Here are your rankings from Evermind:
Read on for Evermind's reviews!
Before I get into reviews and rankings, I want to mention that I have a personal scoring rubric for rating and ranking songs based on five categories, where each category receives a score from 1 to 5 which are then added to produce a final score. I will not be publicly posting individual category scores, but if you contact me privately via Discord, Slack, or Song Fight forums, I'll give you your score's breakdown. Here are the categories:
- Concept: This is what I think you were trying to achieve with your song and how clever, adventurous, unique, poignant your overall vision was (setting aside how close you got to your goal).
- Songwriting: What choices did you make in instrument selection, arrangement, structure, and lyrics to support your concept? Did they serve your goal, or detract from it? Are your choices cliche?
- Execution: This is about how the song was performed, recorded, and produced. How well did the singer convey emotion? Were there pitch or timing issues? Was there an argument and an air conditioner in the background of the song? Did you use the oil barrel snare drum from St. Anger? Were these choices appropriate for the style and concept or did they distract from it?
- Challenge: How well did you meet the challenge? Was your approach to the challenge ambitious or unique? How central was the challenge to your song? How much would the song suffer if you changed the bits that met the challenge?
- Subjective Enjoyment: Let's face it. Music, like any form of art, is subjective. There's some things that just match my personal taste better and this category measures that. If you've got a great concept you executed well on while meeting the challenge, I still might not care for it.
One last thing to mention is I'll be giving some general advice after all the individual reviews to address problems that are common across a lot of entries.
With all that out of the way, reviews!
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Boffo Yux Dudes - EDL
A song about NASA's "7 minutes of terror". That's quite a lot of up and down in a very literal sense, and it's a unique approach to the challenge, as well as a fun concept to work with.
The lyrics are perfect rhyming couplets all the way through, but sometimes this comes at the cost of the quality of the lyrics, such as in the weird "making sure in the dust we don't drown" line. In general if you would never say it that way, I don't think it should be that way in your lyrics.
The piano is mixed too loud, it dominates everything else.
There are some performance issues here, some wrong notes like at 2:31, some pitchy vocals, there's a flubbed vocal take at 2:19. Vocal timing issues ex. 0:58. See my "General Advice" section for this one.
The piano sounds like all the notes are at the same velocity, and feels like it's superimposed on everything else. Consider using a single reverb send for everything to give sonic consistency, and using a humanizer (or manually programming velocities for notes) if this is programmed. If this is performed, it sounds like maybe your keyboard doesn't send MIDI velocity data, or maybe you've got the settings set such that everything sends at the same velocity (aka "midi compression")
Nice atmospheric delay guitar sounds in the intro and outro.
The chorus vocal melody suits the theme, and your falsetto provides a nice contrast for the chorus.
The ascending piano line in chorus is good, a nice little musical representation of vertical movement.
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Phlub - Straight to Hell
The challenge is met through a figurative downward journey of morality and somewhat literal descent into hell.
Guitar is made of fuzzy goodness. A treat for the ears. Is this a physical fuzz pedal or a plugin?
Bend at the end of the intro is lovely, really matches the vibe (and the challenge).
Vocal performance is a little bit overly nasal, feels like maybe you're not relaxing your tongue enough while singing.
"only visit my mother to take all her pills" I know you said this wasn't a Trevor Moore reference but I can't help but take it as one.
Vocals are a bit pitchy on the long notes.
Pronunciation of "hee-ull" is odd. I haven't docked you points for this or anything, it's just I couldn't not mention it.
Guitar solo feels a bit rushed in places and lagged in others, could have used some more takes or treatment. I know you know your way around a DAW so I'll skip the advice cuz I think you were probably just pressed for time.
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Jim Tyrrell - A Hole in the Rain
Concept is construction work, and maybe something about the tedium of work and the boring cruelty of bosses, or maybe sisyphean tasks.
E-Piano, jazz drum kit and breathy woodwind sound create a chill, loungey atmosphere.
Construction noise ambience is a nice touch and never feels like it gets in the way of everything.
Challenge feels met pretty weakly. Yes, they're digging down but it feels like if they were doing some other construction task the song would not really change.
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Pigfarmer Jr - Nowhere to Go But Down
Great acoustic guitar sound. Very bright and percussive.
We never really establish why you were "up" in the first place, so it doesn't feel like much of a journey down. Very little is spelled out about the situation except drinking, driving, accident, anxious in the hospital.
Great use of the stereo field. This feels very wide.
