Actually, what is it about automation that makes it 'cheating'? 

It is almost like....how dare the machine take over....

I think I disagree with the idea that "you leave your morals at the door". In the sense that I don't concede this is a moral issue.

I thought it was the stretching thing that was moral. Now I'm confused.

John T


I don't think he's saying you can't EQ, just that you can't automate it. Why this is, I'm not sure.

Sigh.... Why do I bother? You guys are going to continue this nitpicky silliness forever, no matter what I say. ONCE AGAIN, if you have a killer take and there's one big fat note that's not working, then EQ it. If you suck, and you can't control your tone and you have automation of EQ all over the place, then don't put that out and pretend like you actually did that yourself.
 
There is NO equivalence between fixing a single note in a great performance, now matter how it's done, and doing large scale fixing up over the whole song, word level volume automation, lots of tuning and timing fixes, syllable level comping and so forth. If you are doing all those things, then just face it you aren't a good musician, so why you feel like you have to put out completely fake performances to pretend to be one is beyond me.
 
These are things that, in most other professions, would be considered just embarrassing. It's the steriods of the music industry. Almost everyone is taking them, but almost no one is admitting that they take them, leaving the people who want to make real music sounding like losers because they aren't data processed out the wazoo.
 
 

Most artists back before these times got the chance to record an album because they'd been putting in a lot of time on the road playing live. Yes of course there were always super-models who a record company wanted to try to make in a product, but most of them spent years in a live touring situation and then got noticed and got to make an album because they were a good or highly promsing band. Or, they were a new band made up of people who were previously in other known good or great bands, and therefore their skill was not in question. And, given the effort to do extensive fixups on tape, it was more efficient to just record it well to begin with, and that was the standard before the computer era, despite the cynicism that some might have about it.

These days, it's almost the opposite, with millions of virtual bands putting out music, the bulk of whom never play live, or play in a local bar band on the weekend or something. A lot of them probably (though the secretly wish it wasn't true) know they have zero chance so it doesn't even matter. They'll never have to face the embarrassment of trying to actually perform the highly faked up songs they put out anyway.
You really think that The Beatles or Pink Floyd or Rush can't put down great tracks without a lot of fakery? Or, for that matter, that someone like, say, Jewel or Joan Osborne or Alanis Morrisette, don't have monster pipes and can't bring it without cheating? Great artists are great because they can actually do it.

These days, it's almost the opposite, with millions of virtual bands putting out music, the bulk of whom never play live, or play in a local bar band on the weekend or something. A lot of them probably (though the secretly wish it wasn't true) know they have zero chance so it doesn't even matter. They'll never have to face the embarrassment of trying to actually perform the highly faked up songs they put out anyway.

Dean, this is just isn't true, no matter how much you want it to be. There are just as many young bands playing live now as there were 'back in the day'.

jamesg1213

These days, it's almost the opposite, with millions of virtual bands putting out music, the bulk of whom never play live, or play in a local bar band on the weekend or something. A lot of them probably (though the secretly wish it wasn't true) know they have zero chance so it doesn't even matter. They'll never have to face the embarrassment of trying to actually perform the highly faked up songs they put out anyway.

Dean, this is just isn't true, no matter how much you want it to be. There are just as many young bands playing live now as there were 'back in the day'.

I doubt that's true actually, unless you mean playing a local bar. Folks who have been in the business all along say that the live venue situation is horrible these days, with bands often having to pay to play.
 
Anyway, even if there were the same number, the point is that there now tens of thousands of times more people putting out music than then, and there clearly are not tens of thousands of times more people playing live gigs. Ergo, the vast bulk of them are not playing live music to any degree, and many not at all.
 

jamesg1213


How about Daniel Lanois putting together Manu Katche's drum tracks on 'So' bar by bar, using spliced tape, from dozens of different takes, to get 'the absolute best the song can be' down on record (paraphrasing)? Cheating?

