Judy Garland, have they tweaked even Judy? Pitch control discussed.

[Muse]

Aretha Franklin, as I understand it, was obsessed with Judy Garland. At least she was at one time, maybe pretty much throughout her life. Naturally, Aretha was much more than that (I'm a fan). But Aretha had something there. Judy Garland was a very special talent.

I just watched this video, which is quite interesting. It makes the case that a great deal of what you hear nowadays in terms of singing is a travesty because recordings are tweaked after the fact and the singer is robbed of their authenticity, the natural aspects of their vocal/artistic craft. There are exceptions. I figure a lot of artists refuse to have their work picked apart and "corrected" by record companies. But it can be hard to tell, as made clear in this video. To find out, you may have to analyze the audio.

THIS is why you'll NEVER hear a voice like Judy's again.​

Question: If one buys CDs of Judy Garland's work, is any of it pitch corrected?

 

[Muse]

Apparently, unfortunately, the answer is that some of Judy's work has been "corrected"

Edit: Well, maybe Judy Garland has not been pitch corrected. The link below is to an interview with the audio engineer who was behind two 2-CD releases of Garland's work, one in 2017, the other 2019, IIRC. He says the original recordings were sped up in order to "brighten" the resulting release. He dropped the speed back to where it was recorded. Possibly by a 1/2 note...

In 2017, AVID Easy released a 2-CD collection of four Judy Garland LPs: A Star Is Born (Columbia, 1954), Miss Show Business (Capitol, 1955), Judy (Capitol, 1956), and Alone (Capitol, 1957) for which Nick Dellow was in charge of restoration and remastering. The bonus tracks on this set included Garland’s four sides recorded at Columbia in 1953. The release got glowing reviews. Now in 2019, Dellow is again at the helm of another 2-CD Garland set for AVID devoted to four other Garland LPs: Judy in Love (Capitol, 1958), Judy Garland at the Grove (Capitol, 1959), That’s Entertainment! (Capitol, 1960), and The Garland Touch (Capitol, 1962). The bonus tracks on this one include “It’s Lovely To Be Back in London” (Capitol, 1957) based on the ultra-rare Capitol 78 rpm released only in England, the mono “Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart” (Capitol, 1958), and sides from the animated feature, Gay Purr-ee (Warner Bros. Records, 1962). Dellow has taken great pains in restoring these more than a half-century old tracks, including giving most of them the right pitch for the first time. Dellow lives outside of London, near Watford.

Interview with Nick Dellow – Audio Engineer

In 2017, AVID Easy released a 2-CD collection of four Judy Garland LPs: A Star Is Born (Columbia, 1954), Miss Show Business (Capitol, 1955), Judy (Capitol, 1956), and Alone (Capitol, 1957) for whic…

judygarlandnews.com

 

[BoomerD]

Judy, Judy, Judy…

 

[skyking]

I't been largely shit since Cher introduced us to autotune for the first time.

 

[Charmonium]

Soooo . . . if most records are corrected, and we use them to train AIs, is that good, bad or both?

 

[Torn Mind]

I do not find the claim that being perfectly processed is sufficient to make the music or a singer without merit. It is grossly overweighed as a measure of legitimacy or lack thereof.

It jut means it's harder to tell a master from a singer grasping for straws; it's harder to study musicianship because the subtle inflections are lost.

Because synthesized, low quality processing that still can hit the heart, such as certain Super Nintendo video games. You can't get more mechanical than that sort of instrumentation.

Equal temperament is also a compromise so that there are no wolf tones in any key. Thus a singer or violin doing a slight deviation from perfect pitch is essentially seeking a "correction" of that compromise.

The Garland music era got replaced and became livelier starting with Elvis and it has basically followed Michael Jackson after the 80s.

And there are plenty of singers after Garland who proved their mettle.

Just to name a few:
Olivia Newton-John
Whitney Houston
Janet Jackson
Mariah Carey.
JoJo(Joanna Levesque)

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Soooo . . . if most records are corrected, and we use them to train AIs, is that good, bad or both?

Works for me

 

[SKORPI0]

Watch them sing live and compare them how they sound in their CD/music videos.

 

[DigDog]

TLDR on a 20 minute video.
But the Somewhere song on Wizard of Oz is .. incredible. This was a 16 year old girl with such an incredible voice when she sang this (another bit of evidence that DRUGS ARE GOOD FOR YOU); the depth of her voice when she sings the "SOmmm" syllable of "somewhere" is incredible, she then fucking glides to the "wheeere" note, like a octave shift is nothing for her. Her bass notes are phenomenal for a child of that age and a woman, this isn't skill, this is just being born with a phenomenal voice.

