Why Is Zimos Voice Auto Tuned

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In January of 2010, Kesha Sebert, known as ‘Ke$ha’ debuted at number one on Billboard with her album, Animal. Her style is electro pop-y dance music: she alternates between rapping and singing, the choruses of her songs are typically melodic party hooks that bore deep into your brain: “Your love, your love, your love, is my drug!” And at times, her voice is so heavily processed that it sounds like a cross between a girl and a synthesizer. Much of her sound is due to the pitch correction software, Auto-Tune.

Sebert, whose label did not respond to a request for an interview, has built a persona as a badass wastoid, who told Rolling Stone that all male visitors to her tour bus had to submit to being photographed with their pants down. Even the bus drivers.

Yet this past November on the Today Show, the 25-year old Sebert looked vulnerable, standing awkwardly in her skimpy purple, gold, and green unitard. She was there to promote her new album, Warrior, which was supposed to reveal the authentic her.

“Was it really important to let your voice to be heard?” asked the host, Savannah Guthrie.

“Absolutely,” Sebert said, gripping the mic nervously in her fingerless black gloves.

“People think they’ve heard the Auto-Tune, they’ve heard the dance hits, but you really have a great voice, too,” said Guthrie, helpfully.

“No, I got, like, bummed out when I heard that,” said Sebert, sadly. “Because I really can sing. It’s one of the few things I can do.”

Warrior starts with a shredding electrical static noise, then comes her voice, sounding like what the Guardian called “a robo squawk devoid of all emotion.”

Auto-Tune Pro, Auto-Tune Artist, Auto-Tune EFX+, Auto-Tune Access, Harmony Engine, Mic Mod and more. Home of the Auto-Tune plug-in, the music industry standard for pitch correction and vocal effects. Shop and learn about the best plug-ins for pitch correction, vocal effects, voice. Zimos is the only named Saints member not in the E3 trailer. There was an autotuned voice option that was similar to Zimos, but was taken out of the full game while still in development. When Zimos wheels the crew out of Safeword during his very first appearance, he emits an Auto-tuned squeal without using the cane. Sure, auto-tune can make a bad singer sound amazing; but what some people seem to forget is that good singers sometimes use auto-tune to make themselves sound even better. Check out our list below of some auto-tuned singers that you may have not known can actually sing.

“That’s pitch correction software for sure,” wrote Drew Waters, Head of Studio Operations at Capitol Records, in an email. “She may be able to sing, but she or the producer chose to put her voice through Auto-Tune or a similar plug-in as an aesthetic choice.”

So much for showing the world the authentic Ke$ha.

Since rising to fame as the weird techno-warble effect in the chorus of Cher’s 1998 song, “Believe,” Auto-Tune has become bitchy shorthand for saying somebody can’t sing. But the diss isn’t fair, because everybody’s using it.

Why Is Zimos Voice Auto Tuned

For every T-Pain — the R&B artist who uses Auto-Tune as an over-the-top aesthetic choice — there are 100 artists who are Auto-Tuned in subtler ways. Fix a little backing harmony here, bump a flat note up to diva-worthy heights there: smooth everything over so that it’s perfect. You can even use Auto-Tune live, so an artist can sing totally out of tune in concert and be corrected before their flaws ever reach the ears of an audience. (On season 7 of the UK X-Factor, it was used so excessively on contestants’ auditions that viewers got wise, and protested.)

Indeed, finding out that all the singers we listen to have been Auto-Tuned does feel like someone’s messing with us. As humans, we crave connection, not perfection. But we’re not the ones pulling the levers. What happens when an entire industry decides it’s safer to bet on the robot? Will we start to hate the sound of our own voices?

They’re all zombies!

They’re all zombies!

Auto-Tune has now become bitchy shorthand for saying somebody can’t sing

Cher’s late ‘90s comeback and makeover as a gay icon can entirely be attributed to Auto-Tune, though the song's producers claimed for years that it was a Digitech Talker vocoder pedal effect. In 1998, she released the single, “Believe,” which featured a strange, robotic vocal effect on the chorus that felt fresh. It was created with Auto-Tune.

The technology, which debuted in 1997 as a plug-in for Pro Tools (the industry standard recording software), works like this: you select the key the song is in, and then Auto-Tune analyzes the singer’s vocal line, moving “wrong” notes up or down to what it guesses is the intended pitch. You can control the time it takes for the program to move the pitch: slower is more natural, faster makes the jump sudden and inhuman sounding. Cher’s producers chose the fastest possible setting, the so-called “zero” setting, for maximum pop.

