Me: 1, Autotune: 0

[TheRealRoach]

So I was involved in a song with a fairly large arrangment. The producers hired in a FANTASTIC singer who was just amazing. From "Hi my name is... " to "here is your cheque" in about an hour and a half.

Anyway we were cutting together a mix - myself being the only engineer out of the group - and it soon becameVocal treatment time. One of the producers suggest that we add some subtle autotune on to the voice for that "sound". As much as us engineers hate hearing that, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and let him hear it, but I also asked that he give me a few minutes to rig up something else as well (since I didn't want to destroy such a fantastic performance -- or my own self-respect as an musician and engineer (HAH)). So I set up a few fairly conventional aux sends (some short delay, a verb, a H3500 style pitch shift...) and after some balancing of the sound he much preferred it over the "autotune trick" being proposed.

Whew... that was close.

[Chaellus]

nice congrats, keeping quality is the highest priority any engineer should have, by the way ive heard people sticking autotune on a track correcting a vocal clip and while or if the other parts are in tune...ruining them, so nice job on saving the song

[dusty cooper]

what do you mean by "H3500 style pitch shift"?

I assume you mean the eventide H3500 model, but since I'm not familiar with this device, what kind of pitch shifting are you talking about...? And with which plugin or device did you emulate this?

thnx

[richardswag]

Originally Posted by dusty cooper

what do you mean by "H3500 style pitch shift"?

I assume you mean the eventide H3500 model, but since I'm not familiar with this device, what kind of pitch shifting are you talking about...? And with which plugin or device did you emulate this?

thnx

I assume he means the 'MicroShift' effect - one channel pitched down a few cents, the other pitched up a little (+/- 9 is a good starting point). I could be wrong though...

[TheRealRoach]

Originally Posted by dusty cooper

what do you mean by "H3500 style pitch shift"?

I assume you mean the eventide H3500 model, but since I'm not familiar with this device, what kind of pitch shifting are you talking about...? And with which plugin or device did you emulate this?

thnx

You're right. It's a simple stereo widening effect for a mono vocal. I didn't have a 3500 to use but mimicked the sound by using the "Waves Doubler" plugin.

You just pitch the left side up a very tiny amount maybe 5 cents, and the other side can go down 5 cents. Those amounts are also modulated by a rate that they float from 5 to 4 to 5 to 6 to 5 etc... Makes it sound a little less mechanical. As well each side is delayed by a very small bit. maybe 5ms... as much as 15 ish.

The point of doing it is to give the vocal a sheen without actually having it doubled, or without hearing actualy echos. This type of effect us usually used on an aux send so that you can blend it in with the dry as you would a reverb or echo/delay.

But anyway... this is usually a main element of what people THINKS is that "autotune effect"