Is "Angels" by Robbie Wiliams heavily autotuned?

[headwerkn]

... or maybe the term is "noticeably autotuned"?

A few minutes ago I was listening to the song in preparation for some gigs (we do a lot of corporate work... hey, it pays well and the secretaries and admin staff prefer it over 4 sets of Credence!) and in the intro it just struck me that there was this weird quality to the way the vocal was tracking pitch, especially on the lines "when I'm grey and old" and "and I have been told".

I don't rate my own vocal ability that much but the other guys in the band certainly can sing (one guy's been doing it for 40 years as a professional) and at that slow a tempo even they take a noticeable but very natural 'moment' to 'scoop' up to pitch... young Robbie here seems to do it not instantly but unnaturally fast.

I don't use autotune myself (everyone I record can sing well, except myself - and I just do as many takes as I need) and outside of the occasional link posted here on GS to some very obvious frog-in-a-vocoder overuse of the plugin I don't really have any experience either with it or listening for it.

I guess I'm just curious if that's what I'm hearing or Robbie just sings that way? Anyone got any answers?

[gurubuzz]

Most people are using auto tune offline and in graphical mode where you can redraw the pitch curve and maintain original vibrato.

So I guess he must just sing it like that because if they took the time to "auto tune" it they probably would have done it so you can't hear it...

If you were engineering Robbie and your name on the CD would you do such an obvious edit but heck Celene Dion's Titanic hit has obvious clipping in the vocal...??


But...I did not listen to it today...

[midigod]

I don't think they would have drawn anything out with Angels, because it was released the same year that the first version of Autotune was released. The first version didn't have graphical mode, IIRC. They would have just put it on with a slower correction time, which would make sense given the way the vocal sounds.

However, I would suspect it was actually recorded before Autotune came out, but that part's just a guess.

Craig

[travisbrown]

Little bit early for Antares Autotune, I think, but could be run through a Harmonizer or something.

Robbie Williams definitely doesn't need autotuning. He's an excellent singer. He's got lots of control and pretty good style - I assume however he sang it was deliberate.

[gainreduction]

Fantastic song, wish I had written it.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by travisbrown

Little bit early for Antares Autotune, I think, but could be run through a Harmonizer or something.

Robbie Williams definitely doesn't need autotuning. He's an excellent singer. He's got lots of control and pretty good style - I assume however he sang it was deliberate.

I don't know about that song, but I DO know the guy who did a lot of the autotuning on many Robbie Williams tracks (but NOT "Eternity", which if I've got my song title right is the most obviously tuned track!).

His comments kind of agreed with yours - Robbie is a good singer, but he was also very lazy...and would often be content to sing it a few times and let it be fixed rather than get the perfect take.

[narcoman]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

I don't know about that song, but I DO know the guy who did a lot of the autotuning on many Robbie Williams tracks (but NOT "Eternity", which if I've got my song title right is the most obviously tuned track!).

His comments kind of agreed with yours - Robbie is a good singer, but he was also very lazy...and would often be content to sing it a few times and let it be fixed rather than get the perfect take.

agreed - with knowledge! Seen it!

Angels? Not sure whether autotuned or not - could be. We used to do similar things with MIDI and a sampler back in the (very) late 80's.....

[gurubuzz]

So it was 1997...

I remember the first version of sound forge had a graphical pitch tool where you could draw a pitch correction

I just had a listen and it doesn't sound like it's been tuned

sounds a bit like a reverb's standing wave in some quiet passages..

[duckoff]

I'd say most of it isn't autotuned, you can hear lots of tuning innaccuracy in the vocal throughout ( not in a bad way ) however I think ''grey and OLD'' is almost definately tuned, it sounds very suspicious and synthetic - it sounds like they have fixed just that phrase.
The previous phrase is not in tune esp. ''go'' and the following phrase isn't either.

[Jaques Beraques]

Originally Posted by duckoff

I'd say most of it isn't autotuned, you can hear lots of tuning innaccuracy in the vocal throughout ( not in a bad way ) however I think ''grey and OLD'' is almost definately tuned, it sounds very suspicious and synthetic - it sounds like they have fixed just that phrase.
The previous phrase is not in tune esp. ''go'' and the following phrase isn't either.

+1 definetly tuned

[headwerkn]

Thanks for the replies guys. Didn't dawn on me that the song predates the technology! 'Grey and old' still sounds funny to me but if that's just the way he sings, good on him. Still a great song.

[PhilR]

"Thank god for Autotune, because I sound terrible" - Robbie Williams

Taken from a local radio interview after the release of his most recent album.

