Dec 21, 2011
Why dwarves don’t need auto-tune
The message of this post is simple, short and sincere. In fact, it could almost be an open letter:
Dear Peter Jackson,
PLEASE ask your audio engineers to stop auto-tuning the dwarves.
Please.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Shepherd
PS. Please…
What the hell am I talking about ? Well, check out the first official trailer for the new film of the “The Hobbit”, above.
It’s a great trailer. As a massive fan of both the books and the films of “Lord Of The Rings”, I’m very excited. But after seeing this trailer, I’m also now very nervous.
Why ? Just listen to the use of auto-tune in that song. It’s not blatant – not like the X-Factor’s ill-fated experiment last year – but it leapt out at me within the first few notes, and again and again throughout the song. (The close-micing and miming doesn’t help either, but let’s stay focused.)
Now, call me a stuck-in-the-mud fuddy-duddy traditionalist, but I don’t quite recall the exact moment where Tolkien described how Gandalf fired up a quick “sound like T-Pain” charm while the dwarves sat around Bilbo’s fire and sang of gold and dragons. I wouldn’t put it past the elves, mind you, but not the dwarves…
Seriously though…
Which film in the “Lord Of The Rings” trilogy was the best ? For me, unexpectedly, it was the second – “The Two Towers”. In no small part, because it relied least heavily on CGI.
It felt more real, and personally that’s what I want from a film of Tolkien – I want a cinama experience that will immerse me as deep into the story as the books did when I first read them as a ten-year-old. And as they did again when I read “The Hobbit” to my seven-year-old for the first time last month.
And there’s nothing that will jolt me out of my state of suspended disbelief faster than hearing that most unnatural of 20th-century music tools, the auto-tune box. It made Cher sound like a robot, it makes Michael Buble sound like a robot, and it makes Thorin sound like a robot.
And if there’s one thing they don’t have in Middle-Earth, it’s robots.
There may yet be hope
I haven’t given up on the film just yet – mainly because this is only a trailer, and since the song features prominently, I can imagine some exec somewhere suddenly deciding that the dwarves’ vocal performances were a bit shaky right at the last minute, so auto-tune may well have been applied as an after-thought, and it won’t come anywhere near the finished film. I really hope so.
And in case anyone misunderstands, this doesn’t mean I want out-of-tune dwarves.
Because the good news is – its perfectly possible to improve the tuning of any musical performance, without auto-tune – even a dwarf.
How to tune a dwarf
You do it by hand.
(Stop sniggering at the back, Gimli ! Oin and Gloin, don’t even get me started on you…)
You work through the performance, note-by-note if necessary, and tweak the tuning by hand – pitch-shifting or time-scrunching the audio up and down as necessary, through a process of skill and trial-and-error to find what works.
But wherever possible, you only do it to whole notes, not within the note.
Which means, you retain all the essence of the original performance. Slight shifts and twists in tuning that aren’t problems, they’re character and emotion. Exactly the things you get from real, great vocal perfomances.
The result is something that still sounds real, true, natural – and also in tune.
It takes longer, it takes skill and patience, but it sounds so much better – especially with harmonies. Auto-tuned harmonies end up sounding like synths, somehow – or like choirs of robots out of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (Share And Enjoy!) Check out the dwarves in the trailer at 1’26″ and 1’42″ to hear a milder version.
Whereas well-tuned vocals, like those from a great singer (or a well-tuned less-great-singer) sound rich, and exciting, and emotional – exactly the feeling you need from a ragged band of dispossessed dwarves singing gloomily about regaining the long-lost treasure that’s rightfully theirs.
A challenge
So come on, Peter – do the right thing, if you weren’t going to already – send the songs in the film back to the studio and get them tuned by hand.
Care and attention is lavished on every other aspect of these films, the songs deserve it too. You can do what you like with the end credits (although seriously, did Annie Lennox really need autotune ?) – but in the film, it’s just plain wrong.
And if your engineers look blank, or tell you auto-tune sounds better ? Send it to me, and I’ll prove them wrong.
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Ian, I think you need to start a Natural Vocal Day.
;-p
I’m going to have to go back and re-watch the trailer. Didn’t catch the auto-tuning of the dwarfs. I will say I do hear an exorbitant amount of auto-tune used in almost every vocal related song that passes by my ears.
It’s a bit of the same mentality as, “slap a limiting on there to make it louder.” Care and patience reaps rewards.
Ian wrote:
“You work through the performance, note-by-note if necessary, and tweak the tuning by hand …
It takes longer, it takes skill and patience, but it sounds so much better – especially with harmonies.”
I say:
Since you’re talking skill and patience, why ask that of the engineers. Ask for skill and patience from the performers! If a well trained singer is careful and skilled there is no need for the engineer to mess with the pitch at all. Maybe the actor cannot do the singing, but voice overs are common in films, especially when singing is involved. Right? Maybe voice over isn’t ideal, but much better than T-Pain dwarves.
Hm, good point, but I’m torn over this – personally I’m much better at identifying actor’s voices than their faces, and don’t like overdubbed vocals as a rule… in a drama I thinkI’d go for well-tuned actors, personally.
Excuse my ignorance, but:
1) Is Auto-Tune applied when recording or after?
2) Can’t Auto-Tune be used in a single note?
3) How can you tell when something was “Auto-Tuned”? Can’t a singer be pitch perfect and pass as “Auto-Tuned”?
4) Did digital audio kill music? (Wall Street, Loudness War, Auto-Tune, Beat Detective…)
Hi VIOZ,
1) Either, but usually afterwards
2) Yes, but it is often used on a “blanket” setting for speed
3) There’s no sure way if it’s well-done – in fact I have used auto-tune myself and sometimes you think you’re hearing it when you’re not. But often it isn’t well-done, and you hear errors – “glitches” where the software briefly chooses the wrong note, a mild version of the “Cher” effect.
4) No ! I’ve been making digital recordings for 15 years, and the music is very much alive
But, I do think it’s true to say that miss-use of digital audio has the potential to kill music…
Ian
Ian,
You’re ears need cleaning. There is no use of auto-tune.
@ Frank – Quite possibly ! I bet you a boiled sausage there is, though.
Ian, I’ll take that bet.
(same Frank here….)
I hear several voices of differing timbre, attack, and differing pitch accuracy for sure, but none sound auto-tuned to me. I hear one voice in particular has a nice steady pitch and a reedy brightness to it that creates some superb overtones. I also hear cello supplementing the melody, which blends very well at that range of the bass voice.
I’ll stand by my assessment that there is no auto-tune used.
My question is: are all of the singing voices the actors, or did they find a few ‘ringer’ basses to fill in the sound?
All that said, I’m very much looking forward to this film!
Hi Frank,
Cool !
As I say, you may be right – I’m going on gut reaction here, not because I can hear obvious autotune artefacts. But the first three notes (especially the third) immediately catch my ear – maybe it’s just the close-miced sound, but I don’t think so.
And if that’s not Richard Armitage singing, I’ll eat my hat !
All we need to do now is figure out a way to discover the truth…
Ian,
Agreed! I’d like a definitive answer too. Do you have Howard Shore’s contact info?
Why would they sing perfectly in tune in the first place?
I actually wrote a similar blog post this week, except more general.
I think that tools like this are abused and are the thin end of the wedge…
Here it is if you fancy a read
http://www.Jay-Harris.co.uk/?p=2302
Jay