Daniel Lanois, and Eno who he works with a lot, do not try to hide what they are doing. They aren't acting like these are actual performances. They actually go out of their way to explain how they do things. As long as people are honest about what they do, I have no problem with it. Music clearly created totally on a computer obviously is its own thing. People who do it aren't trying to act like they can play drums like Phil Collins or sing in perfect pitch. It's the dishonesty about what is being done that's the problem, when people put out music that is apparently actual real instruments played for real, but in fact it's almost as processed and chopped and spliced as EDM music. That's the problem.
 
And of course Daniel Lanois himself is an excellent musician and can bring it live. 

I guess it's time to ask for a few examples of people who do what you say is being done all over the place. I can't think of any, off the top of my head. Who do you think does this stuff?

I'm kind of glad droddey posted his bitter drivel because my son asked me what a strawman argument was over the weekend and i got to show him a text book example. Notice how he keeps repeating the same rant without addressing many direct questions. he keeps making an argument against something he has not been able to demonstrate exists. I doubt anyone on this forum would be in favor of an application that bestows perfection to the talentless. Anyone who has used audiosnap or v-vocal can attest that neither can do that and neither is a shortcut to the achieve the processes they actually can do.  Both are more engineer tools than musician tools.   Personally, audisosnap is something i dabble with  when I want to match previously recorded material with material that just does not match.  i just don't have the patience to do what the OP did and thus, I applaud him.  For me it is more of a remixing tool than a performance tool, but i guess remixing is against this guy's religion too.

If you guys have spent reading what people say who work professionally mixing other people's music, you'd know how badly abused these tools are these days. It's discussed fairly reguarly on places like Gearslutz among folks who are expected to take content that's created fairly piecemeal and to basically put it together in the mix and they often spend days editing songs. And clearly among the 'post it on forums' crowd there's a massive amount of 'created in the computer' content (and I don't mean EDM, which is honestly created in a computer but apparently organic music in which the performances are effectively created in the computer.)

This is the last I'm going to say. I've made my point, and it's clear that others are going to just continue forever with the inch vs. a mile thing, which is a waste of time. I'm not making any arguing for 'rules', I'm arging for integrity and honesty in the making of music. I'm saying that small fixes to save magic moments in absolutely no way justify what is becoming business as usual today.

That's it. Continue to rationalize your actions without me.

Great, now my son has a textbook example of another logical fallacy to see in action. The classic appeal to authority. As if none of us are or know professional musicians.  I have worked in the industry and probably have as much familiarity with what goes on in studios s much as, if not more than you.  You still are incapable of pointing out even one hit album that does what you claim has somehow made music worthless. I'm just asking for one album title of an artist that somehow used audiosnap or some other similar technology to sound perfect despite not being able to play well.  Just one.

They never should have made bic lighters.  In my day we had to light the cave up by waiting for a lightning storm to start a forest fire

Can I state for the record I'm not making an inch into a mile. I think the inch version of the argument is wrong as it is.

Ironic, I think, that the OP that started this was precisely about how painstaking and skilled using such tools actually is.

droddey

jamesg1213

These days, it's almost the opposite, with millions of virtual bands putting out music, the bulk of whom never play live, or play in a local bar band on the weekend or something. A lot of them probably (though the secretly wish it wasn't true) know they have zero chance so it doesn't even matter. They'll never have to face the embarrassment of trying to actually perform the highly faked up songs they put out anyway.

Dean, this is just isn't true, no matter how much you want it to be. There are just as many young bands playing live now as there were 'back in the day'.

I doubt that's true actually, unless you mean playing a local bar. Folks who have been in the business all along say that the live venue situation is horrible these days, with bands often having to pay to play.
 
Anyway, even if there were the same number, the point is that there now tens of thousands of times more people putting out music than then, and there clearly are not tens of thousands of times more people playing live gigs. Ergo, the vast bulk of them are not playing live music to any degree, and many not at all.
 

I wonder why that is..could it be because the DJ has taken over? Or some club owners don't want the hassle of having to book entire bands? Around here we seem to have a lot of clubs hiring bands...and not having them pay for the privilege of doing same...

On top of which...well...excuse me that I am just a mere dilettante who plays my own instruments...sheeesh.