"I'm heading to the emergency room" is very weirdly paced, especially when so much of the rest of the vocal hits strongly on downbeats.
The inclusion of the EKG beep as a rhythmic element is REALLY cool! Only problem is it's strongly tonal and not tuned to the rest of the song so it ends up sounding distracting. A little pitch shifting could make it fit better with the rest of the song.
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Eric Novak - Low Road
The slapback on the vocal is a little aggressive and distracting.
Pitchy vocals such as at :30, :34, 2:40. Guitar track feels a little loose, some muted notes and buzzy fret noise at times. Timing falls apart at 1:10.
My best guess on the concept is class strata, how those who are not privileged do not have time to see the greater picture, stuck dealing with daily struggles. Don't know if this is what you meant, but this is what comes across to me.
I like the use of non-standard time signatures, shows you put some thought into how this song comes together.
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Glennny - Crazy Climber
Concept is about the game crazy climber, with what I can only assume are recordings of that game's audio, though those SFX could stand to be way louder.
Clean mix, nice guitar tone, but your vocal tone is super muddy.
The ascending line in the repeating "crazy climber" is a good musical nod to the challenge and the concept.
Nice countermelody in the bridge
Very catchy repetition in the chorus that isn't overstaying its welcome.
The pause and instrumental drop before "fall" puts a ton of focus on the word, and you spend a lot of time making it really obvious that's the word to come, to the point where if you didn't say it the listener would know what was there. It makes a great ending!
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Cavedweller - Z-Axis
Concept is UM WELL ACKSHUALLY. Sadly, Z-axis being vertical is by some conventions only; in some popular video game engines like Unity & Source, Z axis is vertical, though notably in Minecraft the Y axis is height. Having your song based around what is (paraphrasing your liner notes) a pedantic snarky correction when your correction isn't quite right is potentially an intentional choice, but when the pedant of the song isn't being questioned or criticized in any way I could see, it comes across as a mistake.
Feels vaguely like an educational TMBG song a la "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas", which is charming.
Drums feel buried and lack punch, would love a 60s psychedelic slapback drum treatment or at least a little transient shaping (or maybe just slow the attack on your drum bus compressor a bit).
Vocal harmony is lovely.
Song ends kind of abruptly, feels like you could have found a better way to end it.
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Hot Pink Halo - Aim High
Concept is being inspired by Paris and the Eiffel Tower to "aim high". Aspiration and accomplishment as vertical movement is a cool take.
The strange percussion is really pleasing to my ear.
The twinkly repeating four notes for the whole song outstays its welcome by around the 2 minute mark.
The stumbly, oddly timed kalimba has a real groove hidden in there somewhere but it's hard to tell if it's just a little too much swing for my taste or if it's just loose performance. In the context of the other production and performance blemishes I think it's not intentional.
Vocals are a touch too loud compared to everything else.
Everything feels very on-grid, everything lands on either quarter or eighth notes, makes it feel very stiff, doesn't make me want to move at all.
Vocal performance feels like you're struggling to catch a breath inbetween words at times, there's a breathing trick that may help where you expand your ribs as best you can and then breathe exclusively using your diaphragm ("breathing from the stomach") until you are running out of breath and then compress your ribs to get the last little bit. Breathing control is tough, though, and a lot of it is really just learning when in your song you can afford to take a big breath (or cheating with production and recording phrase by phrase :)
Vocals are way rushed ahead of the beat from about 2:10 to 2:20.
Some of the words get cut off (maybe again because of breath control issues) such as in the phrase "refuse to die" which comes out like "refuse to dah".
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GFS - Vertical Vision
Very 90s eurodance intro, has a Savage Garden "I want you" vibe.
The vocals are mixed SUPER loud, the sibilance is HOT. I know pop and dance are supposed to be very bright but you gotta tame the harshness a little bit, maybe with some multiband compression targeting the high end, or a de-esser (which basically does the same thing) or maybe just turn the highs down a little bit.
Challenge met by self improvement as vertical movement.
Whole song could kind of be summed up as "I no longer waste time on things I can't control and I am better for it", not much information or nuance relayed, but then again it's kind of a dance / pop song, lyrics are more for vibe than to tell a story. Not every song needs to be more than vibes, and this one has some pretty specific vibes.
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Mandrake - Volume
Concept is volume as Y-Axis.
Vocals sound like they're clipping. This might be happening at your microphone, or in the recording, or in your DAW, but either way they've got a very digital clipping edge to them. This might be an intentional choice to invoke the idea of extreme volume, but given the low fidelity of the vocals it comes across as a mistake.