“Believe” was a huge hit, but among music nerds, it was polarizing. Indie rock producer Steve Albini, who’s recorded bands like the Pixies and Nirvana, has said he thought the song was mind-numbingly awful, and was aghast to see people he respected seduced by Auto-Tune.

“One by one, I could see that my friends had gone zombie. This horrible piece of music with this ugly soon-to-be cliché was now being discussed as something that was awesome. It made my heart fall,” he told the Onion AV Club in November of 2012.

The Auto-Tune effect spread like a slow burn through the industry, especially within the R&B and dance music communities. T-Pain began Cher-style Auto-Tuning all his vocals, and a decade later, he’s still doing it.

“It’s makin’ me money, so I ain’t about to stop!” T-Pain told DJ Skee in 2008. Sam cooke bring it on home free mp3 download youtube.

“It’s makin’ me money, so I ain’t about to stop!”

Kanye West did an album with it. Lady Gaga uses it. Madonna, too. Maroon 5. Even the artistically high-minded Bon Iver has dabbled. A YouTube series where TV news clips were Auto-Tuned, “Auto-Tune the News”, went viral. The glitchy Auto-Tune mode seems destined to be remembered as the “sound” of the 2000s, the way the gated snare (that dense, big, reverb-y drum sound on, say, Phil Collinssongs) is now remembered as the sound of the ‘80s.

Auto-Tune certainly isn’t the only robot voice effect to have wormed its way into pop music. In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, voice synthesizer effects units became popular with a lot of bands. Most famous is the Vocoder, originally invented in the 1930s to send encoded Allied messages during WWII. Proto-techno groups like New Order and Kraftwerk (ie: “Computer World,”) embraced it. So did American early funk and hip hop groups like the Jonzun Crew.

‘70s rockers gravitated towards another effect, the talk box. Peter Frampton (listen for it on “Do you Feel Like We Do”) and Joe Walsh (used it on “Rocky Mountain Way”) liked its similar-to-a-vocoder sound. The talk box was easier to rig up than the Vocoder — you operate it via a rubber mouth tube when applying it to vocals. But it produces massive amounts of slobber. In Dave Tompkins’ book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach, about the history of synthesized speech machines in the music industry, he writes that Frampton’s roadies sanitized his talk box in Remy Martin Cognac between gigs.

The use of showy effects usually have a backlash. And in the case of the Auto-Tune warble, Jay-Z struck back with the 2009 single, D.O.A., or “Death of Auto-Tune.”

I know we facing a recession
But the music y'all making going make it the great depression
All y'all lack aggression
Put your skirt back down, grow a set man
Nigga this shit violent
This is death of Auto-Tune, moment of silence

That same year, the band Death Cab for Cutie showed up at the Grammys wearing blue ribbons to raise awareness, they told MTV, about “rampant Auto-Tune abuse.”

The protests came too late, though. The lid to Pandora’s box had been lifted. Music producers everywhere were installing the software.


Everybody uses it

Everybody uses it

“I’ll be in a studio and hear a singer down the hall and she’s clearly out of tune, and she’ll do one take,” says Drew Waters of Capitol Records. That’s all she needs. Because they can fix it later, in Auto-Tune.

There is much speculation online about who does — or doesn’t — use Auto-Tune. Taylor Swift is a key target, as her terribly off-key duet with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 Grammys suggests she’s tone deaf. (Label reps said at the time something was wrong with her earpiece.) But such speculation is naïve, say the producers I talked to. “Everybody uses it,” says Filip Nikolic, singer in the LA-based band, Poolside, and a freelance music producer and studio engineer. “It saves a ton of time.”

On one end of the spectrum are people who dial up Auto-Tune to the max, a la Cher / T-Pain. On the other end are people who use it occasionally and sparingly. You can use Auto-Tune not only to pitch correct vocals, but other instruments too, and light users will tweak a note here and there if a guitar is, say, rubbing up against a vocal in a weird way.

“I’ll massage a note every once in a while, and often I won’t even tell the artist,” says Eric Drew Feldman, a San Francisco-based musician and producer who’s worked with The Polyphonic Spree and Frank Black.

But between those two extremes, you have the synthetic middle, where Auto-Tune is used to correct nearly every note, as one integral brick in a thick wall of digitally processed sound. From Justin Bieber to One Direction, from The Weeknd to Chris Brown, most pop music produced today has a slick, synth-y tone that’s partly a result of pitch correction.

However, good luck getting anybody to cop to it. Big producers like Max Martin and Dr. Luke, responsible for mega hits from artists like Ke$ha, Pink, and Kelly Clarkson, either turned me down or didn’t respond to interview requests. And you can’t really blame them.

“Do you want to talk about that effect you probably use that people equate with your client being talentless?”

Um, no thanks.

