Brian Boydon music
During an interview several years ago, Dr Dre pointed out the window of his recording studio. "See that little girl walking past?" he said. "I could make her into a star tomorrow - no matter whatever musical ability she has or hasn't got." He was illustrating how far studio technology had come: how any of us could be made into a musical superstar.
Dre's comments came to mind while watching a YouTube clip of a Britney Spears performance from 2001 (enter 'Britney Spears microphone live' into YouTube's search engine). What you hear sounds like the actual unprocessed audio from her microphone. This would not have been what the live audience heard.
In a live pop concert, with the onus on the act to run around the stage like a child on a sugar-rush and then throw in some "sensual" dancing, it's impossible for the singer to produce any form of credible vocal. A lot of big-name acts get around this by lip-synching, but the problem is that no matter how well you do it, the people in the first few rows aren't taken in.
Madonna was recently accused of lip-synching her way through her live shows, which makes sense in a way because all you get when you see Madonna live is a middle-aged woman doing a yoga work-out to some backing tapes.
For music there is ProTools, software which allows the correction of every bum note and generally puts a professional sheen on even the most basic pub band musician. And now vocals have a sophisticated computer package called Auto-Tune. You can sing flat, out of key or with no pitch whatsoever. But once your warblings are processed through Auto-Tune (and it can be done instantaneously) you emerge sounding like a diva.
Auto-Tune can be used in both the studio and live shows.
That Britney vocal, it is alleged, was put through Auto-Tune before it hit her audience. From a performer's point of view, why not? If you're charging $100-plus for a concert ticket, you don't want to stick thousands of fans with the sort of pre-tune-up vocal delivery heard in the Britney clip.
It's all a bit smoke and mirrors, but no one really cares at a live show. Besides, it's a lot better than transparent lip-synching.
In the studio, though, the Auto-Tune box has become over-used to the point of parody. Listen to daytime music radio and you will be assaulted by weirdly robotic and artificial vocal deliveries. The problem is worse with boy/girl bands, which tend to push the dial up to 11 on the Auto-Tune box. The results sound like the Vienna Boys Choir having an emotional breakdown.
As with sound compression, we have become so inured to the Auto-Tune sound that we don't realise its ubiquity. You even hear it now on songs by cred indie bands, and at times it can sound as though everyone has turned into Joan Baez overnight. (Baez famously has a natural quiver in her voice, and it is believed that the engineers behind Auto-Tune studied her songs while creating their magic box.)
Used judiciously, Auto-Tune can work well with simple pitch correction of a voice. However, producers under pressure to deliver big hit singles are turning up the Auto-Tune dial so that the voice becomes distorted. Listen to Cher's Believeand you get some idea of how this sounds.
Someday, we can only hope, albums and downloads will come with a warning sticker: "Performance- enhancing software was used in the recording of this music".