Nasal vocal tone, sounds like maybe you need to relax / lower the back end of your tongue while singing, or maybe it's just weird EQ / treatment of your vocals. Listening to the spoken part at the end makes me think a part of it is just a cheap stick mic being used to record vocals, which CAN be made to sound good but needs the right processing. See my General Advice section for getting better sound out of cheapo microphones.
Claps are loud as hecc.
Vocals in the chorus sound kind of bored but it kind of works with the song so if it wasn't intentional hey, serendipity. If you didn't want to sound bored you might try exaggerating your facial expressions as you sing, which alters the resonance of your mouth and throat as you sing and will be audible to the listener. I've heard it said that "you can hear what the singer's facial expression looks like" and that rings true to me.
Your bleepy interlude is very loud. This may be because square waves are perceived as being a lot louder than other kinds of sounds, and you were mixing with your eyes instead of your ears.
In the phrase "even in my deep sleep" you stress the unstressed syllable of "even", like "eVEN" and it's odd.
Seems like the master is clipping around 2:10 (or maybe you're pushing into a hard clipper at the end?) anyway, everything is distorting a la BOSS Metal Zone but not wildly enough to make it clear this is an intentional choice (if it was). See the General Advice on intentionality.
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chewmeupspitmeout - i was just the gravity
Concept is being a burden on someone else and them freeing themselves of you, "moving up".
Vocals are very ahead of the beat and drowned in reverb (intentional for an underwater vibe?). Out of key at :44, :50. Timing from the bridge onward is really rough.
Lacking some nuance in this, song can be summed up with "I was bad for you, you found someone better for you, I'm feeling bad about it"
Love the breathy vocal delivery.
Keys has "machine gun" effect, could be really cool if emphasized but comes off as maybe unintentional
The loose timing, off-key notes, and short measures (like the one at 1:10) could all be used to help express the distressing emotions the narrator is experiencing but mostly they don't feel like they're used intentionally. One way this could be more intentionally done in this song is to use off-key notes, short measures, and loose timing for one specific part of the song, like the phrase "I was just the gravity". If everything else is relatively tight and neat until that moment, it becomes obvious that all of these were intentional choices, not mistakes. See my General Advice section on intentionality.
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The Pannacotta Army - Still Coming Up Short
Acoustic guitar, vocals, snare are all boomy.
Concept is about aspiring to meet the perceived standard of someone else, possibly a would-be lover? There's a lot that could be explored here that isn't, a lot of missing nuance. The line "It feels like I ought to deserve something more" feels like it's hinting at Nice Guy Syndrome. Here's this narrator obsessed with another person and feeling like if they put in the effort they deserve romantic compensation, mistaking relationships for transactions. But we fall short of any introspection from or criticism of the narrator.
Everything hits on the downbeat, feels a little too self assured and stable for a song about self-doubt, the music is nice enough but the vibe does not match the story.
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iveg - Flames Descend
Concept is the fires in Maui. Timely, but it feels like that's not really vertical position or movement. It kind of works because the fire is on a mountain, but it feels like if all mention of vertical movement were removed from this song nothing would be lost.
Vocals sound like they're disconnected from the rest of the song sonically and too loud to boot. Feels like maybe it was going for a "voice over an intercom" vibe which would have really fit the theme well, but isn't pushed hard enough to sound intentional imo
Everything feels very straight-down-the-middle, no discernable use of stereo field.
High feedback delay on vocals can be tricky, I recommend doing the delay on an aux track and ducking it against the vocals so that the delay doesn't muddy up the vocal track and make it unintelligible.
The mix is muddy, need to pick a few tracks to carry the bass and low shelf cut or high-pass everything else.
Very hot sibilences, f, ch, s. If you've used something like Ozone to automagically master your track, it will often crank the highs to fit the "right" EQ profile, but this will often make sibilences too harsh. Instead of adjusting the entire track's EQ in big moves as Ozone is wont to do, adjust individual tracks to contribute to the overall spectrum of the song's frequencies. If you feel like a track needs to be brighter but start to run into harshness issues, you can apply a de-esser (I really like the free DeBess from AirWindows) to take the harshness out while maintaining the brightness.
The whole song feels like a buildup to nothing, I would have liked something more to come at the end.
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Stacking Theory - One More Love Song
Intro reminiscent of Gregorian chants, which oddly enough reminds me of childhood, then suddenly Black Sabbath.
