Myself i need helium to fly and a vcoder to land in my living room with a voice...😊
The use of digital pitch correction software on vocal recordings
To my mind, this practice is fraught with dishonesty.
The most obvious issue is:
- with digital pitch correction software applied to it, a vocal recording presented to the listener is done so under the pretense that it presents the human voice singing, when in fact any number of moments therein are the result of a program shoehorning the human-produced tones into a “perfect” tone” (whether it may be a Bb, C, F#, Db, or whatever), thereby negating the human expression and negating the validity of the pretense.
Much like a photo portrait of a human body post-airbrushing ceases to be a “true” presentation of that body, the viewer is not being presented with a faithful representation of that human form.
The next issue is:
- rampant apologia within the industry.
I’ve even heard an industry insider say, “pitch manipulation software does nothing we couldn’t do in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It just lets us do it for a lot less money.”
That’s a cute thing to say, but incorrect.
The finished vocal recording that was changed by the implementation of pitch correction software is, by definition, different from the finished vocal recording featuring none.
I am welcoming the thoughts of Audiogon members regarding this practice.
- ...
- 53 posts total
Well back in the the mid to late 60’s in an interview someone asked Jim Morrison (it was caught on video) where do you see you Rock Music going, he said in the future I see one person in the studio just pressing a button with machines all around him playing the music. He also said Who ever controls the Media controls the mind. Boy did he nail it. |
@hilde45 If the vocal recording was “airbrushed” by software before it hit the listener’s ears, the thing that ultimately hit the listener’s ears (vocal recording) was not the totality of the human expression that occurred when the vocalist moved air with sound waves via their singing. This is the meaning of the words you’ve scrutinized. The adjudication of ”right” or “wrong” is not applicable to matters of subjectivity, but my opinion, as stated above, remains. |
All the people who love this music will say that there is both human expression and that it's valid enough. So, nothing has been negated for them. Only for you. Thinking about your phrase "totality of the human expression," we would have to say that the initial vocalization was processed by a microphone, cord, mixer, digital tools, and more. So, it's already been diminished in "validity," to use your term. The fact that there is now pitch correction on top of those other adjustments seems to negate the "validity" for you, but this standard is idiosyncratic and, one has to imagine, quite arbitrary, especially to all the people who love the music and find expression in it. |
- 53 posts total