 

[Muse]

TLDR on a 20 minute video.
But the Somewhere song on Wizard of Oz is .. incredible. This was a 16 year old girl with such an incredible voice when she sang this (another bit of evidence that DRUGS ARE GOOD FOR YOU); the depth of her voice when she sings the "SOmmm" syllable of "somewhere" is incredible, she then fucking glides to the "wheeere" note, like a octave shift is nothing for her. Her bass notes are phenomenal for a child of that age and a woman, this isn't skill, this is just being born with a phenomenal voice.

Give her credit for developing her voice. There is volition there, not simply a blessing from birth. Not just genetic endowment.

I did some searching yesterday when I started this thread. A fair amount. The only thing I found with respect to the question of what recordings of Judy Garland were processed was the link I provided in post #2, concerning the audio engineer who did alter Judy's intonation. Honestly, I want to hear unprocessed music, vocal and otherwise. They can make any singer sound on pitch but it's dishonest.

You're right, that video is too long. He could have boiled it down a whole lot. Watch maybe 1/3 of it and you get the idea.

 

[Muse]

I do not find the claim that being perfectly processed is sufficient to make the music or a singer without merit. It is grossly overweighed as a measure of legitimacy or lack thereof.

Suit yourself, but I figure I should not take in singing performances on TV. According to the video in the OP, it's all pitch corrected.

I figure I should give some thought to getting a setup like seen in the video in the OP. Then I can see for myself if a CD or LP I have has been pitch corrected or autotuned.

 

[Torn Mind]

Suit yourself, but I figure I should not take in singing performances on TV. According to the video in the OP, it's all pitch corrected.

My point was specific. The use of such processing alone is not enough to, one, determine the abilities lack thereof of a singer or, two, if a performance is truly bad/deficient. And I'll bet most common listeners, if presented with a double blind sample, would specify other factors than pitch correction in saying what makes some sort of musical performance "better" than the other. If anything, the common person overinfers when "technology was used" is mentioned about a track.

The question ultimately is, does the processing make a material difference in the affect of the performance? Maybe, maybe not. Covers in general...even before the presence of processing, normally wind up less endearing that the original. Clarkson could simply be a less musical singer than Garland. In fact, the real test would have been to put Garland's performance through the processing and present a blind compare to see if people notice a difference, but he might not have been able to do that due to copyright.

With or without pitch correction, I find Kelly Clarkson talented in the singing ability, but a little bit "blind" in the musicality. This is from hearing some of her other performances, where her attempts to embellish with runs or the like fail to move because they are not "well-timed" or fitting, unlike with the way Mariah Carey is able to integrate such maneuvers seamlessly into the performance.
Judy Garland, I have not heard much, but I do find that I like the 1940s A Star is Born, which features Garland, the most, in part due to her singing.
Also, at 6:50, the video creator states that this is pitch correction and not autotune because there is vibrato. The video creator went over the difference between pitch correction and auto tune

I've listened to 16-bit SNES video game music played on an emulator, and then pumped through cheap PC speakers. Sometimes the best music is what prevails after numerous obstructions to reproduction are put in its way but it hits home. Something like Chrono Trigger didn't have every customer rocking the finest audio systems of the 90s. It was often pumped through the most basic of TV speakers, in mono.

I also read the article. Even in the old days without autotune, there was pitch manipulation. The restorers claims that the companies mastered the tracks sharp to brighten the tone and they were correcting that, along with other physical features that could affect the sound.

And I found this in the symphonic metal section of reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/symphonicmetal/comments/1aroplc/pitch_correction_in_symphonic_metal

 

[Muse]

My point was specific. The use of such processing alone is not enough to, one, determine the abilities lack thereof of a singer or, two, if a performance is truly bad/deficient. And I'll bet most common listeners, if presented with a double blind sample, would specify other factors than pitch correction in saying what makes some sort of musical performance "better" than the other. If anything, the common person overinfers when "technology was used" is mentioned about a track.

The question ultimately is, does the processing make a material difference in the affect of the performance? Maybe, maybe not. Covers in general...even before the presence of processing, normally wind up less endearing that the original. Clarkson could simply be a less musical singer than Garland. In fact, the real test would have been to put Garland's performance through the processing and present a blind compare to see if people notice a difference, but he might not have been able to do that due to copyright.