You've done a great job creating texture with stacked vocals. It's really endearing.
Concept is a love song about a Sisyphean relationship (with a Camus "we must imagine Sisyphus happy" sort of angle), vertical movement is the boulder going up and down. I love a good Sisyphus reference.
The lyrics are kind of vague.
Soft muted trumpet outro? Yes. Yes yes yes.
Outro, as great as it is, feels like a different song tacked onto the end for 20 seconds.
Performance and recording and production wise, this is stellar.
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West of Vine - Come Up on the Front Porch
Concept is traveling great distances across the south, going "up" or "down" the country. Removal of all vertical movement references would not change this song a bit.
You've made the references to San Antonio (even calling it San Antone), front porches, western highways, New Orleans, Houston, but none of it serves to do anything but make the listener aware that this is very much A Country Song. I think this song would be better served if there were fewer references to Very Country Things and more storytelling.
Timing is fairly loose, and with both the acoustic guitar and drums being punchy, they should really be well aligned with each other or else it all feels sloppy.
Bass is pushed into the right stereo channel, for historical and equal loudness curve reasons this makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable and should be avoided. Or, at the very least, use a bass monoizer to make the low end of the bass mono and let the high end get panned.
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The Popped Hearts - You're Getting High, I'm Getting Down
Vocals are way too hot for everything else and arguably too reverb soaked, though the reverb does lend a little psychedelia to this new-wavey psychedelic surf rock track so that part is not out of place.
The stresses on the phrase AMerICan SPEEDball are odd, it feels forced and there's no discernable reason for the odd stresses other than you couldn't figure out phrasing and pacing to get it to fit the rhythm better.
Love the Devo esque vocal delivery.
Feedback whine at 1:02, not enough to feel intentional. See the General Advice on intentionality.
Concept is being in recovery and having a run-in with an addict.
Challenge approach is intoxication as vertical movement.
There's some nice little nuance to the storytelling here, reference to affluenza, and points for the rhyme with credenza. I had to look up the Liz Phair reference to Guyville and Never Said, not sure if the irony in the addict's favorite song having references to being "clean as a whistle" was intentional but it's a great touch whether or not it was.
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nightingale's fiddle - Ballad of Susie Ann
Sounds like this was recorded on a phone or laptop mic in an untreated room, it's very boxy and lacks both high and low end. See my General Advice section for how to make a cruddy mic sound better.
The bouncy 6/8 composition in combination with the harp-like sound of the guitars is a ton of fun and very unique. It feels like it would be perfect at a ren faire and I mean that in the best possible way. It almost feels like a sea shanty, with a fair number of hard consonants on the 1/3, like: "the Kiss of a breeze on the Back of her neck" and "Batten the hatches and Brace for the storm". Not sure if this was an intentional choice leaning in the direction of sea shanties and other work songs that do this on purpose for strong rhythm, but very cool nonetheless.
Some percussion is sorely needed here, even just a tambourine or a shaker would go a very long way. Based on the recording I wonder if this is a limitation of your recording setup, that you don't have a multitracking software you're comfortable with, or if you were out of time, or just going for minimalism.
Great vocals and performance, though there's a little fret buzzing that blemishes the performance.
Good imagery throughout the song.
Ripperonis Susie Ann ;_;7
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Ominous Ride - Vertigo
Dark mix, sorely needs brightness, especially the guitar.
Has a 60s Mamas and the Papas vibe to it, unfortunately this is also true of the sound of the production, stereo field is barely used, seems like the only reason there's any use of the stereo field is maybe some panning on background vocals and/or a stereoizing reverb
The background strings add a nice vibe.
Could really use some percussion or a more percussive treatment for the acoustic guitars to give a stronger rhythm.
I did not at all pick up on the concept of coming down from a high from the lyrics, I had to read your song bio for that.
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Braylee Pierce - Dig Deep
Starting off with the sound of touching/moving the mic, which is understandable if all you have to record with is a phone, but there's plenty of free tools out there for editing audio and all of them could have cut that off.
Vocals are very quiet in comparison to guitar until you start to sing louder, some compression could have kept the quiet sound without actually being a little too quiet to hear. Not saying squash the dynamics completely out but some parts are hard to hear.
Great vocal and guitar performance throughout.
The recording sounds boxy.
Concept is being trapped in a life of coal mining both with the coal mine as literal place and metaphor for a bad situation.
Timing is a little bit spotty at moments, but not too noticeable.
Could really use some percussion.
