OK so my mind was blown yesterday when I was talking to a few Nashville "pro studio guys" who said that almost ALL of the background vocals they do these days for demos/album tracks are simply Melodyne cloned lead tracks re-tuned to the proper harmony notes.  I obviously knew about using Melodyne for such a purpose, but didn't realize the prevalence of it.
 
Am I the only one still singing/syncing real harmonies these days?
 
And, related...if you ARE using Melodyne for "fake" bgvs, what is the best/quickest method for accomplishing that within Sonar (i.e. Melodyne in EFX bin, create Region FX, etc.)
 
Just curious!!! (And still shocked...).  Thanks in advance.

Wait a minute, I can see how you can create a harmony by retuning, and how that would be useful for harmonizing the lead or doubling the singer as a simple duet, but how do you change to a background arrangement. When did the background singers start to just sing the same words and arrangement/melody as the lead?

Yes!

I really only love different voices. The same human voice, even double tracked, just doesn't have the magic of 2 or more people doing it together.

Yes, I sing as good as I can each and every time (with very variable results), because I enjoy it Sometimes I use melodyne to experiment with bgv, or to tighten some words.

I guess it would work for situations where the words matched. Melodyne can do a lot of things with enough effort; but for a singer, they could get it done significantly quicker by simply tracking it (with better results IMO).

I am not savvy with Melodyne for this reason. I do not want to invest time down a path that will make me complacent with challenging myself.

Also with a "demo" this is less critical, so to the OP it may be more common than I realized.

I record live vocals for melody, harmony and backing vocals. I've never been interested in "cheating" on vocals with Melodyne or any other such program. Like Mettelus, maybe that's one reason I'm not that familiar with Melodyne. But then, singing is my thing!
 
Now, live(solo), that's a different story. I use a harmonizer pedal to give me at least some harmony vocals.

I use humans for all background vocals and I use human voices for doubling (although I use Waves/Abbey Road Reel ADT sometimes for doubling).  Although I have no objection to Melodyne cloned voices, they do not sound the same as real voices—and obviously cloning locks you into doing nothing but exactly what the lead is doing.
 
I do use Melodyne to tweak voices, however, because it is more efficient than multiple takes, punching in, comping, etc.  (You have to be well-practiced in Melodyne, though, to make it sound natural.)
 
Note: I have an excellent female studio singer who can nail any weird harmony part I can write, so I am lucky.

Melodyne is excellent for  pitch and and other fine tune details but I try and use humans for most back ups and cloning. My girl is an excellent singer so I have a great vocal resource available at all times. 
Cloning with melodyne is faster but there's something about the human element.  That goes for guitars as well.
The timing issues can be more of a challenge to correct with human singers.
Have you noticed how most every country song sounds the same these days.  There might be 2 guys writing all that stuff. 

Well and that explains why so much music that comes out of Nashville is so boring. 
 
I still find it way faster to just sing a harmony. And because I can sing in pitch, I myself have not even loaded Melodyne to my new DAW set up. I don't like the registration process so if I do need a small tweak I use V Vocal still.
 
I just bought a Harmonizer stomp box to use for my live show. It's a barrel of fun. It works great on a lot of songs for the chorus and accent harmony fills. You have to use it just so with taste.  I just might try it on a recording to see what happens. It was only $150 so a lot cheaper than the software versions. 
I set it up with a Y cable at the input so my dry Vocals are in one channel and the wet in another. The more expensive models have the routing built in. There is a guitar input I drive from that extra output you get on a Boss Tuner. The harmony changes with the guitar chords. You have to play cleanly for best results. But these harmonizer dedicated hardware boxes are the way to go as far as I'm concerned. No fuss no muss. And I notice it helps me sing in pitch better as the harmony parts are never are out of key. Some units auto tune your voice on the fly. 
 
http://www.ehx.com/products/voice-box