Can someone explain a little about using vocal tuning. I personally use Waves tune, I was looking for an explanation on determining scale setting. Im not fluent with music theory, i know the basics, but i have a good ear. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for determining the scale? I find my self humming a lot to help my ear find the note, but im not sure this is the correct way to tune a vocal. To be honest ive havent played with vocal tuning to much. Thanks.
Vocal Tuning
- Thread starter Studdy
- Start date
Kohugaly
Member
- Oct 15, 2011
- 258
- 0
- 16
tip no.1: Avoid automatic stuff. Simply manually shift stuff that sounds off tune or generally "not right" (excessive vibrato, non-stable held notes, non-perfectly singed short notes - all that stuff is relatively easy to repair by hand and almost impossible to find automatic settings for). It may sound like a lot of work, but finding the right auto settings arguably takes even longer.
Nevertheless knowing the scale of the song helps a lot, cos' that way you now which notes suppose to be (and not be) in the song.
Scale of the song can be found in several ways... Usually a song ends with the base note and chord and determining between mayor and minor is pretty obvious. Simply listen to the last chord and last note in melody in the song. Works 90% for folk and classic (our brain even expect it to be there and it it isn't the end of the song sounds "weird" or "unfinished" in many cases).
Another way is to look at the notes/tab/midi and write down all notes that are present in the song (usually analyzing part of the song is sufficient) - like the melody contains D,E,F,G,B# etc. Create midi file and put those notes in there into a single "chord" (transpose them into the same octave). Now put in the basic layout of minor/mayor scale (whichever is the case, I recommend filling two octaves on top of each other) - CDEFGAH for mayor or AHCDEFG for minor. Now shift this "scale chord" up and down until all the tones from the song fit into it - once that happens you've found the scale. Sometimes you find the song doesn't fit any standard scale (maybe the scale changes across the song or contains some "dissonant" tones or the song is in some weird nontraditional scale in the first place)... that doesn't obstruct you at all, because you've already found which notes it contains and which probably not - which is actually the reason why you're searching for the scale in the first place.
Nevertheless knowing the scale of the song helps a lot, cos' that way you now which notes suppose to be (and not be) in the song.
Scale of the song can be found in several ways... Usually a song ends with the base note and chord and determining between mayor and minor is pretty obvious. Simply listen to the last chord and last note in melody in the song. Works 90% for folk and classic (our brain even expect it to be there and it it isn't the end of the song sounds "weird" or "unfinished" in many cases).
Another way is to look at the notes/tab/midi and write down all notes that are present in the song (usually analyzing part of the song is sufficient) - like the melody contains D,E,F,G,B# etc. Create midi file and put those notes in there into a single "chord" (transpose them into the same octave). Now put in the basic layout of minor/mayor scale (whichever is the case, I recommend filling two octaves on top of each other) - CDEFGAH for mayor or AHCDEFG for minor. Now shift this "scale chord" up and down until all the tones from the song fit into it - once that happens you've found the scale. Sometimes you find the song doesn't fit any standard scale (maybe the scale changes across the song or contains some "dissonant" tones or the song is in some weird nontraditional scale in the first place)... that doesn't obstruct you at all, because you've already found which notes it contains and which probably not - which is actually the reason why you're searching for the scale in the first place.
Do you use waves tune? It seems like I scan the track (listen to vocal) then when I play back it has automatically done some basic tuning. Is there a way to scan and leave vocal untouched and then just do minor changes? I'm not at my studio now , I will need to go play with it some more, prob a simple mistake in the way I used it.
Line666
Fendurr
- Sep 2, 2006
- 3,342
- 1
- 36
You don't really need to know music theory - it's all about feeling the part out and knowing inherently what the note should be - if you have already worked the artist to get a good take this should be relatively simple. On ropier stuff you will have to work harder on a few note selections to get it right and if the take is between two notes you should listen to the backing to feel out what note is more natural. Knowing the scale of the song can help if you're stuck but it's not a prerequisite - it's not hard to hear when something is out of key.
Go manual mode, avoid sibilants or sounds without pitch as tuning them will sound off immediately, leave wide vibratos as tuning them will sound awful and try not to go overkill - the temptation is always there at first but knowing when to tame tuning OCD is a great talent that will make your clients feel better for propping up their egos without embarrassing them to their musician friends by making them into Cher.
Overall vocal tuning/time correction is probably the part of the editing process requiring the most finesse to get right but it's really just another practice thing. It's worth playing around with a few different programs as well, I've always preferred the GUI and layout of melodyne to the more AT looking plugins as it always felt more intuitive but they're all slightly different.
Go manual mode, avoid sibilants or sounds without pitch as tuning them will sound off immediately, leave wide vibratos as tuning them will sound awful and try not to go overkill - the temptation is always there at first but knowing when to tame tuning OCD is a great talent that will make your clients feel better for propping up their egos without embarrassing them to their musician friends by making them into Cher.
Overall vocal tuning/time correction is probably the part of the editing process requiring the most finesse to get right but it's really just another practice thing. It's worth playing around with a few different programs as well, I've always preferred the GUI and layout of melodyne to the more AT looking plugins as it always felt more intuitive but they're all slightly different.
ze kink
THE BLACK WIZARDS
I only do it manually, personally. Just stick the notes to the pitches you can hear the singer was trying to hit, unless the note choice is wrong to begin with. I don't use scales or theory personally - I mean, not consciously - but just listen to the song and go by that. So I turn off all the grid snapping stuff before I even start tuning. Also, I never really put anything exactly in tune, especially if there's doubling or other backing vocals involved. The vocals almost instantly start to sound small if you do that.
I find Melodyne pretty good for this stuff. Fits my workflow the best I guess. I just fix the sour notes, maybe touch the others to be "close enough" and leave the rest alone. Especially touching vibrato can ruin stuff really fast. The automatic stuff seem to always sound pretty bad to me; too obvious and fake, so I never use it.
I find Melodyne pretty good for this stuff. Fits my workflow the best I guess. I just fix the sour notes, maybe touch the others to be "close enough" and leave the rest alone. Especially touching vibrato can ruin stuff really fast. The automatic stuff seem to always sound pretty bad to me; too obvious and fake, so I never use it.
If I remember it seemed liked waves tune was automatic as soon as I scan. How do I use manual mode?
egan.
daylightdies.com
With waves tune it scans and charts the notes automatically. You can then go through edit the returning-- change notes adjust the speed and percentage of retuning on a note by note basis (or groups of them at a time). So for example if you only needed one note tuned (or a part of one) you could just set everything else to 0% tuned. If singer is so off you need to know the scale then you are in trouble.
I haven't used to much vocal tuning and don't really plan on doing much it just came in my waves bundle and got playing with it the other day. The manual said something about picking a scale/key before scanning, so I figured it was necessary because it seemed to tune automatically as soon as I scanned the vocal. I also read online people saying tune was awesome but they had to run/print separate track when doing manual tuning or automate the plugin. Thanks Egan what you said makes sense. So after scanning select all, set to 0 tuning, then manually make adjustments on the piano roll? I'm off to the studio tomorrow so I will mess with it a little more. Thanks everyone.
egan.
daylightdies.com
The notes will be on the piano roll and you can select individual ones and move them or dial in the specifics of the tuning. I leave mine in chromatic mode all of the time. Sometimes adjusting the detection (generic, bass, tenor, etc.) can help but I only try that when it's acting up.