A little too much repetition of "dig deeper", it wears by the end of the song.
Take a look at the General Advice section on recording without a nice mic, and basic DAW recommendations.
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Brain Weasels - Root to Rise (Overdrive)
Timing issues starting right in the intro and continuing through the song.
Vocals feel rushed, it's possible to go at this pace and not feel rushed but this wasn't achieved here, you might need to do some more takes to nail it or possibly just need to slow the song down.
Highs are a little much here, the pick noise of the acoustic guitar and tambo and shaker start to wear on my ears after a while, could do with just a little pull back on the fader or maybe some multiband compression to take a little punch out of the highs for listener comfort.
BG vocals are not well aligned and it feels very messy.
The vocal melody and some other elements repeat for the entire song and it outstays its welcome.
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Jeff Walker - Solid Ground
Electrical noise in the intro, need some better recording or at least some more time spent editing.
The phrasing of some of the lines feels like you didn't have time to change the lines to fit the rhythm of the song.
The song feels kinda condescending and know-it-all and maybe we're not supposed to like or agree with this narrator necessarily, but if something is presented and never questioned or criticized it comes across as default positive or at least neutral.
"Down from a high horse" is a clever take on the challenge, though.
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The Dutch Widows - Above it All
Vocals sound like you're lying on the floor mumbling, and not in a good way. In contrast with the really upbeat song it clashes. Even when I read the lyrics along with the song I lose track because of how mumbly it is.
Boomy vocals but with your vocal register and the delivery it kinda works
Docals really need different treatment to stand out. exciter? parallel distortion? heavy compression? octaved up double?
I don't really understand what this song is about.
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Hanky Code - The Bends
Nice production.
"so fast that gas forms in my veins" feels oddly timed and the stress on "in" makes it feel like you could have given a little more thought to how to deliver and pace this line.
I give you the award for The Catchiest Chorus.
The "sharks is (sharks are)" line is cute.
Concept seems to be a contrast between a lighthearted silly fun song and a seriously awful way to die and the contrast is enjoyable.
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Tunes By LJ
Your sound selection is immaculate, everything sounds really great.
Some good groove, and the piano cadence smells of Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity.
The song is over relatively quick, it doesn't outstay its welcome. I kind of wish there were a little more of this song, which is a relatively good problem to have.
The "blame" section has oddly quiet vocals that seem to waver and not be very present. some weird phasing issue? Either way, little balance issue there.
Some sibilances are a little harsh and could use some smoothing out.
Really good falsetto tone, great vocal performance.
Good imagery, setting the time of year and the place and giving some character exposition, you set the scene but what happened? We never explore anything that happened, we're just looking at a picture of the aftermath.
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Jealous Brother - Climbing the Fascist Ladder
Concept is how fascism takes hold (has been taking hold?)
I like that you have two refrains but no chorus, a really unique structure here and I really appreciate that you've been daring enough to approach this song with a structure other than the modern verse-chorus style. It feels like an old AABA kind of structure and it works well with the sort of timelessness of the shift towards fascism being tied to the cult of strongman personality being old as time
I appreciate a nice guitar solo.
Bet you feel silly doing all these key changes one song early, huh? The effort to write something with some movement is well appreciated.
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Governing Dynamics - Downfall
Very reminiscent of Death Cab for Cutie's "We Laugh Indoors".
Would have liked your vocal delivery to change to match the growing intensity of the guitar. You do this in the bridge already, going into a more belty delivery but I would have liked a little more oomph to match the guitars in the chorus.
Some rushed bits, like the guitar intro.
Great drum sound, guitar sound, balance. Production wise this is nice.
Some fantastic lyricism stuffed into a single couplet here: metaphor, imagery, internal rhyme: "With one hand on the wall of a hall of clanging clocks / And hanging twisted keys that never knew their fated locks".
Halftime bridge feels great and matches the vibe of the bridge lyrics.
Intentional subversion of cliche "from the neck up to the boots".
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Temnere - Into the Darkness
Galloping metal guitar!
Drums, vocals, bass feel anemic compared to guitar, esp cymbals.
Drums are suffering from the "machine gun" effect.
Mix severely lacking brightness.
The BG vox are barely audible.
Challenge seems shoehorned in, nothing about this relies on or relates to up or down movement.
Concept is "let us gallop across the hills in a very metal way" a la Maiden as applied to the game Dark and Darker (I tried it, I got rekt every single game, that doesn't reflect on your song or its ranking in any way tho)
This comes across as a fun 80s metal romp but without a lot of substance and with some poor production.
