Autotune in Musical Theatre

If Matthew is the Sound Designer then I believe there is some reason and even obligation to address the concept and not just the implementation.

Exactly. If he is a paid sound designer, he is paid to make sure the show that is presented on stage sounds good to the audience. It is his job to make sure that happens. It is also his job to talk to the rest of the creative team and the talent on stage about how to get everything out of the cast into the audience's ears. As a sound designer, I have given notes directly to talent. As an engineer I have given notes directly to talent. I don't tell them "Your out of tune", but I will tell them "That part does not sound right, is there something we can do to help you?". When mixing a band you have the same issues, and the same results. If the drummer is out of sync, maybe he needs more monitor so he can feel whats going on.

Added to that, if this is all trying to be kept a secret, how do you explain to the talent that you missed a cue and your entire song was off an octave?

This is a community theatre production. People do not expect the town's doctor to have perfect pipes. If they did, he would not be their doctor, he would be on Broadway. Some sacrifices have to be made and the audience will accept that. That is why community theatre tickets are 20-30 instead of 70-110. If your not paying for talent, you can not expect great talent.
 
As the sound designer, I do feel that it is my obligation to address whether or not this is a good idea and I have been pretty clear about that throughout this thread. While I do think that it is my job to insure that this idea will sound good before we proceed with it, I don't think it is my job to evaluate whether or not this is a good PR decision. That said, I am thinking that this probably isn't going to sound good and so I am going to tell the rest of the creative team that this is not an effective option.
 
If you find an inexpensive solution for using Autotune with a PC that works for you, please share your findings.

While I would not use it on principal vocalists for reasons of integrity already stated above, I can see the benefits in using it on occasion for supporting and ensemble roles when the audience might be distracted otherwise.
 
If you find an inexpensive solution for using Autotune with a PC that works for you, please share your findings.

Same. Regardless of the ethics, I wouldn't mind hearing if anyone gets decent results with this more for my own curiosity than for practical purposes. I think if you decided to do this though you'd spend a lot of money and end up with something that doesn't have a polished enough result to achieve what you want to anyways. It'd be gear you've invested a lot of money into that you may never end up using again if it doesn't fit the bill.

I tossed the idea at the director and voice coach for the show I'm currently working on and both of them said they'd never consider using autotune. For $1000, you can put some people through a lot of one-on-one voice lessons and improve them professionally rather than jeopardize their career if word gets out they need autotune to make them sound semi-decent. Neither of them have any issues going to a cast member and politely but honestly critiquing their performance and following that up with advice and ideas on how to improve. The director and I agreed that neither of us minded last month when Tyne Daly took the stage here with a cold. She told us she had a cold and that her signing wouldn't be as spectacular as it normally is, but everyone was fine with that and we certainly would prefer a scratchy voice to a backing track.
 
You can get different perspectives from CB, PSW and GS and that can be valuable. That being said, all of these forums include both professionals and amateurs. Several of the responders here also participate in the other forums you noted, are they somehow less experts when they're here? A number of the people that have responded to this thread are indeed professionals in theatre and isn't that the application involved? Getting as much input as possible is good but I think you underestimate many of the people here.

I didn't mean to imply that there are not professional people here on CB. I only meant that the question posed would be more appropriately asked to a group of people who actually have experience with this type of use/hardware. I don't think anyone would argue that Control Booth is very theatre-based. My point was that there are far more people doing a variety of work at PSW and Gearslutz. Please don't take this as a slam on CB and my praising PSW. On the contrary, I am here on CB because I do not enjoy PSW. I find the people here far more personable and just in general "nicer." But other forums have their place, and that includes gaining information that has nothing to do with what this forum focuses on (theatre).
 
WRT the tech aspects, never used autotune live, but our recording program got hold of some tracks to use in the studio classes that included an autotuned vocal track somehow. I don't the details but the delay on that track was noticeable, and supposedly a result of the signal passing though the autotune software engine. FWIW

As far as the ethical issues....we have a job to do and we have tools at our disposal to do that job. Obviously working with the performers to correct their pitch is the best issue, and I believe firmly in "garbage in garbage out" but, last night I put a compressor on a vocalist that had some trouble controlling her dynamics. Two nights ago I gated a tom mic to help control a weird overtone. Last week I had flute solo that benefited from a little EQ to warm up the sound a bit. Comps, gates, EQ and verbs, all tools of our trade. Was using any of these unethical? While the technology may make it cumbersome now, I fully expect autotune join them as regular and accepted part of the fx rack within a few years. Ultimately we are responsible to the audience to give them the best show possible. If that means a technological solution to a talent problem, in amateur theater, sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles.
 
