[eascholz]

Originally Posted by zephonic

I was working on a local jazz singer's debut album with a good friend who is not only an ace jazz drummer but also a very accomplished recording engineer. He knows everything about mic placement etc. and can get extremely clear and full recordings on a budget.
But he is a bit of a traditional, acoustic music kind of guy, everything has to happen right here in the room and we capture that faithfully, you know the type. I mean, this session was the first he ever did with a click track!

So a few days after the band recordings, we come back in to redo the vocals and in this one particular tune she's tracking some BGV's. We do a take that I'm happy with but there's one particular short semi-tone that is not entirely spot on. He hears it and feels we should redo it, but the singer and I think it is okay, and to appease him I suggest that that minor intonation thing can be fixed by Autotune. He objects, but finally gives in and says "but you do it, because I don't know how it works".

I insert AT on the track, just use the E Major preset to show him what it can do, thinking I'll do the graphic editing after tracking. His attitude changes as he hears how it tightens up the track.

We continue tracking and now there is this bit where it gets tricky because she has to sing some pretty intricate harmonies and take after take she fails to get it right. I keep saying "you have to sing a C there, not a B" and she responds desperately: "but that's what I'm doing". I play it back for her to hear, and it's a B. This continues for 20 minutes after which we're both pretty exasperated.
I complain to my engineer friend who is sympathetic and very supportive: "Yeah, amazing how long that takes. I even left the Autotune on, and still she can't get it right!"

I laughed so hard I got hiccups, but the singer was going to kill him!

You're implying that autotune was bumping her C natural (not in an E scale) down to a B, right?