John T


To claim to be a student of the history of popular music, while at the same time showing you've not kept up on it for about fifteen years is a bit of a stretch.

I never said I don't know anything about it. How could I not, being a musician and it being mostly what is talked about and mostly what's posted on Youtube and whatnot. Not thinking it's a particularly great decade isn't the same thing as knowing nothing about the decade. I read through all of the 'what is good music now' threads that happen reguarly and listen to most of what is posted by people to see what they are hearing. I like stuff by the non-top tennish bands like MGMT, M83, Florence and the Machine, and various other recent bands that have come up in those threads. I don't actively dislike all of the auto-tuned rap slash R&B derived stuff, but I wouldn't generally expend any energy to listen to it myself. It just seems played out beyond belief at this point. I don't dislike Gaga, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Rhianna and so forth. It has its place. I just wish it wasn't so dominant. I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to Adele, but I think she's talented.
 
I've never been comfortable with artists who put image ahead of music, and that's pretty heavy right now in the mainstream. It's always gone on obviously. And some few artists who did it heavily I do like, like David Bowie, but it's because he always had the talent and inventiveness to match his image making.
 

John T


8 pages and not one guilty  act named. It's just embarrassing now. 

It's embarassing that you continue to try to make this into something, as though the sales of these types of products and their inclusion into pretty much all DAWs, and the constant discussion of their use, and the admission of well known folks in the industry that they are widely used (many of whom are uncoomfrotable about it), and the large number of online tutorials about how to use these sorts of techniques, somehow is just all for fun and no one is really using them. That's what's embarassing. Do your own homework if you think I'm making this up.
 
It's clearly not just me who thinks this. Just on the Auto-tune front:
 
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/music/blog/3872-auto-tune
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/3/11/autotune-pitch-pop-sound/
http://www.hometracked.com/2008/02/05/auto-tune-abuse-in-pop-music-10-examples/
http://thelewisflyer.com/2010/04/16/auto-tune-killed-the-music-industry/
http://www.personal.psu.edu/jrt5166/assignment5.html
http://www.recordingmag.com/blogs/post/17.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1877372,00.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97312511
http://mbopdigital.hubpages.com/hub/Pitch-Correction-Vs-The-World
 

Autotune is of the EVILZZZZ!!! 

Now, look, just because a stupid 'reality show' used Autotune to supposedly 'improve' the contestants voices does not mean it requires the sensationalistic media..who always have to use Drama to sell their papers anymore...to run around squawking about the coming apocalypse either...

And which artists are 'guilty' of this new offense?

Appeal to Authority

 [
[argumentum ad verecundiam), it is argued that something is true, because someone of authority (like an expert) says it is true. 
[[The structure of the fallacy looks like this:

Smith says X is true

Smith is an expert

So X must be true ex. The queen says the earth is flat, the queen knows all, so the Earth must be flat.



In other words, someone claims they are right, because an expert says so.  And because the expert says so, it must be true.  This is defective induction because no expert is perfect.   An expert is never 100% right, all the time.


There is nothing wrong with arguing that what an expert says is true.  It however becomes fallacious when arguing that the expert is exempt from criticism & incapable of making mistakes. 


Appealing to authority is frequent in common discourse where providing complete evidence is rarely possible, and in many cases is a weak form of evidence rather than a logical fallacy.


Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy of Irrelevant Conclusion (Latin: Ignoratio elenchi), where one argues an irrelevant point to try to prove the point of an issue.  When arguing, it is always best to address an issue as directly as possible, rather than rely on or quote an expert.

You still have not given anything to support your broad generalizations that still seem based on your dislike of today's popular music.  I pointed out long ago that Britney Spears is an awful exampled because Britney Spear's popularity is not in any way based on her singing ability. It's not like she is some critically acclaimed vocalist.  her "talent" was her looks and image.  She is not the first subpar singer to be a superstar and won't be the last.  Madonna and many others pulled the same trick long before auto-tune.   

There are so many holes in your rant..and yes it is simply a rant because you have done nothing but repeat unsupported rantings of people who are like minded.  If i fell for every attempt at an appeal to authority i would believe that there are pills that make your penis double in size and that I can make millions by simply forwarding emails.    

An appeal to authority is absolutely useless to anyone without actual supporting facts.  your rant is no different than watching ideologues at political rallies claim how right they are basing it on quoting people who happen to be of the same affiliation.  Just about everyone has expressed very clearly that autotune could not turn them from bad singer into good singer no matter how much time they spent with it and audiosnap could not do the equivalent with drums, yet you imply that somehow all of our anecdotal blah blah is less than your anecdotal blah blah.   That's why anecdotes mean nothing to me.  They are too easy to counter and typically are not accompanies by anything else but echos of the same unsupported rant.