As far as the ethical issues....we have a job to do and we have tools at our disposal to do that job. Obviously working with the performers to correct their pitch is the best issue, and I believe firmly in "garbage in garbage out" but, last night I put a compressor on a vocalist that had some trouble controlling her dynamics. Two nights ago I gated a tom mic to help control a weird overtone. Last week I had flute solo that benefited from a little EQ to warm up the sound a bit. Comps, gates, EQ and verbs, all tools of our trade. Was using any of these unethical? While the technology may make it cumbersome now, I fully expect autotune join them as regular and accepted part of the fx rack within a few years. Ultimately we are responsible to the audience to give them the best show possible. If that means a technological solution to a talent problem, in amateur theater, sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles.

With the excepetion of the compressor everything you've listed isn't to fix an issue with a singer/instrument but to a fix to the space and the equipment you have. A little warm up to a flute because the highs don't carry well in your system/space is much different than a singer who can't carry a pitch.
 
The following is merely my opinion, and all situations are purely hypothetical and a little low on the 'likely' scale. But it could happen...

I can only imagine what would happen if my local community theatre started using Autotune and the local paper found out.

"Denton Community Theatre Found To Be Using Backing Tracks".

Sure, that's not the actual situation, but with the exploitative nature of local news with nothing big to report on, this is most likely what would happen. Then, our season subscribers would start questioning every aspect of the theatre's productions.

"Are the singers really singing?"
"Do they really memorize their lines, or do they have ear buds now?"
"So what's next, a teleprompter??"

This would give patrons doubts about the production company's morals and goals, and they would begin to second guess everything they see or hear. Before long, they're not too easily amused because everything is 'fake'. Then you've got the performer who gets told "good job!" but knows deep down inside that they don't fully deserve the recognition.

I see community theatre as a semi-educational institution. Giving performers 'breaks' is hardly educational.

I feel like community theatre patrons want a good show, but authenticity is more important to them. They go to be wowed by the talent, not the tech (unfortunately).

Reverb and EQ doesn't freak them out too much because most people don't know what it is. But the nature of Autotune really causes people to jump to conclusions. Look at what it did to Ashlee Simpson's career (not that she had one to begin with ;) ).
 
With the excepetion of the compressor everything you've listed isn't to fix an issue with a singer/instrument but to a fix to the space and the equipment you have. A little warm up to a flute because the highs don't carry well in your system/space is much different than a singer who can't carry a pitch.

But the idea that I'm using a tool to "fix" a problem and give my audience a better experience is the same regardless of what problem I'm "fixing". I wish all drummers could tune their drums, vocalist could control their dynamics, and flutes had more bottom end. I also wish some singers didn't drop off key occasionally. The fact remains that our world simply not that perfect and we occasionally need to help non-professional performers out a little to make a better show for everyone.
 
But the idea that I'm using a tool to "fix" a problem and give my audience a better experience is the same regardless of what problem I'm "fixing". I wish all drummers could tune their drums, vocalist could control their dynamics, and flutes had more bottom end. I also wish some singers didn't drop off key occasionally. The fact remains that our world simply not that perfect and we occasionally need to help non-professional performers out a little to make a better show for everyone.

If that is the case, fly in the movie screen and get the projectionist to come and and arc up the projectors. When you come to a show and pay 25 dollars or so for the ticket, see your neighbor from down the street playing the lead, you can't expect the same level of talent that happens on 42nd street. You present what you have authentically. If I use autotune/backing tracks/choke tracks to make every show perfect, might as well just watch a movie or just lipsync the entire thing. Its a live performance, not a performance that might be live or if it is live highly computer processed.
 
This has gotten a bit beyond the original question and into a more general discussion.

I had the very same thoughts in terms of when what delineates an acceptable use of technology in performance from an unacceptable use. Then I realized that in cases like this there is another aspect involved and that having to deal with something at the last minute or during a performance seems different than knowing in advance that you have a problem and other potential options. If the drums or piano are out of tune one night you deal with it the best you can but if you knew in advance that the drums or piano were out of tune, wouldn't you either get them tuned or find a replacement? Knowing that you have a problem and planning on a band-aid that may or may not work rather than addressing the root cause, just seems quite a bit different than dealing with problems that come during a performance.

Probably a bad analogy but it seems a bit like knowing in advance that you're going to have 60Hz hum in the system. You could plan to use the technology you have available and simply notch 60Hz out of everything and you might do that if the show starts in a few minutes. However, if it was possible to explore other options then wouldn't it make more sense to at least try to actually address the problem and avoid the potential negatives associated with notching everything?
 
