Quote:
At this point I'd like to extend the expression of my antipathy to autotune: not only do I think it's a technological cheat, but I think it is a "dumbing down" of our musical sophistication, creating a "lowest common denominator" situation.


Great point Lawrie. Actually the whole comment on tuning was enlightening.

The degree to which AT or Melodyne is accepted depends a whole lot on the genre of the music and, as you say, the level of "musical sophistication" of the fan base.

If a classical singer were to use AT you'd immediately have a pretty severe backlash and no doubt the term "fraud" would pop up.

The same would be true for a bluegrass performer because the fans expect and even demand a high degree of proficiency from their top performers, although they're a little more forgiving of vocal shortcomings than the opera fans. They would rather hear a few off key notes than find out someone was "cheating" in order to sound better. Musical integrity is more important than the finished product.

I don't keep up with the jazz scene, but I'd expect them to also be pretty demanding.

The Pop music scene as a whole is another animal entirely. The musical sophistication of the fan base is a 0 on a scale from 1-10. They couldn't possibly care less about how much actual talent the performers have or how it's accomplished. All they care about is what comes out of their speakers and how the performer looks on stage or in the videos.

When it comes down to amateur or semi professional musicians or vocalists like those of us on the forum, each of us should feel free to use whatever we want that makes us feel good about our recordings.

I personally demand more from professionals who are vying for my music dollars, and even though I'm a mediocre singer, I wouldn't use AT to make my vocals sound better than they actually are.

Bob
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http://soundcloud.com/bobcflatpicke/music-in-the-mountains