Hayley using autotune?

[nicola]

A member on my website just started a topic about Hayley using autotune excessively on her recordings. I was shocked!

[jimg]

Hi Nicola,

I hope you put him/her straight.

Jim

[nicola]

I did, but I wonder why on earth he thought this in the first place?

[mihizawi]

LOL... Maybe because in many occasions, Hayley sounds quite different on studio recordings than life... But .I think I remeber Hayley herself saying that she used a quite different technique in studio than life, so I tend to think that's the reason for that difference, and, of course, the post-production, but I honestly think this post-production doesn't include autotune. Or maybe just being jealous of someone with the voice so perfectly tuned?

Michal

[Dave]

Nov 14, 2010 10:54:04 GMT nicola said:

A member on my website just started a topic about Hayley using autotune excessively on her recordings. I was shocked! Like she needs autotune.

If they mean that Hayley needs autotune, that must be the silliest and most pointless topic starter ever. 'Hayley' wouldn't use it anyway, it would be down to the album producers, for whom it would be equally pointless as she doesn't need it and it would detract from the quality of the albums, not improve them.

I'm not saying that it's never been used on Hayley albums (record producers and companies do sometimes do stupid things), just that she needs it like I need a headache, wouldn't have wanted it herself, and its use would be madness.

Perhaps someone needs to put him or her right. Pointing them to Hayley's live performances of "For The Fallen" yesterday and last year's Vera Lynn tribute might be a useful start.

Dave

[Elliot Kane]

Wouldn't that be kinda like asking someone armed with a plasma cannon the likes of which won't even be invented for a thousand years yet if they want to use your pea shooter?

Hayley and auto-tune... No. I just cannot see it.

[martindn]

No No No!! It just doesn't happen. I can understand someone who has never heard Hayley live thinking that her pitch control is just too good to be true. I've heard Hayley sing live and unmiked, no chance to autotune her in any way, and she is just as spot on as she sounds on her recordings. Hayley has made me hyper critical of singers who are even slightly out of tune, and believe me, she is every bit as good as she sounds on record, actually quite a lot better. It is not the pitch control that makes her sound worse on record than live, it is something else.

Martin D

[nicola]

I was just going to copy and paste his post over, but he's made a new post with youtube links with examples. You can find his thread here:

www.classical-crossover.co.uk/forums/8-off-topic/2697-autotune.html#2715

[mihizawi]

As I am not a member of your webpage, may I ask you to transmit this reply to that thread if you find it sensible enough:

There are several points to argue with your statements and examples:
1st: The examples you have chosen are not valid for two reasons: the live performance of Romanza is from 2002, while Shenendoah was recorded for Treasure/Celtic Treasure, recorded in 2006 and released in 2007 and Hayley's voice and technique have gone such a long way that it's useless to compare it. Also, Hayley is known to sing different songs adapting her voice and singing style/technique to each of them, sometimes the difference are more noticeable and many times are very subtily. So, it would be much better if you compared studio and live recordings of the same song and recorded within a year of difference, but even between two live performances of the same song that are close in time, you could sometimes find that Hayley sings in a rather different way, so it would be hard to make any comparison valid.
2nd Even considering this, I and many Hayley experts from HWI admit that Hayley sounds different (better) live than on record, and I think this too has two explanations: I think I remember an interview where Hayley said thet she used different singing techniques for studio and for live concerts, so I tend to think that's a big part of the difference. And then, of course, there's production, there's no doubt that Hayley and all the other parts of the track on a studio recording are altered, compressed and re-balanced and it makes a certain difference, but all this does not necessarily means autotuning, which as you said would be stupid in Hayley's voice.
3rd 100% of recording studios use autotune now? Wouldn't it be silly if Deutsche Gramophon used autotune when recording, for example, Anne Sophie Mutter's Stradivarius violin, even if it's a studio recording? I am pretty sure that in those cases, the producers are not that stupid and will keep any producing effects to minimum, let alone using autotune. And I think Hayley's voice is pretty much like a Stradivarius.

Michal

[kijjik]

Hey all ^^. This is the idiot that posted on Nicola's boards re Hayley and autotune, and I feel the need to explain myself a bit. Thanks to Mihizawi for the reply.

I am relatively new to Hayley's music and was completely blown away by her Wuthering Heights vid on YouTube. So I searched for anything I could find and came across several recordings of which 'Shenandoah' was one I used in the example. I love Hayley's voice and was distressed there was so much studio creativity in the recording. I thought at first it might be autotuned because especially on the '...doah' it sounds compressed and unnatural. Nicola explains that it was probably just that the recording was altered, compressed and rebalanced as normal studio procedure.

My basic point is that I want to hear Hayley's voice unaltered in her recordings. LOL That's obviously not going to happen. I am not at all sure when I am listening to vocalists if autotune is being used or no. I wanted to ask Nicola if she had any info aside from what I could find on Google. I regard her as an expert and myself just a noob. I will probably ask lots of dumb questions in the future. Thanks to all for contributing.

[Dave]

Nov 15, 2010 1:48:19 GMT kijjik said:

My basic point is that I want to hear Hayley's voice unaltered in her recordings.

Hi kijjik and welcome!

Regarding your point above, and so say all of us! But unfortunately, in this digital age, it will never happen - Hayley will never sound as good on a studio CD as live in concert or, as I have heard at least three times that I can recall, live and without the use of a microphone. There is recording, mixing, dynamic compression and no doubt other things (some of them dreadful) done to vocal recordings these days, probably (sadly) even by Decca or their producers. This has been discussed many times in this forum and I am sure this will continue.

This is because most, and probably nearly all popular singers, can be made to sound better vocally by electronic magic in the studio - often by correcting off-pitch notes. I do not think autotune pitch correction will have been applied to Hayley's voice much if at all, and if it has, it will have taken some of the 'life' out of the recording in question, for there is no pitch correction needed in Hayley's case. As for other autotune effects, well we have no way of knowing for certain but it is likely that some non-pitch-correction effects are applied by misguided producers at times (including on Pure) perhaps because they believe the public expects it. Well this public doesn't - and if they do it, I wish they'd stop. Especially for Hayley, who doesn't need it - any of it.

No autotune in this little 'live' studio ditty, done with speech grade microphones and after she had to raise her pitch to match a ukelele! www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT7nrZmXov8 i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Cheers, Dave

[stevemacdonald]

I remember reading about all this years ago on Amazon's customer reviews for Pure.

I looked in there and found two reviews worth reading: Here! and also HERE!!!!!

[Richard]

Hello Steve!

I totally agree with the second review. It's much better than the first one you linked to!

Richard

[Roger-G]

Could I suggest a change to the title of this thread? It reads like a statement of fact, rather than a question.

[Richard]

Good idea, Roger!

Is that better?

Richard