In the earliest days of recorded music, the way in which bands were signed to recording deals was quite different, and it was difficult if not impossible for somebody who ‘couldn’t sing’ to be recorded singing – on a music release level anyway. Subsequently, vocal editing wasn’t really done – nor was it done on any instrument. Musicians were expected to perform to a level where things didn’t need editing, because they got it perfect in the recording. And that’s how records were made.
As time went on, record labels realised that the money was made in the promotion of artists, and that popular music was often sold on the image of the artist, not necessarily the actual musical qualities of the artist. In these situations, it was often necessary to edit vocal recordings in order to make them musical; as the artist – who wasn’t necessarily a classically trained pitch perfect singer, was physically unable to perform a perfect vocal take. In rock music, furthermore, the singer may have been unable to cross a musically-rich vocal take with a stylistically-rich vocal take, and thus vocal editing might have also been required.
Early vocal editing techniques included changing tape speed in order to correct the pitch of vocals (as tape gets faster, pitch goes up. tape slower, pitch goes down), and simply adding reverb to cover the pitch change as a word ‘tailed off’. Over the years, this developed, and engineers realised they could record multiple takes of the same line, verse or song, and cut all the correctly sung parts from each of the tracks, and paste them back together to form a vocal take. An excellent example of this is Ian Brown’s vocals, on The Stone Roses records. Brown was a notoriously bad singer, but the iconic and stylistic successes of The Stone Roses meant that the retention of him as their singer was still important to the record label, and thus it was decided that the time consuming process of editing vocals in this manner was worth the time and money of doing so. In the highly competitive market of the modern bands, and the much more financially restricted record labels of today, it is questionable whether the label would consider such time and expense of enough value to choose it over choosing a musically-easier band.
Stone Roses – Ian Brown’s Real Voice
Stone Roses – Ian Brown’s Edited Voice
After that, vocal editing really remained at much of a halt until the invention of DAWs, with limited hardware availability – such as Antares hardware, and standard pitch shifting units which were very commonly available.
DAWs really revolutionised the way vocals could be edited though – with pitch changing available to everybody, the invention of ‘take folders’ – allowing very quick and easy ‘cutting and pasting’ as described above, and of course – the Marmite of all vocal editing – the Autotune.
‘Comping’ in Logic‘s Take Folders
Autotune has uses both as a pitch correction device, and as a sound effect. The over-use of Autotune on pop-punk music, for example, led to the Autotune sound become associated with the pop-punk genre, and now many bands who do not require autotune still use it, in order to gain that pop-punk vocal sound. This stylistic application of the device has in turn helped it, as, to the audience it is merely an effect used commonly across modern recorded music – many do not realise that it is in fact pitch-correcting their favourite singer. However, it’s obvious, recognisable sound has led to manual pitch correction becoming more popular again, as it is less identifiable, especially if used sparingly – ie 1 note in every 16 – where autotune will attempt to pitch-correct all 16 notes – taking away ‘the human element’ in the music, and making it sound clinical and unnatural. Manual pitch correction can be achieved by an experienced engineer using simply the ‘Pitch Shift’ plug-in included with most, if not all, DAW software packages – by cutting the note out of the track, processing it, and then ‘glueing’ it back into the track. However, packages such as ‘Melodyne Celemony’ and ‘Waves Wavestune’ have made manual pitch correction much easier, with audio files being analysed and displayed against a ‘piano roll’, allowing the engineer to make changes in the plugin, without destructive editing on this track – this means that bypassing the plugin leaves the track in it’s original state. So essentially, those plugins are still simply ‘pitch correction’ plugins, but analyse the Wave in a musical manner (by semitone) rather than in a scientific manner (by dB) that you would see on the normal waveform. The applying changes across the track by means of automation – though this automation is applied by the plugin – not by the normal automation functions of the DAW.
Waves’ Wavetune Plug-In
‘Comping’ multiple takes is now a function available in all major DAWs. Personally I prefer Logic’s comping, and find it very smooth and almost always completely transparent. Autotune also comes complete with Logic, as does Pitch Shifting. Logic is available to the Mac user for about £400. In essence – this makes professional vocal editing available to the Mac user for £400 inclusive. A more advanced pitch correction program can usually be had for within £500, and with Audio Technica’s 2020 mic sat at £90, it’s now completely possible for any Mac owning vocalist to prepare a simple studio setup for within a grand. This is fantastic musically, as it is allowing more musicians to record and present their music at a professional standard, and is fantastic too for the studio world, as it is allowing us to deal with vocalists who are more prepared for their studio session.
However, this ease of use, and affordability, of vocal editing, has also become paramount to the movements of the professional recording industry. Record labels are more budgeted than ever, with only 2 PERCENT of records selling enough to pay their costs. In relation to the article, this has 2 immediate effects on the recording music industry:
1) Record labels cannot afford to put bands into studios for such a long time
2) It is more important than ever that labels only sign commercially profitable products, regardless of their actual musical talent.
So – under point one, the modern recording engineer should be able to quickly edit vocals as part of the normal editing procedure – eliminating the need – and thus cost – of an assistant engineer, who would have previously been employed to perform the editing. Often this editing would happen in a separate studio – so this would further cost the label. This would pressure labels into signing bands with more ‘musical’ vocalists (and indeed instrumentalists) to reduce the requirement for additional engineers. This leads into point two – where the labels simply cannot afford to sign bands based purely on their musical talent. In the current climate of the recording industry, record labels can only remain in existence if they sign the bands who are the most sellable, profitable product – whether that is stylistically, musically or otherwise. The ability to quickly, effectively and thus affordably edit vocals, in this sense, is highly productive for the mainstream recording industry.
Many mainstream engineers, and producers, however – particularly older ones who did edit using tape and assistant engineers, seem to feel insecure about this fact, however. And often consider it ‘cheating’. Well – it may be. On one side of the argument, the recording engineer is a specialist trade and the easier we make it for ‘anybodys’ to do the things that, historically, have only been achievable by the best recording engineers, we are taking away their trade. On the other side of the argument, recording engineers have as much responsibility to keep up with modern production techniques as electricians have responsibility to keep up with modern electrical safety laws and requirements. In this ever changing industry, it could be suggested that as the technology becomes more available to ‘anybodys’ – the experienced recording engineers should be becoming experts and innovators in such technology, once again separating themselves from the masses.
Dave
