Stewart Copeland focused The Police performance

[pepp5]

As mentioned in the server.  This one definitely requires headphones or nice speakers.  Listen to the bassy thump of his toms while doing the bell stuff. 

The Stick throw half way through is cool.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmBdz1txGSo

[|iR|Focalor]

The auto-tune stuff Sting's using for the vocals kinda ruins it. And strangely enough, I guess he's using it because his natural and now old-as-hell singing voice probably ruins the music too. Geddy Lee was using the same kinda shit on the last tour Rush did before Neal Peart passed, and it sounded even worse. Hell, I think I heard a clip of Vince Neil of Motley Crue using the same shit too.

Ya know... just DON'T. If your singing is that bad, then don't. Either DON'T tour, or get someone else to sing.

I agree, Stewart Copeland is definitely an incredible drummer. A lot of the Police stuff is deceptively hard to play correctly.

[pepp5]

I don't think auto-tune works for live audio. I am not sensing any of that for either sting here or Geddy on any live peformance.  Geddy clearly lost some high range and has had to sing lower in recent years, as Robert Plant has done. Aging does that.  :-(

[|iR|Focalor]

No, he's definitely using it. It's not the same auto-tune like that tacky shit that all the rappers use that make them sound like robots, and "auto-tune" probably isn't the actual name of the effect they are using, but they are definitely using an effect to correct their pitch (probably called "scaled polyphonic pitch correction"). It's use is somewhat new and not everyone really knows about it... and some of that has to do with the fact that artists kinda want to keep it secret - they don't want everyone knowing they're using it. Basically it's an effect that is probably pre-programmed to a particular scale for the song, and it shifts the pitch of the voice in real time. I'm not really sure, but it also seems like it's adding it's own electronically generated tone that is matched to the vocal tone. Seems like it might also be adding a bit of a vibrato or detune effect to the generated tone. For the stuff I've seen of Geddy Lee using it, it seems to only kick in when he's doing higher notes, which you can program it to do. He also does a peculiar thing where he over-annunciates the higher phrases, probably something he's practiced to prevent himself from "bending" notes which would probably make the effect bounce between the notes very noticeably.

In the studio vs live is a little different. In the studio you can do more things with software to polish it off and make it less obvious (like in the video below). In fact, these days it's entirely possible to use a 100% computer generated voice to create convincing vocal tracks. I've seen a video where someone used a program to synthesize Ozzy Osbourne's voice and at times it sounded very real.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS1YDAc-f5I

[pepp5]

Ah, Fil from Wings of Pegasus.  Yeah I trust him. Oh well Sting... I can't tell from it but he does sure sound on pitch.  I like it when pro musicians make some small mistakes here and there personally, it shows that they are human. You can hear mistakes in Dave Brubeck live stuff for crying out loud.

I can pinpoint drumming errors in both Stairway to Heaven and Time by Floyd on their studio releases.

[|iR|Focalor]

I can't tell from it but he does sure sound on pitch.

Being in tune/on pitch is the point though. Part of what makes it noticeable is in the sustain of the notes. There's usually not enough vibrato and it sounds a little lackluster. The effect does seem to add it's own very slight vibrato to kind of disguise the generated tone better, which I imagine is user adjustable to tailor the effect to the singer better.

When singing naturally, most singers hit the note, then as it sustains and trails off, they add in some vocal vibrato. But when using a pitch correction effect, one that also supplements the voice with a computer generated matched tone, there's really no way to gate the intensity of an additional vibrato effect for the generated tone unless you were to use something like an expression pedal (like how a wah wah pedal is used for guitar). ANd even if you WERE to use an expression pedal to gate the amount of vibrato, it would probably sound very obvious and unnatural, because the note would likely shift at a smooth logarithmic frequency rather than whatever frequency the human voice normally does.

And if you're already singing AND playing another instrument (like a BASS, like Sting), it would be far too difficult to play the instrument AND control the vocal effect. I suppose it could be done, but it would take TONS of practice for a musician to get used to it. The problem is that you've already trained your limbs to control effects for the INSTRUMENT, not for your voice.

[QwazyWabbit]

Auto-tune works in realtime. It's a digital signal processing system with sub-millisecond lag.

[|iR|Focalor]

Auto-tune works in realtime. It's a digital signal processing system with sub-millisecond lag.

Yeah, it just rounds the tone to the nearest neighboring tone in whatever tuning it's set at. I'm not really sure how the pitch correcting stuff works though, but you never hear it stepping up notes like auto tune does.

It's kinda hard to find anything about this pitch correction crap though. I know it's a real thing and definitely being used though, because I can totally HEAR it. Quite a few country singers these days are using it too, both live and in the studio, which in my opinion is pretty shitty. Country music has always been super competitive, and when you have a one-of-a-kind super talented voice like Reba McEntire, it's not only years of WORK that went into developing her singing voice, it's also just plain old "born with it" talent. Meanwhile, you've got all these modern pop country dip shits pitch correcting their voices (even older ones like Trace Adkins) when there are TONS of other great starving musicians working the clubs in Nashville with REAL HONEST TALENT.

[pepp5]

I am hoping that the following have never used pitch correction:

• Tool
• Geddy
• The Police - whoops!
  
• Judy Garland
• Karen Carpenter
• ABBA
• Stevie (either one)
• Glen Campbell
• Tina Turner - RIP
• Mister Claypool, who can boss out on bass at the same time as singing perfectly odd
• Britney ... hah

[|iR|Focalor]

I am hoping that the following have never used pitch correction:

• Tool
• Geddy
• The Police - whoops!
  
• Judy Garland
• Karen Carpenter
• ABBA
• Stevie (either one)
• Glen Campbell
• Tina Turner - RIP
• Mister Claypool, who can boss out on bass at the same time as singing perfectly odd
• Britney ... hah

Tool early days, no. Now? I dunno. Perhaps. I'm sure in the studio they do some pitch adjustment here and there while they're doing volume envelopes on the various layered vocal tracks. If you don't, you don't get as tight of a sound in your harmonies. These days, EVERYONE records on software now. Normalizing, editing out the wazoo, pitch correction, all the shit that is technically "cheating", it's all standard practice now.

As for the rest, no. Pitch shifting didn't really start happening until probably about 1989 when companies like Digitech started first producing the WH-1 Whammy pedal. Other companies like DOD were also making octave pedals, but those only generated a note one octave down, and really only sounded musical when playing single note leads (it was monophonic pitch shifting, so it didn't do chords worth a shit). It wasn't until IC chips and digital (not analog) circuits started happening in audio - all that was in the 80's. Hell, if I'm not mistaken, Tom Sholz (Guitarist from the band Boston, also inventor and owner of Rockman audio) might "technically" be the first person to have used pitch shifting in some form when he created the Rockman chorus/detune/doubler effects that is basically the "Boston sound". Tons of other people used it too - Def Leppard, Kenny Loggins (guitars on Highway to the Danger Zone), etc.