And we strive for..... what ?

Something similar to this has been used since the mid 1980's (it went by another name then "syn-something").

A guy I know (one of the first few operators of the unit) worked with Frank Zappa and Michael Jackson, to name a few. It was used both live and in studio.

I got to play around with it once and somehow it could alter pitch while maintaining the original time signature/tempo of the music.

Dekay,
I just finished a couple of books on Zappa. The device is called a synclavier. He loved it, he said, because he could type notes in and push a button to immediately play it back.

Part of the love, I take it from the books, is that he had a terrible time getting orchestras (I'm not talking about his bands here; they were another story) to rehearse sufficiently and then do a good job playing his pieces. He noted the primary limitations of the synclavier as being that it cannot improvise (of course) and cannot reproduce emotion absent a level of complexity of the data inputted that was debilitatingly time-consuming--I'm sure folks could argue about the latter forever. I'm no expert; this is just what I've read in the last two days.

I acknowledge your points. But for me, what we are doing is both a "hobby" and a "passion". This two gives me hope to strive for the better. Provides me a means of outlet during rough days. Provides me joy and pride for my accomplishments and the accumulation of knowledge learned from others.

...those things are good enough for me.....I for one cannot forsee when I will stop striving for the better....it is not in my blood.....

...thanks for the reminders though....

This comes as no surprise, unfortunately. I do take exception to the statement made:

"The driving force behind this trend has been the fans themselves, who now have a more educated ear and can tell if something is off-key, industry experts said."

This is laughable.

Charlie

Thanx for the link - I have to admit that my preferred state of ignorance concerning the current 'music scene' had included the existence of these specific devices, though I always knew there was a lot of electronic manipulation going on, 'cause you can hear it. As for the 'live' performances of someone like a Britney (who can't sing to save her life), I just assumed they were getting a lot of help from taped 'backing' tracks, in addition to digital 'enhancements' like harmonizers and harmonic overtone generators.

As to the appropriateness of their usage, when music is mostly synthetic and/or sampled anyway, and songwriting means so little compared to video-worthiness, media hype, and concerts that take Vegas as their model, well, why not?

BTW, I got a kick out of the article quoting Brendan McGuire and crediting him as producing several LP's by the Canadian pop-rock band Sloan (he said he disfavors the use of autotuners). Sloan are one of the most talented bands around, with all four members contributing both lead and backing vocals, songwriting, and they even swap instruments around in concert. But despite their welcome penchant for harmonized backing vocals shared by few bands of their generation, none of them actually has what you'd describe as a great lead singing voice, and listening to any of their records, which can be fairly polished yet engagingly off-the-cuff at the same time, it's easy to believe McGuire's claim - ragged, but usually right.