This has gotten a bit beyond the original question and into a more general discussion.

I had the very same thoughts in terms of when what delineates an acceptable use of technology in performance from an unacceptable use. Then I realized that in cases like this there is another aspect involved and that having to deal with something at the last minute or during a performance seems different than knowing in advance that you have a problem and other potential options. If the drums or piano are out of tune one night you deal with it the best you can but if you knew in advance that the drums or piano were out of tune, wouldn't you either get them tuned or find a replacement? Knowing that you have a problem and planning on a band-aid that may or may not work rather than addressing the root cause, just seems quite a bit different than dealing with problems that come during a performance.

Probably a bad analogy but it seems a bit like knowing in advance that you're going to have 60Hz hum in the system. You could plan to use the technology you have available and simply notch 60Hz out of everything and you might do that if the show starts in a few minutes. However, if it was possible to explore other options then wouldn't it make more sense to at least try to actually address the problem and avoid the potential negatives associated with notching everything?

I understand what you are saying, and I think my point of contention is a matter of degree. There is a bit of a difference between someone who flat out can't sing, and someone who slips a bit hitting certain notes. I understood that we are trying to help a performer who is struggling with a couple notes.
Certainly, I would agree that auto-tune isn't the right solution for someone who just can't carry pitch, ever, any more than using an eq to notch 60hz in your example. At that point you need to fix the problem at its source or get a new singer.
HOWEVER, if you have a singer who is struggling with a bad note or two, it's much more like the drummer who's kit just has a weird overtone, or a piano that just has an unusual timbre. You can't always just make a drummer get new kit or bring in a different piano because the sound guy doesn't like the tone.
In a perfect world we would alway be able to fix a problem at it's source. Occasionally just can't and when that happens, I'm of the opinion that the creative staff should be open to any technical solution, assuming that said solution can be implemented without ruining the over-all performance.

Another aspect that I haven't seen come up is this: In this case, it seems like the director came to the OP looking for a tech solution, presumably after trying to work with the performer in question. In doing that, the director made the call that he is willing to sacrifices some of the "live-ness" of the show for the sake of accurate pitch on the part of all of his cast. In a very real sense, that takes any ethical issues out of the hands of the tech staff.

Is this the same as lip syncing? Not unless you are auto-tuning a performer to death, in which case there's an issue bigger than a few missed notes. At least with an auto-tuned voice, there's a vocalist singing and creating the sounds. Lip syncing a performance is cheating and the prevalence of this in the techno-spectacle that we accept as live performance is why I don't buy tickets to any today's crop of boy- and girl- bands and hiphop stars. I guess for me it's a question of weather I'm supporting talent, or using tracks to cover up a complete and total lack of talent.
 
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HOWEVER, if you have a singer who is struggling with a bad note or two, it's much more like the drummer who's kit just has a weird overtone, or a piano that just has an unusual timbre. You can't always just make a drummer get new kit or bring in a different piano because the sound guy doesn't like the tone.
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Actually it's more like a piano player who always hits the wrong chord or a drummer hit hits the snare as opposed to the half hat and fixing it with a backing tack because you have no faith they'll ever be able to hit the right note.
 
I would go with Antares Autotune. I have used it quite a few times. It will give the vocals a detectable "quality" but it is used quite a bit on audio releases so it is not all that objectionable. The less the autotune has to correct the vocals obviously the better. I have used it with come Karaoke situations with mixed results. If the person is a bit flat or sharp then it corrects but if the vocal is closer to the "wrong" note then it tends to correct to the closest note, If you reset the unit for each key of each song that it makes less mistakes.

Sharyn
 
I would go with Antares Autotune. I have used it quite a few times.
Sharyn, in what situations have you used it? The technical issues expressed seem to be:

Latency - Likely acceptable with a dedicated unit.

Monitoring - Providing an uncorrected monitor signal.

Error in tuning - If the sound is far enough off pitch then autotune could correct it in an undesired manner. So how off pitch are the performers?

Natural Sound - Some of the audience may hear the natural, uncorrected sound direct from the performers as well as the corrected sound from the house audio system. How much of the audience this may affect will vary by venue and by how loudly the performers sing.

Pickup of Only The Desired Performer - How do you avoid other sources being picked up by the microphones being autotuned and/or the off pitch vocalists being picked up by other mics?


How did you address these issues in your successful applications of autotune?
 

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