In 2009, an online petition went around protesting the overuse of Auto-Tune on the show Glee. Those producers turned down an interview, too.

The artists and producers who would talk were conflicted. One indie band, The Stepkids, had long eschewed Auto-Tune and most other modern recording technologies to make what they call “experimental soul music.” But the band recently did an about face, and Auto-Tuned their vocal harmonies on their forthcoming single, “Fading Star.”

Were they using Auto-Tune ironically or seriously? Co-frontman Jeff Gitelman said,

“Both.”

Why Is Zimos Voice Auto Tuned 2016

“For a long time we fought it, and we still are to a certain degree,” said Gitelman. “But attention spans are a certain way, and that’s how it is…we just wanted it to have a clean, modern sound.”

Hanging above the toilet in San Francisco’s Different Fur recording studios — where artists like the Alabama Shakes and Bobby Brown have recorded — is a clipping from Tape Op magazine that reads: “Don’t admit to Auto-Tune use or editing of drums, unless asked directly. Then admit to half as much as you really did.”

Different Fur’s producer / engineer / owner, Patrick Brown, who hung the clipping there, has recorded acts like the Morning Benders, and says many indie rock bands “come in, and first thing they say is, ‘We don’t tune anything,’” he says.

Brown is up for ditching Auto-Tune if the client really wants to, but he says most of the time, they don’t really want to. “Let’s face it, most bands are not genius.” He’ll feel them out by saying, with a wink-wink-nod-nod: “Man, that note’s really out of tune, but that was a great take.” And a lot of times they’ll tell him, go ahead, Auto-Tune it.

Marc Griffin is in the RCA-signed band 2AM Club, which has both an emcee and a singer (Griffin’s the singer.) He first got Auto-Tuned in 2008, when he recorded a demo with producer Jerry Harrison, the former keyboardist and guitarist for the Talking Heads.

“I sang the lead, then we were in the control room with the engineer, and he put ‘tune on it. Just a little. And I had perfect pitch vocals. It sounded amazing. Then we started stacking vocals on top of it, and that sounded amazing,” says Griffin.

Now, Griffin sometimes records with Auto-Tune on in real time, rather than having it applied to his vocals in post-production, a trend producers say is not unusual. This means that the artist hears the tuned version of his or her voice coming out of the monitors while singing.

“Every time you sing a note that’s not perfect, you can hear the frequencies battle with each other,” Griffin says, which sounds kind of awful, but he insists it “helps you hear what it will really sound like.”

Singer / songwriter Neko Case kvetched about these developments in an interview with online music magazine, Pitchfork. “I'm not a perfect note hitter either but I'm not going to cover it up with auto tune. Everybody uses it, too. I once asked a studio guy in Toronto, ‘How many people don't use Auto-Tune?’ and he said, ‘You and Nelly Furtado are the only two people who've never used it in here.’ Even though I'm not into Nelly Furtado, it kind of made me respect her. It's cool that she has some integrity.”

That was 2006. This past September, Nelly Furtado released the album, The Spirit Indestructible. Its lead single is doused in massive levels of Auto-Tune.

Dr. Evil

Dr. Evil

Somebody once wrote on an online message board that the guy who created Auto-Tune must “hate music.” That could not be further from the truth. Its creator, Dr. Andy Hildebrand, AKA Dr. Andy, is a classically trained flautist who spent most of his youth playing professionally, in orchestras. Despite the fact that the 66-year old only recently lopped off a long, gray ponytail, he’s no hippie. He never listened to rock music of his generation.

“I was too busy practicing,” he says. “It warped me.”

The only post-Debussy artist he’s ever gotten into is Patsy Cline.

Hildebrand’s company — Antares — nestled in an anonymous looking office park in the mountains between Silicon Valley and the Pacific Coast, has only ten employees. Hildebrand invents all the products (Antares recently came out with Auto-Tune for Guitar). His wife is the CFO.

Hildebrand started his career as a geophysicist, programming digital signal processing software which helped oil companies find drilling spots. After going back to school for music composition at age 40, he discovered he could use those same algorithms for the seamless looping of digital music samples, and later for pitch correction. Auto-Tune, and Antares, were born.

Watch Diamond Factory, Anthrax Investigation, Auto-Tune, Luis.. on PBS. See more from NOVA scienceNOW.

Auto-Tune isn’t the only pitch correction software, of course. Its closest competitor, Melodyne, is reputed to be more “natural” sounding. But Auto-Tune is, in the words of one producer, “the go-to if you just want to set-it-and-forget-it.”

