Kurt wrote:We (they?) are so used to it that any vocal with any inaccuracies, no matter how slight, stick out like dogs balls. People have come to expect pitch perfect records and even pitch perfect live performances.
Thirteen wrote:Autotune is the crutch for singers that can't sing and second rate engineers.
But most songs that I hear now are nowhere pitch-perfect, they are full of Autotune artifacts that are anything but perfect. Hence my comment about second rate engineers who can't even hear the obvious. Autotuned tracks don't sound pitch perfect, they sound pitch-processed.
I have recorded many tracks with world class singers that with comping end up being pitch perfect, and the results sound brilliant. Autotuned tracks never sound this way, they sound embarrassing. An engineer using Autotune or Melodyne to correct a phrase or word during mixing because of a missed bad take is one thing, but an engineer who just puts Autotune across an entire vocal track by default is not an engineer, he is a software jockey who really should find another job.
Tracks that are obviously over processed to the point of obvious stepping for "that" tired old effect are one thing, but there are so many tracks on the radio now that are full of Autotune artifacts that aren't meant to be there as an effect, and it makes it obvious that they are trying to cover up a singer that can't sing in tune, and that the "engineer" can't seem to hear the artifacts is pretty shocking.