autotune

[Tosca]

That’s exactly, precisely, what my parents said about electric guitars and rock and roll.

“That’s noise, it’s not music!”

“Anyone can play that garbage! It’s amateur hour! Just listen to Mozart, or Benny Goodman if you want real music, played by real musicians.”

Here’s the best criticism they told me:

“Her voice only sounds good because they used an Echo Chamber!”

Listen: No one has a monopoly on music. People don’t buy music because they’re “lab rats.” People buy music that they like. And what people like changes from time to time, because folks get bored listening to the same diet of material. The Soviet Union tried to ban rock music because it was “decadent.” They wanted everyone to listen to Swan Lake. Or accordions.

Synths, drum machines, and yes, auto-tune, in the right hands, sound very good.

A synth is an electronic oscillator that gets filtered by the electronics. A guitar is a physical oscillator that gets filtered by the materials and construction. An electric guitar is a physical oscillator that gets filtered by the electronics, materials and construction. But in all cases, the sound is still organized by the player. A drummer hits skins on hollow frames to create oscillations, and organizes the peformance. A drum machine programmer uses electronic oscillators, and organizes the performance electronically.

The result is that different techniques are used to create the sounds. What makes one technique for sound creation somehow more legitimate than another, other than mere opinion?

No one can (or should) foist their definition of what music is, isn’t, should or shouldn’t be, on everybody else. It’s personal, and perhaps it ought to be personal, since each of us has our own brain and a unique set of things each of our brains respond to.

And since there are billions of individuals, each with their likes and dislikes, on this planet, maybe it’s time that people say, “You know what, it’s perfectly good that there are lots of ways to create music that satisfies each of those listeners.”

Speaking for myself, I create orchestral music, electronic music, rock music, jazz music, and other genres. Sometimes I mix them up. I write what I write to hear what I want to express. Take it or leave it, but it’s intellectually lazy to sit around and criticize the damn tools.

I have been firmly in the “technology is destroying musicianship and true creativity” camp...up until now...but you make a number of excellent points here Les.

 

[cags12]

Why people use cars if they can walk? use calculators if you can use a piece of paper, pen and their brain? Use computers to automate tedious tasks if they can do it manually every single time? etc, etc..

Everything has it uses and sadly can be abused, but is up to us if we do it too. Technology is there to make your life easier and arguably more interesting. But I reckon there is a fine line between good use and abuse. We must watch ourselves. My point is that you cannot blame the tech but the people who abuses it.

 

[jxe]

if one does use a drum machine to make ‘modern’ music, could it still be open-hearted?

 

[László]

You know I respect your opinion Lesteban, but this one was full of fluff & poo poo, and these are the only statements worth addressing.

-Real music is played by musicians *NOT* machines, otherwise it's just a paper roll in a player piano and sounds as sterile as wind up music box.

-Drum machines & autotune *NEVER* sounds good to me, but *AGAIN* people have been programmed to accept this mediocrity for decades and many don't know any better.

-It's "intellectually lazy" to go along with the flow, especially when the vast majority of that flow has uneducated ears and poor taste.


Today's music is very shallow & superficial, there's no getting around it, all you have to do is google it and you'll see tons of things written about this. Maybe I should have said AUTOMATION is the musical devil instead of just saying "technology", but I stick to my guns, automated music is trash. I don't deny I'm in the minority of the world that listens to jazz and turns the station as soon as I hear a drum machine beat, but I'm cool with that.

....... and I hope you noticed I left out synths in that whole statement................. cause you can actually play them without programming them, just ask Chick Corea, Jan Hammer and all the cats from P-Funk..

Nonsense. Who says anyone’s going along with the flow? I’ve been into electronic music making since the early 70s.

And where is it written that making noise by programming a drum machine sequence is any less creative than banging on pots and pans covered with skins? Doing it right takes skill - just a different kind of skill.

As to the “vast majority of that flow” having “uneducated ears and poor taste”, again, bullish!t!

I have highly educated ears, and guest lecture on music creation at the university level. I’m trained to play classical music, and I’ve written orchestral music for television for many years. I guarantee that I can orchestrate better than most, maybe even more skillfully than you. I read, and I understand writing for different orchestral sections.

Rest assured that I know what I’m talking about. And rest assured that I’m not intellectually lazy.

You’re taking your own opinions and beliefs, and thinking they apply to the rest of the world. Clearly, they don’t, no one’s do. But if you want to feel that way, there’s no stopping ya from stepping on your own...er...equipment.

