[SINGLE] 🔥 Flames 🔥 w/ Mod Sun

Yesterday I was like "the song is okay...I like it but I'm not sure how much I could listen it on repeat." Today I can say that I just can't stop listening to it. It really grew on me and It's been only 17 hours 

If any of you are wondering why the song is so short, it's a current music trend (particularly with up and coming artists). Shorter songs are more likely to be replayed, therefore Spotifys algorithms are more likely to include it on Playlists. If you look at Machine Gun Kellys new album most tracks are under 2mins and a Half. The same can be seen with lots of RnB artists such as those kids who sing Mood (which is HUGE in the UK and 2mins long!). Also, songs which fit in a chorus twice within a minute are very Tik Tokable... Which also effects streams!

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

First of all, thank very much for the elaborate answer and explanation. I'm myself very familiar with the proccess of recording and producing music, but as I am not a producer myself, I take your words as truly explanatory. I totally thought what happened to Avril's voice was due to pitch correction. I take down that statement. I'm still not comfortable with how it was handled though, and I am not talking about the distortion nor the reverb. Be it mixing of the takes, the way they filtered the voice or just the equipment it was recorded, it still feels like way more processed that it should be. But that's just personal taste.

May I ask you what is your take on the, let's call it "climax" of the song? As someone pointed out before, many of the layers are very upfront. I know rock music is characterized with loud percussion lines and very prominent electric instruments for the arrangement, but they are usually held back to compliment the main melody rather than produce a strident sound of many things sounding at the same time. While I love the energy of that part, I feel like it almost cross the line to the "noise". I am sorry if I don't express myself properly, english is not my first language and it's been years since I left music to center on my career so I might be a little rusty on the terms .

Edit: Haven't seen it in the thread, but on IG there is some behind the scenes of the recording of the song!