With or without pitch correction, I find Kelly Clarkson talented in the singing ability, but a little bit "blind" in the musicality. This is from hearing some of her other performances, where her attempts to embellish with runs or the like fail to move because they are not "well-timed" or fitting, unlike with the way Mariah Carey is able to integrate such maneuvers seamlessly into the performance.
Judy Garland, I have not heard much, but I do find that I like the 1940s A Star is Born, which features Garland, the most, in part due to her singing.
Also, at 6:50, the video creator states that this is pitch correction and not autotune because there is vibrato. The video creator went over the difference between pitch correction and auto tune

I've listened to 16-bit SNES video game music played on an emulator, and then pumped through cheap PC speakers. Sometimes the best music is what prevails after numerous obstructions to reproduction are put in its way but it hits home. Something like Chrono Trigger didn't have every customer rocking the finest audio systems of the 90s. It was often pumped through the most basic of TV speakers, in mono.

I also read the article. Even in the old days without autotune, there was pitch manipulation. The restorers claims that the companies mastered the tracks sharp to brighten the tone and they were correcting that, along with other physical features that could affect the sound.

And I found this in the symphonic metal section of reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/symphonicmetal/comments/1aroplc/pitch_correction_in_symphonic_metal

So far my favorite post in that reddit thread is this:

ConfusedSimon
•2mo ago

I don't agree that it's better. It just makes everything sound the same. Music from before the pitch correction era still sounds great instead of weird.
- - - -
I have to wonder, that reddit thread is very largely, almost entirely by industry professionals, technicians and some artists or both (overlapping). When they say virtually all vocals are pitch corrected nowadays because it's an industry standard I wonder. What do they consider the industry? There are alternatives. There are small labels, there are also many artists who self-release. How many of those use pitch correction? I imagine that many do not.

 

[Muse]

But besides punk and metal, my guess is that certain singer/songwriters probably also avoid pitch correction. E.g. Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, etc. Pitch correction is a tool that allows artists to achieve a particular goal. The fans of certain singer/songwriters don't want pitch-perfect polish, so there would be not much point in using that technology.

The above is in this thread (the 4 artists mentioned are among my favorites):

https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/a6h3tn/successful_modern_artists_who_do_not_use_pitch%5B/MEDIA

 

[Muse]

And this, from the same reddit thread:

[deleted]
•5y ago

It depends on the artist. For someone like Bob Dylan, or Jimmy Hendrix, or Aretha Franklin, whatever imperfections there are in the recording, are part of the music. It is like taking a solo violin classical piece and "correcting" it with software. It just doesn't make sense in some cases.

TBH, I think many of the professionals in the recording industry are straight up assholes. You can see that in reddit threads, plainly.

 

[Captante]

Zappa warned us.

 

[Torn Mind]

So far my favorite post in that reddit thread is this:

ConfusedSimon
•2mo ago

I don't agree that it's better. It just makes everything sound the same. Music from before the pitch correction era still sounds great instead of weird.
- - - -
I have to wonder, this thread is very largely, almost entirely by industry professionals, technicians and some artists or both (overlapping). When they say virtually all vocals are pitch corrected nowadays because it's an industry standard I wonder. What do they consider the industry? There are alternatives. There are small labels, there are also many artists who self-release. How many of those use pitch correction? I imagine that many do not.

That sounds like a typical philistine condemnation and is usually coded for "I don't give a damn to bother listening but I have to sound not ridiculous". "Everything sounds the same". That's about as broad as saying Brahms sounds like Tchaikovsky because they both employ the "orchestral flourish" common in Romantic era music. It's a self-impeaching statement writer has not bothered to discern what exactly is weird. Because instrumentation and style also changed over the decades, and those two alone are enough to shut off ears(i.e country music for many, and pitch correction is utterly irrelevant for liking or disliking that genre).

 

[Torn Mind]

Zappa warned us.

Zappa's direct targets were punk bands and "new wave'. Which meant that it used to be 80s music that was the "the end of quality"...and the can continues to be kicked down the generations....just like it was decades before....He was hitting the mid-life crisis age of musicians and those fresh faced teens and 20 year olds were just getting started....

Well, that just meant he had his own age cutoff, which is typical of most music listeners. There is a time threshold where the living cannot appreciate music of a new era.

Zappa's disdain for punk is proven false by the staying power of the likes of the Go-Gos and the Bangles. Straight from the Hollywood he references, by then-young teenagers like Belinda Carlisle and Susanna Hoffs.

 

[Captante]

Zappa's direct target was the music industry itself.

 

[Torn Mind]

Zappa's direct target was the music industry itself.

The lyrics are fairly clear that the bands themselves(mostly hardcore punk by time of 1981 in LA) were also a target of the song and so were their fans, for listening to things without substance. Snorting powder(cocaine) is also mentioned, and their attire. Even the mention of bands that look queer is clearly based on some sort of observation of the music scene of LA in 1981.