As for autotune I do think it is used a fair bit but I also think that it is like any novelty thing...people use it a lot and after awhile things settle down.

IIRC there were several acts that tried to capitalize on the Beatles by copying their studio tricks way back when as well...and we did not hear of people saying that there was a huge moral issue then...so why is it different now?


Anent to the above a certain band I was in in the early 1970's didst use the vocoder trick a few times in it...my voice still sucked....

There is also the strange suggestion that this is somehow new. You know who used to *always* use sped up vocals, in order to get higher notes and sound younger? Chuck Berry. A trick also employed by Robert Plant on The Song Remains the Same (when you know this, it's almost comically obvious, take a listen).

In my very humble personal opinion, I don't see an abitrary, universal, absolute standard of what is or is not a legitimate process for making music.  There are things I would view as "cheating" for me that someone else might view as legit and vice versa.  Some things may be commonly viewed as cheating (lip syncing in live gigs, for example), but there are no rules.  In the end, it comes down to a matter of taste, which is very personal.

It's fine for one musician to decide that they will not use pitch correction or timing correction in their recordings.  I don't think anyone would argue with their right to do so.  I think many people would object if that musician were to attempt to apply their value judgement to other artists.  That's what I think we see here. 

Is pitch correction a bad thing?  I don't like it.  If someone else wants to use it, that's fine with me.  How about Audiosnap?  I'd rather not go there, but it doesn't bother me if someone else uses it.  What about quantitizing MIDI data?  Depending on the track, I've done it.  That's not cheating in my eyes.  How about using sampled guitar sounds instead of a real guitar?  If it works for the track, I've got no problem with it.  Loops?  I don't use them, but others are welcome to do so.  Playing live with triggered MIDI sequences?  It feels like a cheat to me, but some are fine with it.  Playing live with pre-recorded background vocal tracks?  Seems quite "cheaty" to me, but I understand why some do it.  Rap over someone else's song and claim it as your own?  That seems like a huge cheat to me, but it's the origin of all rap music.

The bottom line is that none of us are in a position to lay down the law and say that certain techniques or tools are or are not legitimate.  We are in a position to state our opinions about such things.  If we can contain this discussion to our opinions, we can have an interesting dialog.

Again, to the "these terrible modern cheats" point... Playing live to pre-recorded and / or sequenced material: part of all Pink Floyd and The Who gigs since the early 70s. That's just off the top of my head.

Wow this thread still going?

I keep checking in to see if this huge list of talentless pop/rock stars that have a career built on pitch and timing correction has been listed yet.

Aparently not.........

dubdisciple


Appeal to Authority

[
[argumentum ad verecundiam), it is argued that something is true, because someone of authority (like an expert) says it is true.  

No one needs to have grade school debating logic explained here, I would hope. I'm not appealing to St. Augustine for proof of the existence of God here, or some 'expert' on Expert Village. It was a direct quote by one of the biggest mixers out there, who has worked on a butt load of major records, and of course his brother has worked on a huge butt load of others, and I'm guessing that they have discussed their work with each other. Do you really think he doesn't know what is going on out there? You guys are going to continue to deny any evidence provided. If I provide a direct quote from a major artist you'd just claim it was unsubstantiated and insist that I provide a video of the person actually saying it.
 

droddey...evidently we DO need to break this down on a grade school level because you apparently cannot comprehend that simply throwing out names that you feel agree with you is not supporting your statements at all. John T already pointed out that you basically puked out a lot of red herring material that was irrelevant to your point. You seem to have trouble answering even the most basic of questions. You say things like there are tutorials all over Youtube showing people how to "cheat". We ask simple questions like show us one example of an awful singer going from awful to good. Or a good singer going from good to great. Instead you gave us a bunch of links of opinions. It;s ironic that you should use religion as an example because your methodology is the reason religions cannot agree. Not to turn this into a religious topic. just makign the analogy that if religion A claims my mine is true because my god says so and religion B says mine is true because mine says so, you come to an impasse. Of course there are people who agree with you but there are plenty who don't as well. Without objective proof of your position you are simply just echoing your own rant and using the rants of others as validation.

You have just evoked ChuckGrudenface....

OK...maybe it would be wonderful if everyone did things as real as just a microphone to a tape recorder without all these horrible effects...would that make it better for you?