As to taste, whatever. That’s personal. Maybe you like metal? Maybe you like arena rock? I hate that stuff. Does that make your taste worse than mine? I don’t think so. I think your taste may just be different from mine. But the last thing I’d say is that music you like isn’t music. Or that it’s shallow and superficial just because I don’t like it.

So get off your high horse.

 

[László]

I have been firmly in the “technology is destroying musicianship and true creativity” camp...up until now...but you make a number of excellent points here Les.

Thanks.

 

[bodia]

I'm feel in' saucy....you know who could benefit from auto-tune....Bob Dylan

 

[sergiodeblanc]

I'm feel in' saucy....you know who could benefit from auto-tune....Bob Dylan

Hahaha! F@ckin' A right!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

You know I respect your opinion Lesteban, but this one was full of fluff & poo poo, and these are the only statements worth addressing.

-Real music is played by musicians *NOT* machines, otherwise it's just a paper roll in a player piano and sounds as sterile as wind up music box.

-Drum machines & autotune *NEVER* sounds good to me, but *AGAIN* people have been programmed to accept this mediocrity for decades and many don't know any better.

-It's "intellectually lazy" to go along with the flow, especially when the vast majority of that flow has uneducated ears and poor taste.


Today's music is very shallow & superficial, there's no getting around it, all you have to do is google it and you'll see tons of things written about this. Maybe I should have said AUTOMATION is the musical devil instead of just saying "technology", but I stick to my guns, automated music is trash. I don't deny I'm in the minority of the world that listens to jazz and turns the station as soon as I hear a drum machine beat, but I'm cool with that.

....... and I hope you noticed I left out synths in that whole statement................. cause you can actually play them without programming them, just ask Chick Corea, Jan Hammer and all the cats from P-Funk..

So Kraftwerk, Sade, George Benson, Amy Winehouse, Prince, Michael Jackson, Daft Punk, Hall and Oates, and The Whispers, etc. etc. are all trash?!?! GTFO.

 

[jxe]

that’s on purpose, in fact mark knopfler sings through an early zimmerman dylanizer to achieve this sound.

I'm feel in' saucy....you know who could benefit from auto-tune....Bob Dylan

 

[jxe]

So Kraftwerk, Sade, George Benson, Amy Winehouse, Prince, Michael Jackson, Daft Punk, Hall and Oates, and The Whispers, etc. etc. are all trash?!?! GTFO.

if it has overdubs or double tracked stereo vocals, can it!

 

[Alnus Rubra]

I'm feel in' saucy....you know who could benefit from auto-tune....Bob Dylan

I think Jim Henson implanted an auto-tune chip in JT many years ago!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

I think Jim Henson implanted an auto-tune chip in JT many years ago!

Not to mention JT has been using playback and/or backing tracks to play live with since the 70’s. I guess he’s not a real musician too.

 

[Huggy Love]

Nonsense. making noise by programming a drum machine sequence is any less creative than banging on pots and pans covered with skins? Doing it right takes skill - just a different kind of skill.

As to the “vast majority of that flow” having “uneducated ears and poor taste”, again, bullish!t!

I guarantee that I can orchestrate better than most, maybe even more skillfully than you. I read, and I understand writing for different orchestral sections.

And rest assured that I’m not intellectually lazy.

So get off your high horse.

-The main skill it takes is programming.

-Cardi B had the #1 song in the country recently, ...... so goes your bvllshyt on poor taste and uneducation.

-I have NO DOUBT you can orchestrate better than me ...........NO DOUBT!!!

-I still consider going with todays flow of popular music is intellectually lazy .....but business wise.

-If anything I'm on the low donkey, dejected by many for not appreciating the shallow and mind numbing patterns of the 808 and computer synth programming.

Les I grew up during the tech assisted evolution of music, but even then, as a youth, automated music has always left me with an empty feeling. No matter how you try to intellectualize it, debate it, or broadcast your credentials about it, I will always view it like this:

The first instrument (outside of the voice) was the drum, invented by some early man in Africa, developed with the human body to produce myriads of rhythms, polyrhythms and ad libs, refined over the millennia to be (for lack of a better statement) God's gift to this earth. No machine can do better than that, you can't digitize Jazz or Blues because it's in between the the notes and beats, that's what makes it special.

Nothing you can debate will ever change that, and although I've heard you record jazzy sounding backing tracks, but we both know it's not Jazz. I respect you as an artist and businessman, but you are also doing what you accuse me of, "projecting your view" of automation's acceptability when my view is that it's not.

