This post will most likely find a much smaller interested audience than my last post, which topped half a million readers (craziness!). This time I’m talking to that unique demographic of people who spend countless hours in the engineer’s chair at a recording studio. So, for the 12 people who will read this, I’ve discovered a wonderful program called Melodyne.
For years, I’ve been involved in vocal production for studio projects. I am always striving to get the best sound, as any engineer would do. Some musical styles call for that slightly out of tune floating-around-the-pitch sound. I am not involved in much of that. My stable of projects either have a full band with a lead vocal and background vocals that need tuning, or a complete a capella song where everything needs tuning.
For years, I’ve used a program called Autotune. Most people have heard of this, since it was popularized by its overuse, resulting in robotic voicing. I believe Cher was one of the first to do this back in the 90’s. It’s so popular it has resulted in a slew of iOS apps that achieve the same result for the fun of it. Too much.
George Pendergrass was part of the roundtable discussion at Acafest 2012 this past summer in Nashville, TN. He shared the floor with me, Duane Adams and Robert Guy… Acappella from 1992 to 1995 (I think that’s correct… I lose track).
Robert joined Acappella about 5 years after I jumped into the group. He replaced Wayburn Dean and sang as bass for the combination of himself, me, Duane and George for several years. He brought a new dimension to the group and it was wonderful to have him as part of the gang. You can hear Robert stand out in his first couple of albums with the group, Beyond a Doubt and Hymns for all the World. He went on to sing with various combinations of Acappella over the years and now sings often with ACAPPELLA CLASSIC, the collection of former Acappella members who sing here and there from time to time.
Here is another snippet of the recording from our roundtable discussion at Acafest 2012. Duane Adams shares a particular memory from an evening in Dallas, TX at the late, great Footloose. We were blessed to be able to sing many different, powerful songs. The most powerful, I believe, were some of the songs that came direct from scripture. His Righteousness, from the Sweet Fellowship album, was one of those. This is the story of one song on one night.
At Acappella’s recent 30th anniversary event, which took place at Acafest 2012, everyone had the chance to share their memories from their days on the road. The groups were divided into different periods, and the early 90’s Acappella had their chance to share on July 2nd, 2012 at 8:30 AM.
Before I begin this story, I admit that my memory is a bit sketchy on the facts. Certain parts of the story stand out vividly, and parts are very fuzzy. I will try to connect the facts as best I can and you guys can fill in the rest.