Clearly, if that's enough to merit making lyrics, he certainly had seen and/or heard about some of the punk musicians of 1981 as direct inspiration for said lyrics.

MTV also started up that year, which may have be a reason the lyrics of

The Tinsel Town aficionados
Come to see and not to hear

The selection of Hollywood is not merely because of music industry ties(although New York is also a base and so is Nashville) but because punk rock did indeed have origins there

So, that means the hardcore punk bands of LA in 1981 are the first batch of nonquality musical acts in line to be condemned as musically unworthy before moving onto more recent musical acts that may fit the lyrics.

 

[WilliamM2]

The lyrics are fairly clear that the bands themselves(mostly hardcore punk by time of 1981 in LA) were also a target of the song and so were their fans, for listening to things without substance. Snorting powder(cocaine) is also mentioned, and their attire. Even the mention of bands that look queer is clearly based on some sort of observation of the music scene of LA in 1981.

Your obviously not familiar Zappa's work. He was targeting the record industry from the start in the 60's. He made fun of ALL musical styles. From the 60's on. An album after this makes fun of heavy metal. Great part was, he could perform all of it better than anyone.

Whether your a fan or not, listen to how tight his band is in any live performance, it's quite amazing. And they are not simple pop arangements.

 

[Torn Mind]

Your obviously not familiar Zappa's work. He was targeting the record industry from the start in the 60's. He made fun of ALL musical styles. From the 60's on. An album after this makes fun of heavy metal. Great part was, he could perform all of it better than anyone.

Whether your a fan or not, listen to how tight his band is in any live performance, it's quite amazing. And they are not simple pop arangements.

So he "made fun of all musical styles". That doesn't change the particulars put forth in his lyrics.

He might have targeted the industry, but it's not unclear that the performers themselves could also be targets. The lyrics for Tinseltown Rebellion are not particularly complicated or vague to figure out, nor are they whitewashable.

If that song is cited as a support of OP's point, then quality music died with the arrival of punk and their fans, long before pitch correction even could make it to the stage and records, and even before Michael Jackson and Madonna put their marks on "pop".

At least Zappa is clear from start about the subjects.
The original Madame Wong was a restaurant that ceased operating in 1986. Esther Wong got called the Godmother of Punk by the media writers. The place did allow those acts to perform at a time where they couldn't do so elsewhere.
The Starwood is another place that punk bands performed and it's life ended in 1981. The memories of the late period boomers and early Xers who went to those places will be mostly eliminated within a decade or two unless they blog or get interviewed about it.
Zappa certainly wasn't writing about Michael Jackson or Madonna, because their moments would be after the song's creation and release(1982 and 1984).

He certainly took the time to keep tabs on the music and listen to some, otherwise, some of the lyrics in the song would not have been put down, such mentioning the punks used to make some good stuff or the aforementioned venues punk fans went to.


On a separate note, "Pop" is a vague term and simplicity is not necessarily easy to make.

 

[WilliamM2]

Basing your opinion of Zappa on one song. Brilliant!

 

[Torn Mind]

Basing your opinion of Zappa on one song. Brilliant!

I haven't formed an opinion on Zappa.

I think I do understand the specific lyrics of this particular song more than you do. It's very clear why your response is what it is. It's not the merits or substance you are interested in.

Now, are you going respond in a productive manner or continue to utter irrelevant and fallcoous statements that go nowhere and only serve to annoy?

 

[Muse]

That sounds like a typical philistine condemnation and is usually coded for "I don't give a damn to bother listening but I have to sound not ridiculous". "Everything sounds the same". That's about as broad as saying Brahms sounds like Tchaikovsky because they both employ the "orchestral flourish" common in Romantic era music. It's a self-impeaching statement writer has not bothered to discern what exactly is weird. Because instrumentation and style also changed over the decades, and those two alone are enough to shut off ears(i.e country music for many, and pitch correction is utterly irrelevant for liking or disliking that genre).

Pitch correction is analogous to air brushing. How surprising is it that Madonna, who (they tell me) was pitch corrected, looks a freak for the plastic surgeries she's had?

I prefer my art unadulterated.

You probably prefer your novels filtered by AI. There's a Brave New World out there, one tailored for you. Take a 100 question multiple choice survey, provide them the art you'd like processed just for you and spend your twilight years sinking into very own Valhalla.

Or, you could choose the cheaper route. One size fits all, that crafted by the artist but later tweaked by an engineer who's somehow entrusted to render it more appropriate for the average customer.