Someone on this board said James sounded bad because of lazy pitch correction. I remember asking if he could explain it because the only pitch correction I am familiar with is autotune and it didn't sound like that. The guy responded and explained and made sense. I listened to it again, and some of the stuff matched up with what he said. I don't remember much, but he said the vibrato in particular sounds so bad because the pitch correction was making it more extreme.
I remember what that guy posted, and I disagree completely with what he said. What I hear on the DVD are not strange autotune or melodyne artifacts(not saying these plugins weren't used), but instead just different sounding vocal techniques/tones that JLB was using at the time for whatever reason. He may have been sick for some of it and had to try different things to compensate...lots of possible reasons.
Yep, I believe that's me you're talking about. I cannot make this clear enough:
I know for a fact they use pitch correction on several live recordings, including CIM 
. But I
would say that's only 75% of what made him sound bad. He also sounded very unnaturally nasally like he's singing through a telephone. Just bad quality and production I guess, sounding very unflattering in accordance with JLB's already somewhat-nasally tone.
But back to the BIG problem, pitch correction- YES they use it. As for what specific plugin or program they used- one can't know for sure by only listening. But that doesn't matter, they all do the same thing. In one form or another, they take the original recording of something and change the existing pitches being played or sung to new pitches.
The problem on CIM (as well as certain points of BT4W) is that this pitch "correction" was not applied correctly, essentially resulting in the final recording containing notes that are very bad-sounding, or off-pitch, that JLB originally sang as he intended to sing. More specifically:
1. Wide vibrato being tuned to notes (Pitch snapping).
Sing the note D. Now add vibrato. You are now actually wavering around a D to some degree; sliding just above the actual D pitch and/or just below. To visualize: "-" is a sustained D with no vibrato, and "~" is a D with vibrato. Depending on how wide you make this wave, you could even slide all the way to D#, Db, or even E or C, at points during that wave. JLB often goes very wide and slow with his vibrato (and some people don't like this). If you apply pitch correction to this incorrectly, it can change that smooth wave and make parts of the note snap up or down to those nearby pitches. On CIM, there are several instances where his vibrato is actually tuned to pitches other than what he was actually singing (making the vibrato sound ridiculous and out of control to both those who don't love his actual vibrato, and those like me who do).
2. Many Dream Theater vocal melodies include pitches outside the original key of the song. There are moments in CIM and BT4W where a note was tuned to the wrong pitch.
If someone unfamiliar with the song is doing the pitch correction, they might "correct" a correct note to a wrong note that is in the key. Or if they are using one of the programs/plugins where you just click "apply automatic tuning", drag the intensity somewhere from 0 to 100%, and set the key, then when a note comes up in the recording that the computer detects as not in the key, it will tune it to a note in the key.
3. Singing always incorporates hitting more than just the 12 pitches of the chromatic scale. It involves sliding up to and down from those pitches, and doing so at various speeds. Whether you think about it or not, the pitches your voice hits are on a continuum, unlike say, a piano which only has the ability to produce 12 pitches. When you take these sliding moments (including vibrato like in #1.) and tune them to just the 12 pitches on the piano, you end up with very wrong and obnoxious sounding robotized vocals. This happened a lot on CIM and, though not nearly as bad, also on BT4W.
I wish DT would send me their vocal tracks to make them sound good, if they insist on doing post-production fix-ups. I would put the utmost care into making the vocals come across exactly as evocative as James's iconic voice should always sound, and I'd do it for free, and it would sound a lot better than the vocals on the last live release.
Topic: LaBrie on Chaos in Motion - thoughts? (Read 10977 times)