In interviews, Hildebrand handles the question of “is Auto-Tune evil?” with characteristic dry wit. His stock answer is, “My wife wears makeup, does that make her evil?” But on the day I asked him, he answered, “I just make the car. I don’t drive it down the wrong side of the road.”

“I just make the car. I don’t drive it down the wrong side of the road.”

The T-Pains and Chers of the world are the crazy drivers, in Hildebrand’s analogy. The artists that tune with subtlety are like his wife, tasteful people looking to put their best foot forward.

Another way you could answer the question: recorded music is, by definition, artificial. The band is not singing live in your living room. Microphones project sound. Mixing, overdubbing, and multi-tracking allow instruments and voices to be recorded, edited, and manipulated separately. There are multitudes of effects, like compression, which brings down loud sounds and amplifies quiet ones, so you can hear an artist taking a breath in between words. Reverb and delay create echo effects, which can make vocals sound fuller and rounder.

When recording went from tape to digital, there were even more opportunities for effects and manipulation, and Auto-Tune is just one of many of the new tools available. Nonetheless, there are some who feel it’s a different thing. At best, unnecessary. At worst, pernicious.

“The thing is, reverb and delay always existed in the real world, by placing the artist in unique environments, so [those effects are] just mimicking reality,” says Larry Crane, the editor of music recording magazine, Tape Op, and a producer who’s recorded Elliott Smith and The Decemberists. If you sang in a cave, or some other really echo-y chamber, you’d sound like early Elvis, too. “There is nothing in the natural world that Auto-Tune is mimicking, therefore any use of it should be carefully considered.”

“I’d rather just turn the reverb up on the Fender Twin in the troubling place,” says Arizona indie rock pioneer Howe Gelb, of the band Giant Sand. He describes Auto-Tune and other correction plug-ins as “foul” in a way he can’t quite put his finger on. ”There’s something embedded in the track that tends to push my ear away.”

Lee Alexander, one time boyfriend of Norah Jones and bass player and producer for her country side project, The Little Willies, used no Auto-Tune on their two records, and says he doesn’t even own the program.

“Stuff is out of tune everywhere…that to me is the beauty of music,” he wrote in an email.

In 2000, Matt Kadane of the band The New Year, and his brother, Bubba covered Cher’s “Believe”, complete with Auto-Tune. They did it in their former Texas Slo-Core band, Bedhead. Kadane told me hated the original “Believe,” and had to be talked into covering it, but had surprisingly found that putting Auto-Tune on his vocals “added emotional weight.” He hasn’t, however, used Auto-Tune since.

“It’s one thing to make a statement with hollow, disaffected vocals, but it’s another if this is the way we’re communicating with each other,” he says.

For some people, I said, it seems that Auto-Tune is a lot like dudes and fake boobs. Some dudes see fake boobs, they know they’re fake, but they get an erection anyway. They can’t help themselves. Kadane agreed that it “can serve that function.” https://ninrealty.netlify.app/native-instruments-forum-traktor-pro.html.

“But at some point you’d say ‘that’s fucked up that I have an erection from fake boobs!’” he says. “And in the midst of experiencing that, I think ideally you have a moment that reminds you that authenticity is still possible. And thank God not everything in the world is Auto-Tuned.”

The Beatles actually suck

The Beatles actually suck

Does your brain get rewired to expect perfect pitch?

The concept of pitch needing to be “correct” is a somewhat recent construct. Cue up the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St., and listen to what Mick Jagger does on “Sweet Virginia.” There are a lot of flat and sharp notes, because, well, that’s characteristic of blues singing, which is at the roots of rock and roll.

“When a (blues) singer is ‘flat’ it’s not because he’s doing it because he doesn’t know any better. It’s for inflection!” says Victor Coelho, Professor of Music at Boston University.

Blues singers have traditionally played with pitch to express feelings like longing or yearning, to punch up a nastier lyric, or make it feel dirty, he says. “The music is not just about hitting the pitch.”

Of course that style of vocal wouldn’t fly in Auto-Tune. It would get corrected. Neil Young, Bob Dylan, many of the classic artists whose voices are less than pitch perfect – they probably would be pitch corrected if they started out today.

John Parish, the UK-based producer who’s worked with PJ Harvey and Sparklehorse, says that though he uses Auto-Tune on rare occasions, he is no fan. Many of the singers he works with, Harvey in particular, have eccentric vocal styles -- he describes them as “character singers.” Using pitch correction software on them would be like trying to get Jackson Pollock to stay inside the lines.

“I can listen to something that can be really quite out of tune, and enjoy it,” says Parish. But is he a dying breed?

“That’s the kind of music that takes five listens to get really into,” says Nikolic, of Poolside. “That’s not really an option if you want to make it in pop music today. You find a really catchy hook and a production that is in no way challenging, and you just gear it up!”

