Is Adele's voice autotuned?

I know there's a joke video of her new single sans autotune but taking into account she's pitched as a serious artist/talent I'm amazed by just how autotuned or synthesised her voice sounds on the new recordings - well the one's I've heard as I'm no fan. Is it just my old fashioned ears being over sensitive to such fakery or is this completely acceptable? For me it isn't - if you can't do it get out of the way has always been my motto.

 

Probably so. And many other studio tricks. Be hard pressed to find very many artists who dont use some sort of studio *magic*. Thats why *perfection* sucks the humanity out of a lot of recordings.

In her defense though, Im sure she can sing her butt off. But, she is a part of the big monster of international entertainment. Im sure if I were, Id do what it took to make it and stay at the top also.

 

I saw Adele last weekend on tv. Let me say I respect her as an artist. She was on a pretty popular show and she sang live a couple of her songs. She was clearly out of pitch.

 

Not when I saw her in 2008 for 19!

 

To me, thats kind of weird. Go ahead and auto tune my cd because I cant sing on pitch. But dont you dare do it live on my singing. Eventhough...ummm..I cant..sing on..pitch

 

There were some leaked live-vocals from her on Youtube...don't know about the '25'-album, but her voice sounds fine without any tinkering or tuning.

 

She sounded fine on - and I've got to admit, I warmed to her after seeing this

 

She sounded good. But, wow, that was probably the most annoying 6 minutes Ive spent this week.

 

I think that every artist has their voice pitch corrected on modern recordings to some degree. When you are perfecting a studio recording, you don't want imperfections; it's the artist's one opportunity to create the reference version of their song. An off-key note is going to stick out like a sore thumb once the recording is released to the whole world.

If the artist can sing on-key during the recording, then the application of autotune should be minimal. A lot of artists abuse autotune, and some use it excessively for 'artistic' purposes. The big issue that most people have is when autotune is used to enhance the vocalist's voice beyond what they're actually capable of, or when it affects the sound of the voice to the point of it being detectable.

I don't mind the use of autotune simply for minor correctional purposes on a record. The effects certainly shouldn't be audible, though.

Jeff Lynne's voice at 2:15 could have used just touch of autotune to put it back on-key. He goes off-key when belting out the word "ideas" during the chorus there in a way that never occurs again in the song.

 

According to an interview with Tony Visconti in this months MOJO her producer Tom Elmhirst mixed her album 'unnattended' and that "Edele never came to the studio". Such lack of care and interest in her own recording astonishes me. Perhaps she literally doesn't care.

 

I don't agree. There are many artists that recording today that don't care if there voice isn't pitch perfect and corrected. They understand that it's the little imperfections that make music human and well just more soulful.

 

But then there are also so many artists that apply other processing to their voice, such as reverb; they also multi-track their voice to create a rather unnatural, bulkier sound. Most artists give their voice other enhancements and apply effects to create their ideal sound on the studio recording.

Unless an artist uses a single raw recording of their voice on the record, they're just as guilty of altering their voice as anyone who uses autotune. It all has the same purpose of altering the sonics of the voice for the purpose of perceived improvement on the record.

You'll never have an artist who just does nothing to their voice on the record. Even the equipment and the set up of the studio play a role in creating a particular sound for the recording.

 

I wonder if Siouxsie And The Banshees were starting out now, her voice would be autotuned? If so, it probably wouldn't appeal to me at all.

On live TV appearances Adele has always sounded like a good real singer (not real good singer) to me and emotes her songs beautifully.

Oggy.

 

The microphone is a transducer; it captures the voice and sends the signal to a high-quality, very expensive mixer. Vocals going through there are going to sound better than if she had just sang on stage with no micophone because there's at least some processing being done to the voice.

It's impossible to avoid; in fact, it's one advantage that popular artists have over, for example, the Saturday night performer at the local club. You can warm up the voice, make it smoother, add fullness. Those are some expensive systems. World-class artists use world-class equipment. That said, any kind of equipment at any level is going to have an effect on the voice. It all goes towards improving the sound by altering the sonics of the voice.

 

All very true, but Siouxsie is gloriously off key a lot of the time!

John Lennon hated the sound of his natural voice.

 

I'm sure 25 is selling well in Australia.

 

I can say for sure she does not. There are tiny imperfections in her pitch, very tiny, that makes her sound human and emotional. It´s part of her charm. It´s important to tell, as a producer myself, that auto tune can not make a bad singer (in the sense of no musicality, charisma, etc) sound good. All the tricks in the world can help a performance but not make it good if it isn´t.
She probably compiles, and as in every recording there´s compression and some kind of reverberation and delay to spatialize it (I don´t know the correct term in english).
There are bad singers who are great singers, like Alice Cooper for instance. And great singers who are not great singers like the American Idols. In pop music charisma and ´´vinyl personality`` is everything. Auto tune, compiling, compression etc etc are just tricks to enhance and make records, not miracles. She is a great singer who is a great singer.
That said, I like her but find her music boring.

 

I'm only referring to autotuning.

 

We watched her "live" on a dedicated BBC program a couple of weeks ago when she was starting the heavy promotion for her latest album. My partner and I were both "busy" doing other things on our PC's whilst the TV played on. We're not exactly rabid Adele fans but have both of her earlier albums and the Royal Albert Hall DVD. Several times we both stopped what we doing, looked up at each other and said "Did you hear that?" Her vocals were terrible "live" without auto-tune; she hit bum notes everywhere and her voice sounded awfully weak and thin. We both concluded that she wasn't much of a singer and her material was very limited. We won't bother with the latest album. She hardly needs our money either!

 

this show?

http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-8fa1774a-6f08-4d1b-b9db-5f77e04f661e.html

 

You're joking, right? That is the program I am referring to above - thanks for the link! However, listen closely and you'll hear several points where she is off pitch / key, whatever. I found it particularly jarring to listen to.

 

From an artistic point of view, is there much difference at all between correcting pitch and the application of effects/use of equipment and recording techniques to improve the sound of one's voice? The objective, in all cases, is to make the voice sound better than it naturally would, and reducing imperfections for the purpose of the studio recording. They all fall under the same principle.

I don't like the abuse of autotune, but that would be the same as saying I don't like a person's vocals sounding like they were recorded in a hollow chamber. I much prefer a more subtle use of processing; too much starts to degrade the natural sound of the voice.



Gabriel's vocals on "Carpet Crawlers 1999" aren't drowned out by reverb. The original version on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway just doesn't appeal to me. The processing has to be tasteful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwrR5iAXx_A

 

Cool, another chance for the haters to tell us how much they dislike her.

 

I think she should have done the new 007 theme. What a step down the new Spectre credits song was!

 

I'd be interested in more context on that one. It's not *that* uncommon for an artist to worry about their corner of things and trust the rest to others. If she likes the tunes and is satisfied with the performances, why not trust the rest to the pros, especially at her level? It's not like it's some random dude taking a crack at it. And I would have to assume she heard the finished product before everything was considered finished.

On top of it, someone like her has to have an absolutely insane schedule. I wouldn't be surprised (or judge) if she just took that time to sleep.

One thing that does bother me is when it's CLEARLY not needed. I'll hear auto-tune in Lady Gaga's stuff sometimes. This is a woman who can hold her own against Tony Freaking Bennett, I'm sure she can hit the notes the way they need to be hit in less time that it would take to auto-tune them.