vocal processing

Frieze Magazine has published a article that takes a contrarian look at the musicality of Auto-Tune.

Author Jace Clayton first recognizes the fact that many musicians hate AutoTuned vocals:

Vocal purists hate Auto-Tune. They hear in its robotic modulations some combination of sugar-rush novelty, bulldozed nuance, jejune synthetics, loss of ‘soul’, disdain for innate vocal talent, teen-optimized histrionics, emotional anemia, and/or widespread musical decline. It’s ugly.

Discussing US R&B singer T-Pain’s Auto-Tune-aided hits in 2007, music critic Jody Rosen declared that, ‘T-Pain represents a kind of symbolic severing of African-American music from its traditional emotionalism […] the impassioned melismas that have powered black popular singing for decades are smoothed into synthetic gasps.’

Clayton goes on, though, to suggest that Auto-Tune is leading to a Man-Machine hybrid vocal style:

In an era of powerful computers that allow one to audition all manner of effects on vocals after the recording session, recording direct with Auto-Tune means full commitment. There is no longer an original ‘naked’ version. This is a cyborg embrace. In Cyborg Manifesto (1991), Donna Haraway notes that ‘the relation between organism and machine has been a border war.’ Auto-Tune’s creative deployment is fully compatible with her ‘argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction.’

What do you think? Are there artists that you think are using Auto-Tune to create cyborg art?

Voxengo Voxformer v2.0 is a multi-functional vocal channel strip plug-in designed to be a comprehensive vocal processing tool.

Description:

Voxformer is a multi-functional vocal channel strip plug-in for professional audio applications.  Combining several professional quality processing modules, Voxformer was designed to be a comprehensive solution for all your vocal processing needs – be it spoken or sung vocals.

The coolest feature of Voxformer is its one-knob vocal compressor.  Using only a single knob, you can get a tight, open and definitive professional vocal sound with an excellent articulation in no time.  You do not have to worry about common ratio and make-up gain controls since they are automatically selected by the advanced compression algorithm while attack and release parameters are stored in a mode preset.  Moreover, Voxformer features two compressors of this type, allowing you to apply either a two-band or a two-stage (serial) vocal compression.  For two-band compression Voxformer splits the audio signal into two spectral parts, by means of a crossover filter.

Voxformer also features the de-esser with selectable center frequency and threshold.  Multi-band noise gate is available, which, in a manner similar to the compressor, was designed to bring ease of tuning while providing excellent sonic results.  For those who like a saturated vocal sound, Voxformer implements a special module which applies a smooth saturation.  Another useful feature Voxformer has to offer is the presence boosting module, which you can use to add some shine and space to the vocals.

To simplify the control over these processing modules, Voxformer implements residue listening, which allows you to hear what gets removed during de-essing and noise gate operation, and what is being added by the presence module.  Beside that, almost all modules offer “mode editor” panels where you can fine-tune specific module’s operation.  In most cases this allows you to use Voxformer for processing of a wide range of instruments beside vocals.

As a finishing touch, Voxformer offers you a flexible easy-handling 5-band equalizer (pre/post selectable) with a real-time output stage fast Fourier transform (FFT) spectrum analyzer display.  Each equalizer band can be switched to a parametric, low-shelf, high-shelf filtering mode, or a low-pass or high-pass mode of a selected steepness.

If you’ve used Voxengo Voxformer, leave a comment with your thoughts! Read more…