Auto-Tune and Melodyne

Pardon my French, but this is fucked up.

https://pitchfork.com/features/article/how-auto-tune-revolutionized-the-sound-of-popular-music/

"The program captures the characteristics of a vocal or instrumental performance and displays them graphically, with each note appearing as what Celemony calls a “blob.” Sound becomes Play-Doh to be sculpted or tinted by a huge range of effects. The blobs can be stretched or squished by dragging the cursor. Internal fluctuations within a blob can be smoothed out or added, creating, say, vibrato that didn’t exist in the original performance. As for timing, a note-blob can be separated more cleanly from a preceding or following blob—or conversely, pushed closer—to create effects of syncopation, stress, or sharper attack. The entire feel of a rapper’s flow or a singer’s phrasing can be radically re-articulated. Emotion itself becomes raw material to be edited. 

“Keeping it real-ish” seems to be the presiding ethos of Melodyne, and certainly something that its users prize and see as the edge it has over Auto-Tune. “My goal is natural-sounding vocals,” says Chris “TEK” O’Ryan, an in-demand vocal producer whose clientele includes Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, and Mary J. Blige. “It’s like a good CGI monster—you don’t want it to look fake.” O’Ryan uses Auto-Tune in the recording studio as well, but only so that he and the artist don’t get distracted by striving to achieve a pitch-perfect take and can concentrate on delivery, timing, groove, and character. The real work, though, comes later, when he removes the Auto-Tune and sculpts the vocal “by hand” using Melodyne. “I’ll add trills, I’ll emphasize attacks or the scoop up to a moment in a performance,” O’Ryan says. At the extreme, the recording of the singer might take three or four hours, and then he’ll spend two to four days working it over in Melodyne, on his own."

I had no clue.  I'm obviously naive, but this is a horrible development.  I can see the other argument, that we can enjoy the sounds of perfection and craft flawless music now.  But I say shove that up your pie hole.  A singer ought to have the chops to hit the notes, or create the vibrato, or space the words.  How did we all collectively lose our minds at Milli Vannilli for being fake, but now we are just totally cool with Katy Perry having a "voice ... so lacking in textural width" that Auto-Tune can be used to create those missing elements?

The article makes a good point about how music long ago lost any sort of truly natural sound when it was amplified and recorded for later use.  Bands have been using effects and filters for decades.  So I'm likely pearl clutching after the horses have left the barn.  But I can't shake the fact that this feels different.

I've never even considered this before, but can people use Auto-Tune live?  Does Future have a producer at each of his shows, running his voice through these effects systems in real time?  You would think they would have to, as all of Future's lyrics are Auto-Tuned.  That is super weird to think of.  Well, yes.  Now they have Auto Tune Live, for just this use.  So there you go.

Now I'm all depressed.  Time to go listen to Daft Punk.