Another CHER vocal request

[sonicfire]

I'd have to find the article again, but when the producer was interviewed, he discussed the technique at length and explicitly. Was he avoiding mentioning Autotune? Maybe. Is it possible, just possible, that such suggestions are just more rumours added to the mythology of the technique? Also possible.

What I do remember is that the level of detail was significant enough that it sounded very plausible. It had to do with programming the carrier wave to the Talker at JUST the right time (and by hand) in order to reproduce that characteristic "jump" in voice.

Everyone here knows that Autotune CAN sound a lot like this. But that doesn't mean that it WAS what was used. Autotune in auto mode tends to have a lot more unexpected jumps and corrections than what "Believe" exhibits.

I mean, either way... please... DON'T use that effect!

Greg

i´ve tried that way and it´s idiotic and DOESNT sound at all like an autotuner ...

[Lunch Money]

You've tried which way, and what doesn't sound like an autotuner? You mean you've tried the timed vocoding and it didn't sound like the "Cher effect" you mean?

Fine.... I don't really care that much. I already said on page 3 that it could have been Autotune but that I just didn't understand why people are so adamant. It's not like you've used every vocoder and carrier wave out there just because you've given it a try. I just think it's within the realm of possibility to imagine that it took more than just "Autotune" on auto.

I didn't realize jmh already agreed with this assessment and that it's probably NOT just on "auto"... I was thinking it was him that insisted it was "auto" when in fact it was jasonsantiago who was saying that. Pure lazy use of the 'auto' setting won't give you the Cher effect, but it WILL give you a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile.

So, in summary:

- OK, it could've been Autotune, but programmed
- The producers themselves have given a very elaborate explanation that sounds at least credible, which did not necessarily involve Autotune though it may have been that they just didn't want to mention it
- None of us knows everything about anything

Sheesh, how did I become the whipping boy for the Autotune crowd?... I don't even give a shit about that stupid effect except that tuning vocals is something I wish I could afford to do given that my own vocals are crap.

[c_huelsbeck]

I believe (hehe) the producer didn't mention Autotune because he feared that all the mindless zombie producers would run out the next day, buy it and produce horrible cheap knockoffs of his finely crafted effect. Oh wait, that happened anyways...

[jmh]

"Once the shit hits the fan, the stench will be everywhere" or something in that vein...

The real challenge still remains - can anyone do anything original with the techniques described here and in that article? =)

JMH

[greendoor]

It is absolutely unbelieveable the amount of shyte that is being talked about this effect. Autotune has been used and abused every day since it was created. It is hardly noteworthy (pun intended). The Cher effect is special, and still talked about today. For the sake of the lazy people who have spouted out their ignorance without actually reading the SOS artical - pay particular attention to this bit (the whole artical is great - worth a read):

"In the end, we only used vocoded sections where they had the most striking effect, but didn't make the lyrics unintelligible. To do that, I had to keep the vocoded bits very short. So for example, when Cher sang 'Do you believe in life after love?', I think I only cut the processed vocals into the phrase on just the syllables 'belie-' from 'believe' and 'lo-' from 'love' -- but that was enough to make the whole phrase sound really arresting. I made sure throughout that the last word of each vocal phrase was unprocessed, because again, I found it sounded too bubbly and hard to understand when it was vocoded."

Now let's just shuddup about it ok?

[Lunch Money]

Word.

[duncanparsons]

nah Greg, can't let you get away with that...



DSP

[jmh]

For the sake of the lazy people who have spouted out their ignorance without actually reading the SOS artical - pay particular attention to this bit (the whole artical is great - worth a read):

...

Now let's just shuddup about it ok?

Thanks, I read the article when it came out, including all the discussions that were going on before the article was released. Not to mention I read it again once you posted it.

It's ok to disagree on a matter, but you could at least give the benefit of doubt instead of the arrogance and assumptions, ok? It's not as if I haven't tried explaining my point of view in detail, and have been able to discuss it further without resorting to remarks about your or anyone else's persona, something other participators have been able to grasp while not agreeing on the subject.

