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Japanese pop group Perfume, consisting of Nocchi, Kashiyuka, and A-chan, has been known for its heavily processed vocals with autotune and vocoders. The group's music producer, Yasutaka Nakata, has been noted for his use of vocal effects, including autotune and vocoders, to create a technopop identity for the group. While some listeners have speculated about the use of pitch correction in the group's music, it is important to note that autotune can be used subtly to enhance vocals without masking bad singing. In this context, the discussion revolves around whether Perfume's music utilizes autotune or pitch correction, and if so, to what extent.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Use of auto-tune | Yes |
| Use of pitch correction | Yes |
| Genre | J-pop, electronic dance music, bitpop, techno, house music |
| Subtle or drastic auto-tune | Subtle |
| Natural-sounding vocals | Yes |
| Use of vocoder | Yes |
| Use of compression | Yes |
| Layering of sounds | Yes |
| Manual or automatic pitch correction | Both |
| Retune speed | Slow for minor errors, fast for significant corrections |
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What You'll Learn
Perfume's music production techniques
Perfume is a Japanese girl group consisting of Nocchi, Kashiyuka, and A-chan. The group formed in 2000 in Hiroshima, Japan, and moved to Tokyo three years later, where they worked with producer Yasutaka Nakata, who created a technopop identity for the group. Their performances are noted for their choreography and incorporation of technology with futuristic imagery.
The auto-tune interface features components such as pitch indicators and retune speed. The pitch indicator visualizes the notes and their movement in relation to the correct key or pitch, while the retune speed adjusts the speed at which corrections are made. A slow speed is useful for minor errors, while faster speeds are better for more significant corrections.
In addition to auto-tune, Perfume's producer, Nakata, is known for his layering of various sounds and the use of compression. He also adapts his style to keep up with the times, opting for more natural-sounding vocals in some cases.
One of Perfume's songs, "Electro World", provides an example of their music production techniques. The song features a stereo ping-pong delay, creating a wide and open sound. It also has a dramatic high-shelf EQ, with a gain of +6db to +8db.
Overall, Perfume's music production techniques showcase a creative use of auto-tune and other audio processing tools to shape their vocal performances and contribute to their unique technopop sound.
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Autotune and pitch correction
Auto-Tune gained popularity through its use in Cher's 1998 hit "Believe," where it was used to distort vocals. Since then, it has become a staple in popular music and other genres such as hip-hop and trap. Artists like T-Pain have embraced the Auto-Tune effect, and it has become a defining characteristic of modern pop music. The plugin is widely available and compatible with most Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), allowing for real-time pitch correction and adjustable retune speed.
Perfume, a Japanese girl group, has also utilized Auto-Tune and pitch correction in their music. Their early music was marked by a post-Shibuya-kei sound, later incorporating electronic dance music elements. The group is known for heavily processed vocals with Auto-Tune and vocoders, with their album ""Triangle" featuring the most vocal effects. Their producer, Yasutaka Nakata, is noted for his use of vocal effects and layering of sounds.
While Auto-Tune can be a powerful tool, it is important to use it subtly and naturally. It can be used to correct pitch issues, create unique effects, maintain consistency, and save time during the recording process. By using a combination of automatic and manual modes, music producers can achieve precise and customized tuning, ensuring that vocals are always in tune with the song's key and scale.
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Vocoders and vocal distortion
The Japanese pop group Perfume is known for its heavily processed vocals with autotune and vocoders. Autotune is an audio processing tool that has become a common fixture in studios across the world. It can alter the intended pitch of a musical performance and transform it into something new, which has become a defining characteristic of modern pop music. It is a robust audio processor that can improve the quality and impact of vocals. Autotune can be used to correct pitch issues, create new unique effects, maintain consistency, and save time. It can be done manually or automatically, depending on the project.
Perfume's music producer, Yasutaka Nakata, uses effects in a subtle manner, not to mask bad singing. He picks what's best for the song and also changes his style with the times.
Vocoders are a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption, or voice transformation. They are used to turn ordinary sounds into futuristic, robotic, and harmonized textures. Vocoders were invented in 1938 by Homer Dudley at Bell Labs as a means of synthesizing human speech. The decoder portion of the vocoder, called a voder, can be used independently for speech synthesis. The robot voices of the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica were created with an EMS Vocoder 2000. The VP-330 Vocoder Plus was also a string machine and was used by producers and visual media composers, including Vangelis, who scored Blade Runner with it.
