Performance vs Pitch

I wanted to talk about a very unique outlook on vocal recording. Many singers will hate almost every take that they record. Why is this? Simply because of pitch. It is extremely hard to stay close enough to perfect pitch that we are satisfied as humans. Our ears can sense if it’s off pitch, even if it’s 10 cents off. I’m here to to tell you that the BEST singers out there are still off pitch. They may not be off pitch as often but it happens, because they too are humans. We as humans are imperfect. As a producer I choose performance over pitch. This means if the singer is really performing an emotional take with lots of passion, but there are spots that are off pitch, it’s okay!!! I mean it, it’s really okay. You don’t want it to be way off, but odds are…it isn’t. It’s just off enough to notice it. The vocals are getting pitch corrected regardless so you might as well keep the passion-filled emotional take and pitch correct instead of making the singer redo the take and replace it with a passion-less cold performance that has better pitch…So trust the process people! Get a passionate performance and pitch correct that thing!