All I can say is it's too bad nobody else who wollowed the original discussions back then is participating now (and I don't exactly wonder why ), so I'm taking the piss for airing out parts of the story that went on back then. Which is ok, at least we got a sensible discussion going on for the most part

JMH

[Lunch Money]

I'm convinced that it could've been autotune, if that makes anybody feel better.

[duncanparsons]

..I have reservations about it being solely vocoder myself, tbh, just on the way that altho' a vocoder will do funny things spectrally, it would take a huge amount of work to use a vocoder to actually RETUNE a vocal. It means ensuring that the carrier is really strongly made up of the new notes freq and harmonic series, and really damps the old note freq/harmx.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done, and it would be a good 'touch up' to something tuned, whether via AtuoTnue or by resampling; but to use it solely to do a short vocal hammer-on would really be more work than it's worth..



DSP

[Lunch Money]

But IF that's what they did (remembering that I'm agreeing now that it could've been a lot of Autotune there!), the results have spoken for themselves. It really WAS worth the work to do the 'vocal hammer-on' because here we are still talking about it.

I'm missing a part of the equation here, though--

If the original vocal is pitched right (using Autotune or just naturally!), and the carrier signal is the same pitch as the existing vocal, it shouldn't be that tricky to do the 'hammer-on'. Or am I wrong?

It's the effect that's up for debate here-- I for one didn't mean to suggest that the vocoder was used to fix a vocal, but rather that it was used for the effect.

Crap-- now I feel like I'm going to have to listen to "Believe" again, because I'm losing track of what I'm talking about. <laff>

Greg

[jmh]

That 'hammer-on' with the current crop of plugin vocoders is actually dead easy to do - if you're a FL user it should be really simple for example to let through an effected version, by automating a channel send or the effected channel's volume... and I'm sure some more flexible hosts like eXT make it even easier.

The key thing is that a little experimentation might lead into wonderful things - just returned from my brother, where I was exposed to some really great music from 70s, we found some bits that are ideal for this kind of thing... as soon as I'm done with my current html-slavery I'll be launching my host and doing some vocal trickery

JMH

[AsianCarol]

Guys......it's autotune.On a dutch website i've found an article about it.During the recording sessions Cher was singing out of tune....."believe" it or not.While playing with autotune to "fix" it, they came up with this "cher effect",and the producer liked it,so they used it.Later he got all kind of questions how they made it,and of course he couldn't say that it was autotune,because Cher sings out of tune,so he made up the story that they used the Digitech device.Everybody happy now????

[Stupid American Pig]

Guys you are all wrong- The guy used his ass to sing as Cher. What happened is he was singing out of his ass, and realized it sounded like a robitic Cher. So he played the song for Cher, and she loved it. Naturally, the guy and Cher didnt want the world to know that he was singing out of his ass, so a coverup ensued. I suspect ties to 9/11, the CIA and Iraq. I am putting my own life at risk by spreading the truth, but I feel that the truth is more important than everything.

My hope for this forum, is that by realizing that the guy was singing out of his ass, they will realize that "Believe" was a shite song, with shite people involved and that any dude just singing out of his ass could make it...

[c_huelsbeck]

Guys you are all wrong- The guy used his ass to sing as Cher. What happened is he was singing out of his ass, and realized it sounded like a robitic Cher. So he played the song for Cher, and she loved it. Naturally, the guy and Cher didnt want the world to know that he was singing out of his ass, so a coverup ensued. I suspect ties to 9/11, the CIA and Iraq. I am putting my own life at risk by spreading the truth, but I feel that the truth is more important than everything.

My hope for this forum, is that by realizing that the guy was singing out of his ass, they will realize that "Believe" was a shite song, with shite people involved and that any dude just singing out of his ass could make it...

lol, that was pretty much what I was thinking...