If you’re of the generation raised on technology-enabled perfect pitch, does your brain get rewired to expect it? So-called “supertasters” are people who are genetically more sensitive to bitter flavors than the rest of us, and therefore can’t appreciate delicious bitter things like IPAs and arugula. Is the Auto-Tune generation likewise more sensitive to off key-ness, and thus less able to appreciate it? Some troubling signs point to ‘yes.’

“I was listening to some young people in a studio a few years ago, and they were like, ‘I don’t think The Beatles were so good,’” says producer Eric Drew Feldman. They were discussing the song “Paperback Writer.” “They’re going, ‘They were so sloppy! The harmonies are so flat!”

Just make me sound good

Just make me sound good

John Lennon famously hated his singing voice. He thought it sounded too thin, and was constantly futzing with vocal effects, like the overdriven sound on “I Am the Walrus.” I can relate. I love to sing, and in my head, I hear a soulful, husky, alto. What comes out, however, is a cross between a child in the musical Annie, and Gretchen Wilson: nasal, reedy, about as soulful as a mosquito. I’m in a band and I write all the songs, but I’m not the singer: I wouldn’t subject people to that.

Producer and Editor Larry Crane says he thinks lots of artists are basically insecure about their voices, and use Auto-Tune as a kind of protective shield.

“I’ve had people come in and say I want Auto-Tune, and I say, ‘Let’s spend some time, let’s do five vocal takes and compile the best take. Let’s put down a piano guide track. There’s a million ways to coach a vocal. Let’s try those things first,’” he says.

Recently, I went over to a couple-friend’s house with my husband, to play with Auto-Tune. The husband of the couple, Mike, had the software on his home computer – he dabbles in music production – and the idea was that we’d record a song together, then Auto-Tune it.

We looked for something with four-part harmony, so we could all sing, and for a song where the backing instrumental was available online. We settled on Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road.” One by one we went into the bedroom to record our parts, with a mix of shame and titillation not unlike taking turns with a prostitute.

When we were finished, Mike played back the finished piece, without Auto-Tune. It was nerve wracking to listen to, I felt like my entire body was cringing. Although I hit the notes OK, there was something tentative and childlike about my delivery. Thank God these are my good friends, I thought. Of course they were probably all thinking the same thing about their performances, too, but in my mind, my voice was the most annoying of all, so wheedling and prissy sounding.

Then Mike Auto-Tuned two versions of our Boys II Men song: one with Cher / T-Pain style glitchy Auto-Tune, the other with “natural” sounding Auto-Tune. The exaggerated one was hilariously awesome – it sounded just like a generic R&B song.

But the second one shocked me. It sounded like us, for sure. But an idealized version of us. My husband’s gritty vocal attack was still there, but he was singing on key. And something about fine-tuning my vocals had made them sound more confident, like smoothing out a tremble in one’s speech.

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The Auto-Tune or not Auto-Tune debate always seems to turn into a moralistic one, like somehow you have more integrity if you don’t use it, or only use it occasionally. But seeing how really innocuous-yet-lovely it could be, made me rethink. If I were a professional musician, would I reject the opportunity to sound, what I consider to be, “my best,” out of principle?

The answer to that is probably no. But then it gets you wondering. How many insecure artists with “annoying” voices will retune themselves before you ever have a chance to fall in love?


Video stills from:
TiK ToK by Ke$ha
Animal by Ke$ha
Believe by Cher
In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins
Buy U A Drink by T-Pain
Hung Up in Glee
Big Hoops by Nelly Furtado
Piano Fire by Sparklehorse and P.J. Harvey
Imagine by John Lennon

If i were a professional musician, would I reject the opportunity to sound 'my best,' out of principal?

To say that Katherine Somers—known to most people as Boss Kat, leader of the 3rd Street Saints gang—was upset would have been putting it mildly.

It had started with Shaundi's pissed off phone call about Pierce throwing a party at the penthouse. Shaundi had every right to be upset about the timing of it, but in this matter, Kat had sided with Pierce; Johnny wouldn't have wanted them to mourn, he would have wanted them to party so hard that they woke up somewhere in Steelport with no memory of how they got there. Probably covered in the blood of a rival gang at that.

Why Is Zimos Voice Auto Tuned Free

The party actually hadn't been half bad. Plenty of pretty women—she really needed to talk to both Pierce and Zimos about catering to the female members of the group that preferred men—who were well versed in their craft of choice. The music was good, even the alcohol—which she didn't typically indulge in too much—wasn't terrible.