 

[Huggy Love]

So Kraftwerk, Sade, George Benson, Amy Winehouse, Prince, Michael Jackson, Daft Punk, Hall and Oates, and The Whispers, etc. etc. are all trash?!?! GTFO.

Kraftwerk was boring to me,
Never cared about Daft Punk,
Sade mostly used instruments with the drum machine arrangements,
Benson was a massive star well before making a few bucks on a couple pop tunes, that was a only small fraction of his career which I followed closely.
Prince & Michael? I've never been that much into Pop.
Hall & Oates, Whispers, I was listening to them well before they even knew what an 808 was.

There is no question that since the advent of automation there have been so many artistically beautiful, significant, and HISTORIC recordings by artists using drum machines. I have appreciated many of them, in spite of the annoyance I get from artificial beats.

 

[jxe]

30 years ago i didn’t trust people who didn’t like blue öyster cult, but i’ve since met people who don’t like ‘guitar music’. people are looking for different things in music, it’s great.

 

[László]

Nothing you can debate will ever change that, and although I've heard you record jazzy sounding backing tracks, but we both know it's not Jazz. I respect you as an artist and businessman, but you are also doing what you accuse me of, "projecting your view" of automation's acceptability when my view is that it's not.

I’m not pronouncing anything junk for “uneducated ears;” you’re the person putting music you don’t like into that category.

There’s a big world out there, with lots of tastes and styles. I’m not trying to convince you to like what I like, or dislike what I dislike. You certainly are entitled to your opinion. And you’re entitled to express it.

But there’s no need to demean a person who works in the genres you call “uneducated.” I, for one, certainly don’t do so for anything other than artistic reasons, and the fact is, I’m highly educated. For me, part of the art in creating the electronica I do is using alternative drum sounds, and programming interesting things with my fingers. It’s no different than using my fingers on a keyboard to create other things, and record them.

Incidentally, beyond modern pop stuff being cut with synths and/or drum machines, there have been classics by artists as diverse as Peter Gabriel, The Beatles, Depeche Mode, The Cure, U2, Eurhythmics, Tangerine Dream...well, the list just goes on and on.

What you may not be aware of is that it’s common practice for mixers of rock music to replace drum tracks with triggered samples, even with rock, metal, hard rock, and lots of other styles of bands. They can get the track to “cut” through the mix better, because the samples can be heavily effected without having to think about mic bleed or room noise.

In that case, all the “real” drummer is doing is using his/her kit to - yes - program a sampled track later. That track itself gets quantized to a grid as often as not, and all that allows the producer and engineer to move things around in time and have various parts match tempo.

There isn’t much difference between that and using the fingers to hit pads or keys to trigger those very same sounds. Some folks do that very well. Some don’t. Some do it incredibly well!

I’ve hired lots of percussionists over the years to program drum tracks for me, because their work can be interesting, and of course, I like to do that myself. It’s something that interests me. And it’s OK if it doesn’t interest you.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Aw Les you’re such an educated old “luvvie”!

I read your post and this came to mind -

Newer version of a great sketch.

“I’m a smelly, ignorant serf!”

 

[Huggy Love]

What you may not be aware of is that it’s common practice for mixers of rock music to replace drum tracks with triggered samples, even with rock, metal, hard rock, and lots of other styles of bands. They can get the track to “cut” through the mix better, because the samples can be heavily effected without having to think about mic bleed or room noise.

In that case, all the “real” drummer is doing is using his/her kit to - yes - program a sampled track later. That track itself gets quantized to a grid as often as not, and all that allows the producer and engineer to move things around in time and have various parts match tempo.

There isn’t much difference between that and using the fingers to hit pads or keys to trigger those very same sounds.

I've been fully aware of all that since back when The Tubes & The Cars were doing it, they were some of the first big acts to employ sampled drum tracks in Rock, and although it sounds much better than the blatant artificial 808 sound in a lot of today's hits, in my ears it still falls short of a human drummer.

I listen to 90% Jazz and older recordings of other music genres that have real drummers, I put up with 10% of everything else and I don't think that will ever change for me.

I still choose the red pill.

 

[László]

Aw Les you’re such an educated old “luvvie”!

I read your post and this came to mind -

Newer version of a great sketch.

“I’m a smelly, ignorant serf!”

Loved it!

I was a smelly, ignorant serf only a few centuries ago. Before that I was a musician. Buying too many nice lutes put me into serfdom.

 

[Wakester]

if one does use a drum machine to make ‘modern’ music, could it still be open-hearted?