutely no center part this time! She needs something versatile but cool enough for the stage.

    Or like this?! :dramatic::dramatic::dramatic:

    madonna23.jpg

    I must have been living under a rock all this time. Are those hairy Italian forearms I see there? Such an iconic pic and I somehow overlooked that! :blink:

    World Tour 2012 VOCALS DISCUSSION thread

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    This is news to me. I thought she started singing live at the open your heart/express yourself bit and then for LAP

    I thought the few lines of OYH and EY were the only real live vocals of that performance. Everything else sounded pre-recorded. Shame about LAP though because I think she could have handled it live even in that stadium with decent vocals.

    I think if she put down the guitar half the time, she wouldn't sound so forced when singing. Also S&S focused so much on dancing that she seemed to have skipped her vocal training during rehearsals. I'll be happy if I can get a good blend of Confessions + RIT vocal quality. Cuz I would love to hear Masterpiece live.

    "I Don't Give A" OFFICIAL THREAD

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    I agree, she totally underestimated the audience, which in turn, might kill off real interest by casual listeners. That's what gives her big hits (along with payola from the record company).

    In spite of misfires of GMAYL and GGW, I'm glad the album sounds like it's full of killer stuff. It'd be nice if it can reach a broader audience beyond the fanbase.

    "I Don't Give A" OFFICIAL THREAD

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    I can't believe this CD is full of such great music and they released the weakest tracks as singles. I LOVE this song. This Madonna doing hiphop right.

    Seriously! I truly think she has lost her ear/taste for what would give her a great critical reception.

    But I'm glad she still has enough sense to make some great music, if the last several clips are indicative.

    MDNA Album Thread

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    You honestly think radio will GGW a chance? It would be better to just release a song public loves and not thinking about radio at all..look what happened with GMAYL, they dropped it like hot potato even after huge push from Interscope and Super Bowl.

    If she starts thinking what radio will like she will lose the buyers too..coz lets face it, radio won't support her anymore no matter what.

    I think most Madonna fans are realistic at the fact that at 53, Madonna won't have much luck at radio from this point on. So I'd rather she release quality substantial work worthy of her catalogue regardless of chart success. If radio picks it up, great, but those days are pretty much behind her. What has she got to lose anyway by releasing non-radio stuff?

    MDNA Album Thread

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    If the album is so full of potential, why on Earth have they released GMAYL as first single and GGW as second? :(

    Quoted for truth! I just don't get it, unless she and Interscope want an easy radio hit that badly. That said the tidbits of the album sound very promising in spite of those singles.

    MDNA Album Thread

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    I've visited other Madonna forums, the response to GGW has been pretty negative, this coming from her own fans. You'd have to be pretty naive to think that William Orbit, who is active on his Twitter account, hasn't been paying attention to the internet reactions to both singles. Billboard and Rolling Stone slated GMAYL, her first single. Madonna seems pretty out to lunch which the general response so of course William Orbit will say "the tracks aren't representative of the album as a whole". Clearly he is listening! Then why release them and turn off even the casual listener who hasn't heard new Madonna material in 4 years?

    None of Madonna's fans want her to flop at all. I'm still holding out hope for the deluxe edition that they'll be some great stuff, Masterpiece sounds wonderful. But MDNA isn't going over as well as it should be based on the released music so far.

    Madonna Super Bowl thread continued

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    Anyway, re: Superbowel. She seems to be going for an "in your face" gay agenda which I think is just what the USA needs given the recent gay suicides / bullying incidents and all that.

    I'm a bit nervous about this for old Marge. It sounds exciting but I hope this doesn't blow up in her face. I don't know if exposing booing homophobes during a major NFL game is necessarily a good idea, but I'll reserve judgement until the performance.

×
×
  • Create New...