Unfortunately, they were more than just prostitutes, and the resulting shoot-out had almost gotten Pierce killed. It had been luck more than anything else that Kat had been coherent enough to hear the click of a gun being cocked over the sound of the loud music, and had been able to get the woman off before she shot him full in the face.

It had degenerated from there. Over half the hired women had been assassins, there had been a good number of snipers on adjoining roofs, they'd cut the power at one point, and then Oleg had called about helicopters. Kat had scrambled from one issue to the next, breaking her favorite pair of heels, and being shot at but pistols, sniper rifles, shotguns, machine guns.. oh, and the rockets from the helis. And the electrical outbursts when the rockets hit the equipment step up on the roof. Her left leg was still twitching from those.

Everything hurt, really. She had suffered too many grazes to count, had been shot through the shoulder at least twice that she was aware of, had damn near broken her ankle when her heel had broken thanks to a sniper shot—her favorite heels—oh, and of course now the booze was wearing off and she was getting a headache to boot.

'Shit boss, I-'

She glared Pierce into silence. She wasn't in the mood for excuses, apologies, or anything else that might fall out of his mouth. Most days, she liked Pierce. He was a good worker, a good friend, and every now and again, a good lay. This day though? This day she was heavily contemplating hanging him out of one of his own helicopters and taking a fly around the city.

When she limped in his direction—he was between her and the bedroom—he quick-stepped out of the way, almost knocking Zimos over.

'Watch out, brotha,' Zimos complained in his auto-tuned voice. 'Why you jumpin outta the way like-'

She threw her broken shoes at both of them to vent some temper, which shut Zimos up. Pierce yelped as one clipped his ear, which didn't make her feel that much better; he should have been able to dodge it.

She didn't slam the bedroom door, no matter how heavily tempted, because one of the other Saints—a woman whose name she didn't know yet but had some medical training—followed her in to take care of the worst of the visible injuries. She ended up with one arm in a sling to avoid making the shot shoulder worse, her ankle wrapped for support, and a bunch of bandages and bandaids.

Once the caretaking was done, she threw a few changes of clothes into a backpack, pulled on a new pair of flat-heeled shoes, and headed for the elevator to the garage. She was too pissed off at the moment to properly talk to Pierce or Zimos, and she sure as hell wasn't staying in the penthouse while there were bodies and blood that needed removing.

Granted there weren't many other places to stay that lived up to her standards. Shaundi's ex's place was small and cramped; Kinzie lived in a warehouse and took no effort at even trying to make it liveable—she was going to have to fix that at some point—Angel's gym was a complete wreck, and she was not crashing at Zimos' place while she was thinking of dropping the pimp off the nearest bridge and making him swim to shore. Repeatedly.

A hotel then. A posh one. There was one near the penthouse she could get to.. if she could figure out how.

Her injuries meant typical driving was out of the question; her motorcycles needed both hands with their speed. A car was too confining, though; she needed speed and to let the rushing wind cool her temper. And walking was simply out of the question. After some hard thought she eventually decided on the little moped she'd recently acquired; fast enough to help, storage space for her stuff, and not so hard to control that having only one hand would be potentially fatal.

She had been driving the streets, far more carefully than usual, for about fifteen minutes when her phone rang. She was heavily tempted to ignore it, but it was the ringtone she'd assigned for Oleg, so she found a place to park just outside a Friendly Fire store and reached up with her good hand to hit the button on her bluetooth earpiece.

'What?' she snapped.

'You are not at the penthouse,' Oleg said, his accented voice carrying the typical calm for the big man. 'Is it still standing?'

'Yes. Thanks for the warning about the choppers,' she said a little grudgingly.

'You are upset. Where did you plan to be staying?'

'Why?'

'I have a place. It is not so grand as the penthouse, but better, I think, than any of the other places your allies have.'

She blinked, and sat up a little in surprise.

'You have a.. what, a house? I thought you crashed at the penthouse too.'

'Nothing so fancy,' he replied, and she was willing to swear she could hear a smile in his voice. 'Only a modest apartment, but in better repair than anywhere else. And not overtly affiliated with the Saints, so you could perhaps get some needed rest before embarking on the next step of Syndicate take down.'

Kat considered the idea. She was hurting, still angry.. but strangely, she was starting to feel better just talking with Oleg.

'All right. Where am I going?'

He gave her an address before hanging up, and she put it into her phone's GPS, checking the route. It wouldn't take her too long to get there from where she was, and after checking to make sure some asshole in a jeep or something wasn't going to try and run her over, she revved up the motor on her moped and shot off to find her ally.

It was a decently sized apartment building, square in the middle of what was left of the Morningstar gang territory; whittling them down bit by bit was more fun than curb-stomping them, and really, competition would keep the Saints humble. Or at the very least, on their toes.

