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From: Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: Why pitch-corrected vocals sound so mechanical
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2025 06:38:33 -0400
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On 2025-04-11 4:13 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDJF4lR3_eg

Just as pitch-correction alters the pitch of notes to make them 
"perfect", quantization alters the placement of notes to make them 
rhythmically "perfect". For instance, if the drummer's high hat hits are 
a little bit off the beat, quantization can shift them to be exactly on 
the beat. This too makes the playing sound mechanical. I've heard 
several musicians bemoan the (over)use of quantization just as "Fil" 
bemoans the use of pitch-correction in this video.

This video is a brief explanation of quantization without much of the 
philosophizing about whether it is good or bad. I'm sure there are other 
videos that examine the issue more thoroughly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68LtY2aATl0 [7 minutes]

Note: He makes several uses of the term "DAW" (spelled out as individual 
letters) without explaining it. DAW stands for Digital Audio 
Workstation, essentially the software you use to do the recording, 
pitch-correction, quantization etc.

For what it's worth, I've often heard analysts note that bands like The 
Beatles, the Doors, and Led Zeppelin definitely speed up and slow down 
perceptably in some of their well-known recordings, even though they had 
fine drummers. If quantization had existed and been used when those 
recordings were made, we might well have found those songs somehow less 
impressive....

This short by Rick Beato gives an example of a quantized Led Zeppelin 
groove versus the original:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a7dTRgc0Mn4

The short is an excerpt from this longer video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT4fFolyZYU [10 minutes]

When Beato says that the original tempo is 170 BPM, he means 170 beats 
per minute.

-- 
Rhino