Can you tell when a chorus vocal has been simply copied and pasted throughout the song?

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Just curious... It seems to have long been the case with most hip-hop, but I think ProTools is making everyone equally lazy (or, in non-rockist language, efficient?) - I've been noticing some pop choruses sung the requisite 3-4 times without a single slightest natural change of inflection.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Any especially glaring examples come to mind?

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

also, there's a way on pro tools to fine tune the performances so when the singer is *EVER SO SLIGHTLY* off key, they can tweak it to be PERFECT without re-recording, which of course makes it come off as totally unnatural. This might also be a rampant problem.

― Vestigal Appendages, Esq. (King Kobra), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

It is cheaper to just repeat the vocal, perhaps process it slightly differently throughout.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

And if one of the takes is obviously better than every other one, then it makes sense to use it over and over again.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 21:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm ambivalent about the cut n' paste chorus thing. The more stringently robotic the song is, the more it makes sense. the looser the song is, in all forms, the less it makes sense...

Granted, making less sense could be a good thing as well as bad thing. I would love to see Bunny Brains, for example, write a song that just has the "chorus" cut n' pasted while they go crazy otherwise.

― donut debonair (donut), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 22:23 (twenty-one years ago)

My band did this a lot when we recorded out last album, but it was more of a case of borrowing parts to patch up mistakes or little flubs. God bless copy-paste. Still, I can't imagine doing this with an entire chorus or section with every track. I suppose with dance/top 40 it could work since that style of production is a bit over the top anyway.

― darin (darin), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 22:24 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah but the kids are just organically stumbling onto a poorman's way to do what big studios have been doing to top 40 for years and years (pitch correction, etc). The difference being of course that in the sheer ease of doing cut/paste/plugin functionality, while contributing to a lot of blandness and laziness, is also contributing to a lot creative uses never intended; people are breaking and misusing the tools creatively to do something new. a silver lining. but in my opinion any concepts of 'authenticity' or 'fidelity' in the studio are nonsense anyway.

― william fields, Tuesday, 29 March 2005 23:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think it's done with LEAD vocal tracks as much as background vocals though... especially when the song in question is meant to showcase, say, the artist's singing talents. You WANT to show off all the tricks that a voice can do differently each chorus.... if the chorus differs, you can't really cut 'n paste anyway.

I'm not saying that's the way it's done in the real world.. if vocal recording sessions are long enough, and the singer's voice is about to break, there might be cut n' paste done purely for budgetary reasons.. as to not delay studio time yet another day.

I'm speaking purely in the context of Top 40/R&B here... rock bands that do this are probably under far more scrutiny... then again, weren't Def Leppard's albums basically cut 'n paste -- literally?

― donut debonair (donut), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 23:41 (twenty-one years ago)

What are some concrete examples of this being done?

― Waking Up Onstage at Jumbo's (Bent Over at the Arclight), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 23:49 (twenty-one years ago)

if i was a betting man, i'd put my money on the title song of ashlee simpson's autobiography ... and probably others on the album, but that's the song i noticed right away, largely because of the weird way she enunciates the words "changing" and "eventually" in the exact same way every time. maybe that's just the way she actually pronounces the words and she's really consistent, but the other obvious thing is a trailing little "tch..." sound that's audible right before she says the "t" in "t-shirt," same way every time. the instrumental track is changing subtly, so they didn't cut and pasted the whole thing, but my money's on that vocal.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 04:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Can't think of any cut n'paste VOCALS offhand. But instrumentally, Paul McCartney's "Taxman" guitar solo was used twice: once halfway through and then again during the fade.

And - this is really weird! - the opening 30-seconds of Ram Jam's "Black Betty" (entirely instrumental, incl. guitar solo) are repeated in their entirety (and TERRIBLY spliced in) at about the 90-second mark of the song. Like, WTF did that accomplish?

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 09:26 (twenty-one years ago)

The "you're gorgeous" in the song of the same name by Baby Bird always sounds to me like they've used the only time he actually hit it all the way through the song

― winterland, Wednesday, 30 March 2005 10:33 (twenty-one years ago)

uh, have you guys never heard of tape splicing?

What are some concrete examples of this being done?

musique concrete?

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 10:36 (twenty-one years ago)

pitch correction, vocal "comps" (taking the best parts of a vocal performance, sometimes down to the syllable, and putting them all together to create one "golden take"), repeating lines/whole choruses (this is called "flying in"), nudging and/or radically altering drum, guitar and bass performances to be more metronomically "perfect," and all manner of manipulation and "finessing the mix" are used extensively in EVERYTHING from ashlee simpson to interpol now and are NOT noticeable to the average or even discerning listener unless overdone.

and by overdone i mean pushed to the next level of glossy, studio "perfection" than the last guy.

go back and listen to neil young and you'll see how far we've come, for better or worse.

― studios of doom, Wednesday, 30 March 2005 13:21 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

mhmm

― Surmounter, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:02 (eighteen years ago)

i mean, why wouldn't you do this? by the time you get to the 2nd chorus you've already forgotten the nuances of the 1st one. paste!

― Surmounter, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:04 (eighteen years ago)

(okay i GET why you wouldn't do it but really? i think it's ok)

― Surmounter, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:05 (eighteen years ago)

Cos it makes everything very boring and predictable and lifeless, perhaps?

― Scik Mouthy, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:08 (eighteen years ago)

Gone is the awesome Stipe laugh in The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight.

― Scik Mouthy, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:08 (eighteen years ago)

There was that deplorable song by that deplorable band from a few years ago, Jet, where it was essentially a 30 second song on loop a couple of times.

― mehlt, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:13 (eighteen years ago)

Madness : One Step Beyond.

Original recorded version was 90 seconds.

I believe it was Stiffs Dave Robinson who suggested just looping the whole track to create the 3 minute monster we all know and love.

― mark e, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:22 (eighteen years ago)

who cares if it sounds good

― usic, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:24 (eighteen years ago)

doh. no 'proper' vocal in One Step Beyond.
must read thread title properly.

― mark e, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

I'm such an atrociously inconsistent singer that c&p is a godsend. generally, though, yes you can tell, and its not great.

― Thomas, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:34 (eighteen years ago)

ISTR that Mutt Lange was doing this with vocals on the "Pyromania" album. Given his perfectionism it would make sense. Tom Scholz may also have done so on Boston's albums.

― Pancakes Hackman, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:37 (eighteen years ago)

The thing is that even in rap/R&B on the rare occasion that the chorus isn't cut and pasted and is sung differently each time, it's usually to the song's benefit (first example that comes to mind: "Duffle Bag Boy").

― some dude, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:42 (eighteen years ago)

it depends. works different in every song. its a folly in some i guess, but really why pick apart music that doesnt work for bullshit reasons like this

― usic, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:44 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, true.

― some dude, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:45 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, how about Roxanne Shante's "Bite This" for one?

― Mark G, Friday, 13 June 2008 14:47 (eighteen years ago)

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