I think you may have missed what I'm getting at here. I very much "get" why people don't like it, and most of the music I listen to regularly goes light on autotune/melodyne. And I am not saying that one has to like those vocals at all. But the idea that they're not "real vocals" is an attempt at shitty gatekeeping that has no place in music. This wannabe arbiter does not get to decide what "real" is or what "art" is.
It isn't gatekeeping bullshit. It's a matter of personal preference. Personally, I can't sing for shit. I also listen to a lot of artists that use autotune. I bought melodyne on the day of release when they brought their polyphonic editor back in 2009, and used it for years before that. It doesn't change the fact that autotuned vocals are the vocal equivalent of quantised drums. They're fine, but sometimes I want the option to filter it out from my recommended stream. Sometimes I like hearing microtonal mistakes. I like hearing a missed beat. I want that option. I don't want sterile perfection.
> But the idea that they're not "real vocals" is an attempt at shitty gatekeeping that has no place in music.
I'm not sure whether you see the irony in this statement. You're saying my opinion has no place 'in music'?
> This wannabe arbiter does not get to decide what "real" is or what "art" is.
I never claimed to be the arbiter of what art is. Art is subjective. It's a matter of personal preference. Like not wanting to listen to autotune.
Lastly, you seem really angry. I'm really sorry if anything I've said has upset you.
> You're saying my opinion has no place 'in music'?
Man, this is basic Popper stuff. If you'd said "I don't like autotune", I'd have probably agreed with you. If you're saying that what others are doing aren't "real" because you don't like it, that's a whole different kettle of fish.
> I never claimed to be the arbiter of what art is.
You picked the word "real". Words mean things, and "real" does not mean "to my preference". It is a an assertion of legitimacy, it is that assertion to which all of my comments in this thread are directed, and it's something that neither you nor I get to take away from somebody.
> Lastly, you seem really angry. I'm really sorry if anything I've said has upset you.
I wouldn't say that I'm angry, I've been on the internet a long time and random posts have to be really special to do that, but I do write sharply when I care about something. If one believes genuinely in the openness and democracy of art--and I do--I don't think there's a properly strident reaction to the implications you laid down that wouldn't be a little bit testy.
Real (untuned) vocals are like real (unquantised) drums or real (unphotoshopped) photographs. They're no longer real if they have been artificially manually edited after capture.
There is nothing wrong with that. It is still art, I never claimed it wasn't. Deepfaked actors can still constitute 'art' (see Sassy Justice with Fred Sassy for a notable example). Photoshopped photos are still 'art'.
However, we don't refer to those 'real actors' or 'real photos'. They are examples of creative expression through manual editing. Photoshopped photos can be real art without being real photos, but there's a reason why National Geographic photographers don't crazy with the spot healing brush.
This comment section is about as well-informed as sound engineers on gearspace talking about why VSTs written in Javascript have more analogue warmth than ones written in C++. Some people commenting clearly have no idea how music is made.
I've produced with DAWs for 30 years, and even put together a few effects of my own with Max and Reactor, so probably not me...
Do you have anything in mind that sounds misinformed? Or just can't fathom that anybody who can tell what a granular delay or an LFO or an automation envelope is can't possibly dislike Autotune?
There is value in art done honestly, "bad" or not. And neither autotune nor melodyne have intrinsic characteristics that affect either honesty (unless you extend that to all forms of audio engineering that changes the voice) nor quality.
Put frankly: your take is a small one. It's one that weakens the idea of art, and, no less importantly, is cruel and sabotaging to people. You should change your mind, but you're kind of glorifying in that cruelty and that smallness throughout this thread (which is gross!) so I will not be holding my breath for it.
Doesn't have to have 'instrictic characteristics'. Just tendency and majority of real-life application being shitty is enough.
Except if you thought that when complaining about autotune being bad, we were talking about some rare band that uses it as a creative tool, and not about the millions that use it as a clutch or for the 1000000th recreation of the same BS sound...
Even more so, if I think it's "bad" I might also consider it detrimental to the music world, and even to society at large. Music is not just an isolated consumption, it's also a social force.
And people can still be able to differentiate between stuff they merely don't like (taste) and stuff they consider detrimental to music in a larger way. In fact they might even like the latter and still consider them detrimental (e.g. I find some commercial pop tunes catchy, but consider them a bad musical and societal influence).
It's gatekeeping bullshit.