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by PhilR

"Thank god for Autotune, because I sound terrible" - Robbie Williams

Taken from a local radio interview after the release of his most recent album.

Another classic line from RW.

Mind you, RW often and notoriously deprecates his (formidable) singing ability in deference to his purported sexual ability and the culture of celebrity. In lots of the Williams/Chambers songs (particularly on Escapology) there's persistent tongue-in-cheek reference to the ruse of celebrity rendering talent moot. I'm sure he loves celebrity (he sure enough indulges in its offerings), but makes fun of it often enough too.

One album where I think he shines as a singer is Swing When You're Winning. Great homage to the classic jazz singers and good style on RW's part.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by headwerkn

... or maybe the term is "noticeably autotuned"?

A few minutes ago I was listening to the song in preparation for some gigs (we do a lot of corporate work... hey, it pays well and the secretaries and admin staff prefer it over 4 sets of Credence!) and in the intro it just struck me that there was this weird quality to the way the vocal was tracking pitch, especially on the lines "when I'm grey and old" and "and I have been told".

I don't rate my own vocal ability that much but the other guys in the band certainly can sing (one guy's been doing it for 40 years as a professional) and at that slow a tempo even they take a noticeable but very natural 'moment' to 'scoop' up to pitch... young Robbie here seems to do it not instantly but unnaturally fast.

I don't use autotune myself (everyone I record can sing well, except myself - and I just do as many takes as I need) and outside of the occasional link posted here on GS to some very obvious frog-in-a-vocoder overuse of the plugin I don't really have any experience either with it or listening for it.

I guess I'm just curious if that's what I'm hearing or Robbie just sings that way? Anyone got any answers?

It's far from the worst I've ever heard but I think it's pretty clear that AT was used less than transparently in a few places. I doubt (most of) the secretaries will get it but the wrenchmarks are clearly there in more than a couple places, notably one of the lines you had mentioned (I noticed that line even before I read your mention of it).

BTW, this song turns my gut in a way that I haven't experienced in a long time. Eeeeyuck.

____________

I note others suggest this track may have been recorded before AT. It sounds like AT to me but let's not forget electronic pitch correction (in some form or other) has been around for over a quarter century and even before that, I'd heard of people dubbing off syllables and phrases onto a second machine, pitch correcting them with varispeed, and flying them back in (in cases where the singer was not availble for fixes). I heard about that when I was in school in the early 1980s.

[allstar]

Originally Posted by theblue1

BTW, this song turns my gut in a way that I haven't experienced in a long time. Eeeeyuck.

Yep, can't stand it or Robbie as a singer.

To me he always sounds like someone doing an impression of a singer, albeit rather a good impression, like he's playing a role. No doubt the guys a great entertainer and a couple of people I've met who know him won't have a bad word said about him.

You have to remember, we had him pretty much shoved down our throats here in the UK for quite a while. If it's possible to have too much of a good thing, it's definitely possible to have too much of a mediocre thing.

Sorry Robbie fans, I normally keep my gob shut if I haven't got something constructive to say.

[theblue1]

Yeah. I'm not usually particularly restrained myself but let me just rush to say that just because this song turns my gut doesn't mean others won't think it's the bee's meow.

We're solidly in IMHO territory here and it's probably best I offer my frequently stated proviso (when I have the temerity too open my big, intemperate mouth on aesthetic matters): there's no such thing as bad music. If someone enjoys it, it's got value to them and that, really, is enough to justify it.

That said, this sort of lugubrious, mannered, over-singing really sounds incredibly corny to me. It makes me feel -- as the elementary kids say -- icky.

[duckoff]

Didn't dawn on me that the song predates the technology!

it doesn't really - it was done around the time AT first came out - which could explain the heavy handedness - whoever did it probably wasn't used to the subtleties of setting AT well ( transparently ).

[Outlaw Hans]

Robbie's old stuff was good. "She's the one", "Road to Mandalay", "Something beatiful", "No regrets" even "Rock DJ" they're all good songs. So is Angels. The lyrics of that song are a bit corny. But I'm a lyrics guy and even i will have to say that it has a good lyrical flow soundwise. The melody is damn nearly perfect. Guy Chambers really is an outstanding songwriter i.m.o.
Robbie is sufficient as a singer but unlike somebody like Elvis he can't sing a bad song without losing all his credibility. His voice just isn't special enough to save a mediocre song. His latest output is just plain stupid. And so is he sadly enough. Give hime a good song and he delivers and entertains. Give him a mediocre song and he's a clown.