Auto tune is one thing.... Melodyne is another. Apples to Oranges.

Autotune goes for the robotic "Cher" effect.

Melodyne is designed to "fix" vocals AND AUDIO, that are off pitch or out of time. And it's designed to do it and leave no artifacts behind to tell it was done. You can make it do the "Cher" effect but it's not a natural state of affairs.

I use Melodyne on ALL my vocal tracks.... not just mine, but every singer on the stuff I work on. I don't often use it on the entire track, sometimes it's just to fix one or two little places.... almost never on BGV.

SO..... my challenge to you is to pick a song of mine...any song, and point out to me the exact spot(s) where I did in fact use Melodyne Editor to fix the audio. If I can hear the artifacts in the editing, I scrap it and start over.

Yup... Dylan, Young, Jagger, would all have problems trying to start a career today. The Beatles didn't have any of the digital goodies we have. However, I heard a story that Paul would spend several days if that's what it took to get his vocals absolutely perfect....and he often doubled them in real time.

Very few people like their singing voices when they hear themselves. The common giveaway that a person is this kind of person (usually a beginner in recording) is when they come in and have FX all over their vocals in an attempt to make them sound better..... or more accurately, to hide what they perceive to be the shortcomings in their voice. 9 times out of 10, if I, or anyone else can convince them to simply sing straight up with a nice mic, their vocals sound 10000% better then covering them in FX.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.