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Sober - On Penobscot Bay
Vocals are mixed a bit hot but otherwise the performance and production are immaculate.
Challenge met but feels like a pretty weak connection, you have things like boats rising and falling, sun coming up, but remove the up and down and the song is still intact, and if I didn't know about your move I would not know one of the most significant connections to vertical movement.
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Frederic Gagne - Slump
Concept: trying to keep motivation in a demotivating world
Nasal vocal performance, or maybe just nasal vocal tone. Maybe intentional for old timey feel? Might be the recording or treatment. Consider giving a look at videos on mouth / throat posture for singers or the General Advice section below for recording without a nice mic.
Microtonal oompah 2/2 composition seems geared toward unease, which fits the concept.
Lyrics at time feel like they're forced into perfect rhyme couplets for the sake of rhyming couplets, at the expense of intelligibility, like "make you slant" does not make any sense that I can tell; other times the rhyme is discarded, like with stand / trend.
Scansion problems: sometimes you stress some phrases strangely, like "do WE truLY have A choice". If the unstressed syllable of a word lands on a downbeat, it sounds weird.
Exposed cut at 1:00, this is the curse of minimalism. see the note on minimalism in the General Advice section.
Instrumental repeats for the whole song and gets really old.
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Siebass - It's Going Down
Putting the bass in siebass! Bass is overwhelming everything else until the prechorus.
The weird fader change of the synth horns from :10 - :15 sounds awkward.
Radio voice is overwhelmed by everything else in the first verse.
Concept is outlandish D I S C O (wait, is it DDR?)
The curse of disco is that motown set the bar very high on production, disco doesn't sound right unless it's SUPER polished and this is kinda rough.
There's a weird Waluigi duck sounding "hah" at 1:13. I don't think it works. I think it only sounds quacky because of the "radio voice" treatment.
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Berkeley Social Scene - Atop the Sutro Tower
Vocal tone is dark, except the sibilence which is really harsh.
Guitar takes are kind of loose in places like the guitars from 0:43 - 0:44.
I think the "rainbows and robots" line could feel a bit more fader love.
Concept is a robo-utopia in San Francisco, I feel like there's a huge missed opportunity to address how automation is only further leading us to dystopia (especially in a tech-obsessed hub like SF), and I think the song walks directly away from that point. Maybe that's intentional, portraying an alternate reality or what could, should have been. Anyway, it's nice to think about a technological utopia could be like.
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General advice for everyone:
- I have a great trick for working with phone/laptop mics, which is: duplicate the recorded tracks twice, pitch one down an octave, pitch one up an octave. Pull the faders on both the pitched duplicate tracks down to the point where you just barely can't hear them. Bounce all three tracks down to a new track and treat the result as a raw recording. You can get some of the warmth and richness of nicer microphones this way without having to buy one.
- Minimalism can make it less work to arrange and perform and mix, but it also creates new challenges: Any small mistake is suddenly VERY exposed and everything has to be pretty immaculate. You also have to make sure there's enough detail and variation in the few parts you have in your song to keep interest.
- Learning to use a free DAW like GarageBand or Reaper (or even just a multitrack audio recorder / editor like Audacity) can notch up your ability to arrange and produce by a ton, giving you the ability to record more tracks than you can play at once and combine the best bits of each.
- Punch-in recording is your friend. Mess up one small part of an entire take? No need to scrap and redo the entire thing, just re-record that part.
- If you're making an intentional choice that could be misinterpreted as a mistake, consider providing extra context and contrast to make it more clear that this is a choice. For instance, if you're going to sing sloppily and out of tune on purpose to make it clear that the narrator is losing their grip on reality, make sure to have some (or most) sections well timed and performed.
- Manual pitch correction. I'm not talking auto-robo-Cher-T-Pain-tune, I'm talking subtle tasteful correction. This is a contentious topic, but it's hard to disagree that when a singer does not hit the notes it doesn't sound as good (though everything has exceptions, it's art after all).
- For free pitch correction, MXTune (win/linux only), ReaTune (Reaper only, but Reaper's unlimited free trial never stops working), Flex Pitch (Logic only).
- Paid, and probably the best, Melodyne. If you're going to buy Melodyne Essential ($99), consider buying a UAD Volt 2 interface ($169). It's a crazy good interface and comes with a free copy of Melodyne Essential. Alternatively, a copy of the DAW Waveform Pro ($139) also bundles in Melodyne. It also frequently goes on sale in June.
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