Clarifying the whole 'Jon only sounds good due to studio trickery' subject.

Hello y'all !

There has been a lot of bitching going on (myself included) concerning Jon's vocals during this tour (or should I say, since roughly 2003).
There are also a lot of people saying that Jon only sounds good in the albums due to the 'magic of auto-tune'. I thought I'd clarify that a little bit for people who may not know exactly how that works, since I make my living as a sound engineer both live and in the studio.

While it's certainly true that you can do an awful lot in the studio to cover up lack of talent, mistakes or less than ideals performances (drums are probably the most common case along with vocals), it doesn't mean that you can somehow magically make something terrible sound amazing.

First of all, as you've all noticed, music nowadays tends to sound a lot more polished and polished than 20 years ago, especially in commercial pop music. No matter how good a singer is, his/her vocals will undergo a certain degree of pitch correction. Drums, beats, basses guitars and others instruments will all be 'aligned to the grid' as well, meaning that any 'human' feel won't be spared, to make sure everything is perfectly in time (even though we, as humans, can't do this all the time).

Now, if a singer is slightly flat, producers will want it perfectly in tune. (Do not confuse this with the 'T-Pain effect' or 'Cher effect'. You can use pitch correction plugins such as Antares' Auto-Tune or Celemony's Melodyne to create an effect, rather than using it for correctional purposes, which is what a lot of people do nowadays - still doesn't mean they can't sing, they're merely using it as an effect.)

However, no matter how much correction you apply to a vocal performance, there are STILL certain things you can't emulate. You can't really cover up for lack of vocal projection or 'power'. This is where the issue about Jon's vocals comes to the table. A lot of times he's not putting his vocals 'out there' during his live gigs. It's not so much not being able to hit the high notes, it's also a lack of power, not breathing correctly and not being able to project his voice like he did in his heyday. Now, do you hear that in the albums ? Can you hear that in Burning Bridges? Some of the vocals in the album may be years old but others certainly aren't. The answer is NO, you can't. He sounds powerful and 'out there'. Why is that ? Because he sang at full throttle in the studio ! He may have recorded 20 or 30 takes, the engineer may have 'comped' the best phrases, vocals and - hell ! - even the best syllables whenever possible to make the perfect take AND THEN used pitch correction. But, again, bear in mind that no ammount of it would create the illusion of a powerful performance. 'We Don't Run' and 'Saturday Night Gave me Sunday Morning' also sound pretty amazing and 'meaty' don't they ? There you go, he did make an effort.

To sum it up, I think Jon's vocals were pushed to the limits during the 80s and 90s and started losing its sparkle during the mid 2000's, which is normal. I'm sure he's visited every vocal coach in the world but hey you can't always beat up human anatomy and age. Sure other singers like McCartney and Springsteen who are older than Jon sound much better live but we're not all the same. It's not that linear.

Jon sounded pretty amazing during 2007-2011 (with its ups and downs, but it was overall better than the last half of the Bounce tour and certainly better than the HAND tour). He's definitely going through a rough moment, vocal wise. Will he recover? Hard to say. This may be it, his vocal cords may be damaged beyond recovery and no amount of bitching on our camp will change that. What I do know is that if that's the case, he oughta know how to a) change the key of certain songs or b) put an end to Bon Jovi's powerful stadium based concerts as we know them and stick to his acoustic solo gigs and sing in a lower register - didn't he always want to be like Leonard Cohen ? :P

So there you have it folks ! Sorry for the long text but I though I'd clarify this for you. Sorry for any typos or grammar erros, didn't really bother reading the whole thread before submitting it.

Cheers

Great post, thank you for the insight view!

Thank you for the post - I had no idea how autotune worked before this article.

A lot of people believe auto-tune is a magical device that works by simply pressing a button, which is only natural, considering how the media advertises it. There was a piece on CNN recently that 'showed' how magical auto tune could be on a person's voice and it really didn't show the hard work that goes on there. If I am given a song to mix with several vocal tracks, I'll sometimes spend one or two hours getting my heard around it - depending on the producer's vision. If I'm recording a sort of indie/lo-fi band, 'auto-tune' and 'time alignment' are forbidden words in the band's lexicon .. and that makes me really happy

My pleasure. I spend 99% of my time in this board bitching about stuff.. I though I'd say something nice and insightful for a change

I disagree. 53 is not 83. Here's what I posted in another thread, you may not have seen it:
Apart from throat cancer and the likes, there's nothing that can damage vocal cords forever, they're muscles, not a vital organ, they need training and caring.
If Jon stopped drinking and smoking, if he resumed vocal exercises and if he enjoyed again what he does he could sing great again. He couldn't have the famous high notes back because of his age (aging = hormonal change = physical changes such as a lower voice) but he would be able to sing in tune and with power.
http://www.drycounty.com/jovitalk/bo...232/page2.html

Oh yes, you can perform miracles in the studio! Remember the boys bands and assorted pop tarts from the 80-90s? Why do you think they "sang" in playback during "live" performances? Some would really sing because they couldn't lip-synch and of course the mikes were turned off but if you stood close enough you could hear their real voices and realize they couldn't sing at all. We used to say that a good sound engineer could make a frog sing like Caruso way back then. So now that we have computers, sky's the limit!

It's very easy if you work like Avicii for example: he records songs syllable by syllable then put them together to make words (it's called "comping", I see you mentioned it too). That way, you can have singers give their all when they can't sing and project their voices on a 3-minute song. You explained it too when you talked about BB: Jon's voice sounds powerful on this album thanks to studio tricks.

Nope! Laziness is the culprit, not age. And also physical and mental health, it's the sum of all parts. When you got the blues, it can be heard through your voice; when you're having a bad diet, it can be heard through your voice. If the eyes are the mirror of the soul, a man's voice is the meter of his mind. A better physical and mental diet is the key to recovery.
Just sayin'!

Its not really a muscle as such, but like any part of the body - if abused it can never be fixed. Plenty of examples of this like lungs, teeth, the spine, lower back muscles, knee. Because of Jon's abuse, not only screaming in the 80s and 90s), smoking heavily for all his adult life has ruined his best asset. He only has himself to blame

Right, that's what the article says too, what I really meant was that it's not a vital organ such as liver or pancreas for example: when it's badly damaged, not much can be done about it. Whereas vocal cords can be "fixed up", there's no prosthesis but surgery and/or a better diet/lifestyle can solve the problem, it's not an irreversible one.

Wrong. Lower back muscles are like any other muscle in the body: you need to avoid movements that cause injury and practice exercises that strengthen them to avoid pain. Teeth and kneecaps can be replaced by prostheses and you're 20 again!

But it's not just kids anymore.

Whitney Houston was so highly praised for her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner before the 1991 Super Bowl that it was practically a scandal when it was revealed that both she and the orchestra were synching to a studio recording made the day before. And when Beyonce Knowles pulled out her earpiece during her rendition at President Obama's first inauguration, she had to cop to lip synching to a pre-recorded vocal and accompaniment, too.

??? I didn't mention "kids", the members of the 80/90s boys bands were young adults.
And I was talking about people who really can't sing and yet release records that lead you to believe they can (re/you can do miracles in the studio) whereas your post is about good singers who had a bad day or used technical tricks to enhance a live performance.