Her mood soured as that thought reminded her of what had happened at the penthouse. Pierce plainly needed to be more on his toes. If he was going to fuck up like that, she was going to start taking him with her on things like breaking up rival gang gatherings and handling the random Saints calls for help.

The idea of Pierce tagging along on one of those made her smirk as she shut off her moped; give him something real to do and maybe he'd think ahead a little more. Then again, maybe some of his lack-of-care was her fault in the first place for letting Shaundi take credit for his ideas back when they'd all been first coming together.

She shook her head, grin fading back into a scowl. She hadn't become the leader of this gang to play power politics with the people under her, and that was starting to feel like where this was leading. If that happened, she'd clear out the bank accounts herself and go buy a private island, and get as far out of that disaster as possible.

Considering what type of private island she'd want kept her distracted as she entered the apartment building, and took the elevator up to almost the top floor. Oleg had said he would leave the door cracked, which let her find his place with ease. Which was good because the pain was steadily eroding her temper again.

She wasn't entirely sure what she was expecting to find; what she did was impressive enough that she paused to take it in.

It wasn't a penthouse apartment, no, but it was not small either; the living room directly in front of her was large, and there was a glass door at the far end that led out onto a not-insubstantial balcony. The kitchen was its own closed off little space, and she could hear Oleg moving around in it. To the left was a modest hallway that seemed to branch off into about three rooms, and to the right she could see an open door that led to a large bathroom, and two more doors that were closed. The carpet under her boots was thick and soft, a creamy sort of beige that complemented pale yellow walls.

Even the furnishing was nice; large padded couches and chairs, a frankly huge television that took up a good chunk of one of the walls, large bookcases that held books, movies, and probably some video games as well, though she had a hard time imagining Oleg picking up a game controller the way Pierce did.

There were even paintings on the wall, and the room was lit warmly, but not brightly. The whole effect was surprisingly soothing, and Kat relaxed a little without thinking much about it.

'Please, come in,' he said, sticking his head around the corner of the wall that led to the kitchen. 'It is not much, but you are welcome to it.'

'..if this is your standard of not much, I have to wonder what you think of the penthouse,' she said after a moment, carefully working her boots off. Her long coat followed; the room was pleasantly warm, and she was wearing a turtleneck anyways.

'Ah, but that is a Saints place, from which you do all your business,' he replied, his voice muffled as he went back into the kitchen. 'It must be grand at all times to impress everyone you deal with. Also, the Morningstar had it first. They tend to go for overblown in many cases.'

Her mouth quirked slightly, a faint rendition of her usual omnipresent smile, and she limped carefully to one of the large couches to sink into it. It seemed bad manners to put her aching leg on the coffee table, so she ended up more sprawled than she'd intended. But at least that meant her leg didn't hurt too much.

'I suppose I can't argue with that. You seem to have good taste, at least.'

She heard the big man chuckle.

'I am a man of very particular tastes, yes. You seem to be a woman of the same.'

'You're not wrong. How'd you get this place, anyways?'

'I looked for it.'

She snorted, then winced.

'Smart ass.'

'You seem to prefer it.'

That made her laugh, because he sure as hell wasn't wrong. He emerged from the kitchen with a small tray on which rested what looked like a couple painkillers and some water.

'There is food in the process of being made, but it will take another half hour, and you look as though you could use something to help with the pain.'

'..thanks..'

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She was surprised, to be certain; she hadn't really expected him to do more than let her crash on a couch, and maybe use his bathroom. But he stood over her, making sure she took the pills and drank the whole glass of water—he was very insistent on that part—before he returned to the kitchen, from which very delicious smells were coming.

The pain had dulled to a bearable level by the time whatever he was making had finished, and he invited her to step around and see it. The kitchen's attached dining area was no less impressive than the rest of the apartment, if a tad bit on the small side. The table was solid wood—oak, if she had to guess—and there were only a trio of chairs, all of them sized for the large man.

'Good conversationalist and good cook?' Kat asked, sitting carefully in one of them.

'I have many talents,' he said, smiling a little.

'No kidding..'

There was no alcohol in sight—when she asked, he said she shouldn't, to avoid complications with the painkillers to which she grudgingly agreed—but the meal wasn't harmed by its lack; if anything the soda provided was of a startlingly high quality, and certainly complimented the roast.

And it wasn't until after the meal—and clean up, which Oleg handled despite her protesting that she had one working arm at least—that he sat with her in the living room.

'So, you dodged well?'

She snorted mirthlessly.

'Considering the number of hooker assassins, I supposed I did, but I still took hits. And the assholes made me break my favorite pair of heels. Pierce had better replace them,' she grumbled.