To create a smooth, atmospheric vocoder sound, set the attack to around 20-30 ms and the release between 200-400 ms. This will help the vocoded audio track to glide more naturally. If your vocoder effect sounds too clean or digital, adding a bit of saturation or distortion can give it extra weight and character. You can also apply distortion only to the midrange so that the low-end stays clean and the vocoder output remains punchy and doesn't lose clarity.
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Natural-sounding pitch correction
The Japanese pop group Perfume is known for its heavily processed vocals with autotune and vocoders. However, the group also has several "natural-sounding" songs. One way to achieve a natural-sounding pitch correction is by using Melodyne, which is considered the industry standard for natural-sounding pitch correction. It allows for tuning without the robotic sound that Antares Autotune tends to create.
If you don't have access to Melodyne, you can adjust the settings in Autotune to achieve a more natural sound. This includes automating the speed knob to avoid notes that sound too robotic or turning up the humanize knob. The closer you are to the target note, the more natural it will sound as less correction is needed.
Another technique to achieve a natural-sounding pitch correction is to use the graphical mode instead of the automatic mode. This allows you to manually adjust the pitches, preserving the natural fluctuations of the human voice that would otherwise be removed by autotune. You can also adjust the retune speed per note to make the corrections smoother and more natural.
Additionally, it is important to get a solid take first and then make fine adjustments. This can be done by overpitching the verse, recording it again while singing alongside the overpitched version, and then adding a light touch of autotune to the new performance. Separating the consonants from the vowels before moving them can also help create a more natural-sounding vocal as moving the consonants can result in unnatural artifacts.
In conclusion, while autotune and pitch correction tools can be powerful resources, they must be used judiciously to achieve a natural-sounding vocal performance.
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History of Auto-Tune
Auto-Tune, an audio processing tool, was developed by Andy Hildebrand, a Ph.D. research engineer who specialized in stochastic estimation theory and digital signal processing. The idea for the vocal pitch correction technology came from a colleague's wife, who joked that she would benefit from a device to help her sing in tune. In 1989, Hildebrand combined his technical expertise with his passion for music to found Antares Audio Technologies. Over several months in early 1996, he implemented the algorithm on a custom Macintosh computer. Later that year, he presented the result at the NAMM Show, where it became instantly popular.
Auto-Tune was initially intended to discreetly correct imprecise intonations to make music more expressive. The patent outlines that when voices or instruments are out of tune, the emotional qualities of the performance are lost. The technology was designed to correct vocal performances subtly, but in 1998, Cher's song "Believe" used extreme settings to create unnaturally rapid corrections in her vocals, thereby removing portamento, the natural slide between pitches in singing. The song was the first commercial recording to use Auto-Tune as a stylistic effect, creating a robotic, futuristic sound, and faced resistance from her label. However, Cher insisted that the effect remain, and the song popularized the use of Auto-Tune to deliberately distort vocals, a technique that became known as the "'Cher effect'.
In the 2000s, T-Pain extensively used Auto-Tune, further popularizing its use. He became so associated with the technology that an iPhone app was named after him that simulated the effect, "I Am T-Pain". Eventually dubbed the "'T-Pain effect', Auto-Tune became a fixture of late 2000s music, used by hip-hop/R&B artists such as Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West. By 2009, the music industry had a love-hate relationship with Auto-Tune, with artists like Jay-Z releasing anti-Auto-Tune songs and members of the rock band Death Cab for Cutie wearing blue ribbons to raise awareness about Auto-Tune abuse.
Despite the controversy, Auto-Tune has been hailed as "the invention that changed music forever," and its use has only become more entrenched over time. It is now considered a must-have tool in any recording studio, with music critic Simon Reynolds observing in 2018 that Auto-Tune had "revolutionized popular music," calling its use for effects "the fad that just wouldn't fade."
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Frequently asked questions
Yes, the group Perfume uses auto-tune and vocoders to process their vocals.
Auto-Tune is an audio processing tool that corrects pitch in vocal performances and has been widely used in music production since the late 1990s.
Auto-Tune uses pitch indicators and retune speed to adjust the pitch of a musical performance. The pitch indicator displays the pitch as it moves, and the retune speed adjusts how quickly the pitch is corrected.
Singers use auto-tune to correct off-key inaccuracies and create unique sounds. It can also save time during the recording process by avoiding multiple takes.
Some popular songs that use auto-tune include "Believe" by Cher, and songs by artists such as T-Pain, Travis Scott, and Future.
