The use of digital pitch correction software on vocal recordings

@hilde45 

I think we should be clear about language.

The validity of a person’s feelings is unassailable. Feelings just…are. 

The validity to this hypothetical statement, “this is me singing musical tones (‘notes,’ i.e. Gb, F, C#, etc.)” is indeed negated if that person’s record (or live performance as the case may be) is not that.  
Using the airbrush analogy again, that face and/or body seen in the photo does not look like that.  
The photographer/magazine editor etc. chose to essentially say to their consumers/viewers/readers, “here is what (so-and-so) looks like” when…that is simply not what that person looks like. 

Again, a person’s feelings regarding a vocal, with-or-without the use of digital pitch correction software, is unassailable.  
They may find it unpleasant, wonderful, or they may not really care either way. 

I’ll now describe two different things:
“Signal processing for the purpose of recording the human voice singing a melody,” and,
“actual human-sourced tone ‘correction’ via digital software at the recording stage while processing the signal for the purpose of recording the ‘human’ voice singing a melody.”

Two different things.

Of course “listening to a person singing in your living room sans microphone” and “listening to a vocal recording,” or even “listening to live vocals at a show” are not the same things.  
However there is also a clear difference between these two things:
- vocal—> mic—> signal—> mix—> master—> listen,
and,
- vocal—> mic—> signal—> application of pitch correction software to the human-produced tones themselves—> master—> listen

Outside of the intentional use of such software for dramatic alteration to the vocal (Cher’s ‘Believe’ in ‘98 & seemingly some 85% of hip-hop records the last 15-odd years), digital pitch “correction” software is not an effect like reverb, delay, etc.  

Yes, some effects added to the vocal may have an effect on pitch, but the effects are so noticeable (as intended) that it is still a different thing from a person saying, “listen to my singing on this record” and then presenting a sort of underhanded misrepresentation of their actual expression of tones (musical notes) themselves.
 

The craftmanship is in the integrity of the work itself, not in his appreciation... This integrity in the case of singing is a trained gesture which is so specific for each voice that his "nuances" define the art itself versus a commercial product designed to be an artificially polished marchandise...

I doubt sufi singers, Indian traditional singers or classical singers or Billie Holiday will use this DSP for voice... They consider their gesture so "imperfect" it could be an ethical and an esthetical gesture not a product to be sell first and last...

Soon the "soul" of a person , his voice will be perfectly imitated and sold as a manufactured product by A. I. As the genes of any living being can already be sold... As seeds can be patented... This is not civilization, this is technocratic hell...

Saying this and criticizing all that it is not judging and condemning each consumer or those who eat the patented seeds, it is stating a very meaningful and powerful fact related to humanity future choices journey.. We must become conscious of what we eat and hear as of what we think...

I listen a philosopher this week who claim that human had no free will and i realized that this thinker i admired had no idea of what is free will ....He was confusing free will with the determinism acting on our choices... He was not conscious that we create our freedom , the question is not knowing if human had free will or not, the question is : which thought content will i put in my mind , in my most intimate home, this thought content is MY OWN FREE WILL CREATION and i will observe it , if i create hate i will stay a slave and if i created forgiveness i will liberate myself of any determinism...

Thinking is freeing ourself...Thinking is a real free or unfree gesture in the world it is a seed which will produce fruits...i can be posessed by my emotions and by another will than mine, or i can liberate my thought process in a complete free way as Christ and Buddha did and many others... Prayers and geometry are the same free will meditations...

We are free when we decide to be free not before...Even tortured and crucified we can be free, Christ did ...

I think my post is gone too far...

Art is a spontaneous and trained at the same time free will act not an artificial product but it can goes in this direction ...I can like some artificial product it does not means that i am wrong... But there is consequences to my free or unfree will choices...As i pick an object i pick my thought as i pick my thought i pick also a real object ...

😊

Consciousness result from the act by which we observe our own thought process and content AFTER we had produced it, then we can say it is me who think this ... Free will is born from this seed and the fruits coming from it ... 

What does Christ have to do with digital pitch correction? Didn't realize there was a theological aspect to it. 

What does Christ have to do with digital pitch correction? Didn’t realize there was a theological aspect to it.

It is because i condensed deep matters in few lines..

I will help you...😊

Art is an expressive gesture controlled or uncontrolled , it is training related, and linked to the FREE WILL interiorization of the meaning which is at the same time produced and also perceived and expressed by the individualized fine tuning of the rythmical gesture ( for example speaking or singing with the WHOLE body ) ...

Then it is very important for esthetic and ethical reason to know if FREE WILL exist or better said can be created increasing the seed of consciousness on a higher level ...Art and spiritual life are based on free will and born from free will seeds ...

The will free itself and INDIVIDUALIZE itself when the thought content produced by the brain and filtered by it is UNDER CONTROL of the conscious intent in producing it and only it, in a word when an act is learned and repeated revealing an individuated intent ...The simplest example is a geometrical phenomenon perceived by the brain as a universal and at the same time individual content created by it : drawing a circle for example... Or the difference between hate which is an externally DETERMINED REACTION , an unconscious one; versus forgiveness which is a FREE act born from the internal third environment as distinct from the social environment and distinct from the physico-biological environment, this thirs environment is an internal CREATION not something given , it must be learned in a very different way than gesture are learned in the social environment by mere imitation ...Hate is a programmed reaction in a way forgiveness is not... To understand all history in this perspective read the book of the great sociologist Pitirim Sorokin among many others ...

Do you get it ?

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The interpretation and perception of an artistic gesture, as singing for example, ask for the more honest, integral , purest , body/brain/soul gesture not artificially boost nor recreated as a manufacture product but as a pure SPONTANEOUS expression of free will by the whole body/individuality...I spoke here about the most basic expressive art : body dynamic in speech/singing which act is at the origin of human evolution ...

Christ or Buddha or a sufi singing or A taoist expressive gesture are some examples of pure expression of truth and beauty ...It is also the same for a singer be it Billie Holiday or a Byzantine prayer...

An act of discourse in language develop itself on many IRREDUCIBLE levels simultaneously, (at least 2 levels which are the musical-poetic level and the prosaic-conventional level and all intermediary one extended in time and space ) to be conscious and free we must then  re-enact and interiorize these complex gestures on many levels ...

It is called education and art... This is very different of the manufacturing process whith a DSP of an artificial voice with the only goal to sell it...

All of what i spoke about here has nothing to do with taste for a manufactured  product ...

I hope i am clearer and you are now being able to guess what is at play in music or in  any art and why free will matter ...

Let’s bring this discussion “down to earth”. A little reality check, if you will.

I am as much of a “purist” as anyone else; probably even more so. There is no question that the use of electronic processing in the music recording industry has become pervasive and excessive. It has given rise to many popular, so called “artists” that are nothing more than “product”. The product of producers who maintain a very low artistic bar. These performers are not “artists” at all. They lip-sync when performing live and when recording rely entirely on processing tools such as pitch correction. In fact, it could be argued that it is the producers who are artists…if one can find artistic merit in the ability and skill to appeal to music consumers who, themselves, maintain a very low bar in their appreciation of art. We all know who these performers are. Pretty pathetic.

HOWEVER, consider the truly talented artist who on a given day, for whatever reason and on a day when the recording studio has been rented for the recording of their next album, is having trouble with that last high note note of a phrase. Maybe didn’t sleep well the night before, or maybe ate a little too much phlegm-causing ice cream the night before. A little electronic tweak can fix an otherwise wonderful performance. So terrible? So artistically objectionable? I don’t think so.