'He probably will; he is too fond of you to want you to hold a grudge for very long,' Oleg shrugged lightly at her surprised look. 'We play chess. He talks. Not so much when he is losing, but when he's feeling like he has a chance to win, he relaxes. He talks about how he joined the Saints, and who he admires. Also who he does not.'

She snorted a bit.

'Him and Shaundi have never really got on, but Shaundi's still feeling raw about what happened to Johnny on the plane. It's not her fault he decided to be a damn hero..'

'You feel guilt for his death too?'

'..I've known Johnny since I joined the Saints. He's always been a bit of a tit, but.. he was a pretty decent friend when everything was gone to hell and back,' Kat sighed a little. 'We flattened Loren. For me, that was closure. For her? I think she still carries a lot of baggage, but she won't talk to me about it.'

After a moment, she shrugged her good shoulder.

'Johnny wouldn't want the Saints to mourn anyways. He'd want us to do what we did in Stillwater. Kick ass, take territory, and party until we can't see straight. This mess is the fault of Pierce and Zimos, and I'd really like to dangle them both off one of the bridges right now.'

Oleg chuckled a little.

'They probably wouldn't enjoy that.'

'That's the point.'

'Would you pull them back up?'

'I might make them swim to shore.. Zimos in particular, since he hired the girls.'

'He might even benefit from the swim, no?'

She grinned a little.

'He might. Though I suppose he might decide he doesn't want to help me any more..'

'Yes, that might pose a small problem, considering the twins are unlikely to be on your side.'

She grimaced a little.

'I kind of want to shoot them too,' she grumbled.

'An understandable feeling. Do you have plans yet on how to retaliate?'

She shook her head a little.

'Until I heal up, it's better to lay low,' Kat admitted with a tired sigh. 'I could probably buy up businesses around Steelport just to piss them off, but getting involved in any urban warfare while I'm in this state is just asking to get my ass punked.'

'You are more sensible than Shaundi, at least,' he said with a slight nod. 'This is good. You are welcome to stay here until you are recovered, or have at least decided to not shoot Pierce or Zimos in the face.'

'I wouldn't shoot them in the face. The feet maybe, but not the face. And I can't exactly shoot anyone right now without making my arm worse. I'd be a shit boss with just one arm.'

'You are charismatic, and sensible,' Oleg countered. 'You have amazing talent at reading people, and have many loyal followers. I am thinking you would not be so useless as you think.'

She stared at him in surprise, and he smiled a little.

'I am also not terrible at reading people. You rescued me for your own reasons, but I find you are very good as a leader. You have a sharp mind, even if you also have a sharp tongue and temper. It makes you.. interesting.'

'..was that a compliment? I'm taking it as a compliment, actually, never mind.'

Again he chuckled.

'It was a compliment. I am not so foolish as to insult my rescuer.'

'..you're a big man, I'm pretty sure you could insult me and get away with it, especially since I'm here alone.'

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'Ah, but even injured, you are not unarmed, and I prefer to remain on your good side, as you seem to be very fond of high explosives.'

Kat's grin was almost innocent. For her. After a moment, he just shook his head, smiling dryly.

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'The bedroom next to the bathroom will be yours. I have the one at the end of that small hall. The other three contain a study, a weapons room, and a small gym, any of which you may use if you like. You can also watch the television, but even with the cable channels..'

'There's not a whole lot on,' she nodded. 'I think I'll crash for now. Thanks, Oleg. For.. this.'

He nodded, offering her a hand up which she almost ignored. But after considering the state of her injuries, she let him help her up, and even support her weight as far as the bedroom, where he left her to relax in private.

Like the rest of the apartment, it was impressive; the bed was queen-sized at least, and she judged the sheets to be silk, which Kat heavily approved of. Satin was too slippery for her liking, silk was nice and smooth without being too smooth. The comforter was down, with a plush throw over the top of it. It didn't surprise her to find they weren't in Saints colors—while he wore them to indicate his gang affiliation, it was clear he preferred a different sort of color palette—but it did surprise her to realize that they were her favorite colors.

After a moment of wondering if that was accidental or purposeful, she decided it didn't matter; Oleg was part of her crew, and it wasn't like she was subtle about liking the deep rosy pink over the gang affiliated purple.

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Shucking her clothes took more planning and effort than she really enjoyed entertaining, but she hated sleeping in work clothes, especially considering these ones were still splattered with gunpowder and blood. Dried, to be certain, but still. Everything, especially the coat she'd left on a hook next to the door, was going to need a serious wash.

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But that was for later. For now, just getting into bed was trial enough, and after carefully pulling up the comforter, Kat quickly fell asleep.