[SINGLE] 🔥 Flames 🔥 w/ Mod Sun

Yeah she does. but I believe if a singer sounds off sometimes.. they are not practicing enough or probably using wrong technique.

The song really should've been at least a minute longer, it feels like like I'm listening to some trial version that has part of it missing, lol. It has a great finale of strong instrumentals and vocals, but they come way too soon, there should've been a slightly longer build-up, I think.

I hate saying this, but I'm an audio professional and studio owner... You guys have a misconception on how auto tune works and how songs are recorded, and it's ok, it's all pretty technical and even boring sometimes, and I'm here if you ever need tips or have any doubts or even if you need someone to mix a song, but like any professional, I ask for your understanding. 

When you record a vocal, you generally don't do just one take, because it has to be perfect.  The producer will push you until you have recorded enough to have the perfect take, which will be made with parts of every take you've recorded (example: you take the first 20 seconds from take 1, 10 seconds from take 4, 15 seconds from take 3 and so it goes). I've seen singers record 2 takes for it to be perfect, and some others record 7 takes... the average is like 3 or 4. For a 3 minutes track, the vocal recording generally takes 1-3 hours with lead vocal takes and backing vocals depending on how many layers it will have. After that, in the mixing, you'll have little work to do with pitch and stuff, and you can do it on some notes manually using melodyne most of the times so you'll have more control over that, because auto tune will just do everything for you. Plus, when you use auto tune, the tune will be 0.0, which is the perfect tune, and most parts of "Flames" are on a -0.25 to a 0.25 gap, so it was corrected, but no auto tune was used, it was fixed manually by the engineers with melodyne with the gap presetted, and this gap means that this was a safe amount of fixing to do without changing so much because the singers weren't really off. They both must have recorded some takes. If the singer is really off or pitch perfect, you'll hear 0.0 tune on every note because no fixing was needed or because the audio engineers had to use auto tune. Auto tune is also not recommended in most cases, because it hides natural characteristics of voice, like timber, raspiness, etc.

As for auto tune: it's either not listeneable or used stylistically or for market purposes (in order to make something more radio-friendly, like some of the songs on self-titled for example), or in case of Youtube covers and TV singing shows that are done overnight, because they don't have time to fix one by one manually. If a singer needs so much auto tune that you can hear it this easily for the pitch correcting purpose, they shouldn't even be a singer in the first place. As for Avril albums, I suppose Under My Skin and AL were the ones with more auto tune for different reasons. Under My Skin was kinda rushed by the label I guess, so I suppose she didn't have so much time to record the amount of takes needed for some tracks, and auto tune and melodyne were widely used in some tracks to correct the ones they couldn't make the perfect take (you can hear the corrections in the bridge and last chorus of Together, for example). On AL it was totally for market purposes, same reason why they used drumkit. HAW was the album with rawest vocals probably

There are lots of ways to make something sound "robotic" in the studio without touching pitch correction. The high pass filter + subtle distortion used in her voice + short reverb is what's bothering. I like it, but I understand why it bothers... It was mixed as a rock track, a genre that is not as popular anymore, but these kinds of effects are always used that way. Each genre will have a way of mixing, it's like there are some "rules of mixing" for genres. In pop you may use more compression to make everything uniform and mix the vocals to the front of the sound, because it is treated as the main instrument, in rock the voice is louder than other instruments, but it is generally blended with instruments on the sides with distortion and small reverb (the filters seems to be Avril's thing), in folk you have more "full-quality" vocals so it sounds more raw, for that you use less compression and more equalizer. Some people relate more to some kinds of post-production (production= recording and arranging, post production = mixing and mastering). Other way of getting this "robotic sound" is apart from these effects, when you use doubled vocals, which is getting 2 different takes of vocals that sound almost the same playing in each side of your phones, it's made to make the voice sound bigger, "Innocence" was mixed like this on the choruses, for example.

It's ok not to like the mixing of the song or the genre, I'm just hoping to help everyone understand more the tecnhiques used in the studio with this because I saw some of you guys had some doubts. 


I went way off topic here, I'm sorry

So bad they didn't post the official video already today! It would have been better imo 

This is such a moment for MOD SUN.

"Duh"

http://instagram.com/p/CJy2ZcIAJgi

You can see that Derek enjoys all of this and is grateful for the songs success. It might not be a lot of sales for a popstar but it certainly means something to someone on an independent label.

Obviously no idea how much this video contains footages recorded only while working on the song, but if it does, the Christmas photo of them in the studio was also for Flames. What would make sense because this cameraman would have to be hired by Avril but who knows. I’m more willing to believe theyve switched working on the three things at once - his album, Avril’s and the collab.

http://instagram.com/p/CJy2ZcIAJgi