I wonder how many great artists and musicians that statement has just included. Most stuff released in the last 20 years I wouldn't mind betting. I'm beginning to think I'm being wound up....

Indeed. More like the last 40 years actually. People like Steely Dan have made no bones about the lengths they go to in the studio, likewise Peter Gabriel. You can find Michael McDonald talking about the nit-picking that Becker & Fagen went to with his BGV's..'word comping'? Try syllable by syllable..

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

I wonder how many great artists and musicians that statement has just included. Most stuff released in the last 20 years I wouldn't mind betting. I'm beginning to think I'm being wound up....

Indeed. More like the last 40 years actually. People like Steely Dan have made no bones about the lengths they go to in the studio, likewise Peter Gabriel. You can find Michael McDonald talking about the nit-picking that Becker & Fagen went to with his BGV's..'word comping'? Try syllable by syllable..

That's really misleading. The folks that Stelly Dan had playing on monster albums like Aja could play that stuff without a strain. You can see them do it on the Classic Albums DVD for Aja. They were some of the best musicians out there. They were looking for great performances and they kept trying difference band combinations until they got the ones they wanted.
It's one thing to work and work and work it until it's tight, and another thing to just throw something down and tune it in the computer.
 

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.
 

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?

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. 

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?

I'd turn that round and ask do you really think that those you've listed didn't use EQ automation, quantizing, pitch and timing correction, or in some cases wouldn't have done had it been available?

I'm sure it's probably not intetnional but you are coming across as a very bitter person. There's loads of rubbish (IMHO) bands and artists 'making it' nowadays but as far as I can see there always has been and always will be. That's as much down to marketing and promotion as much as it is any perceived 'cheating' during the recording process though.

I still think you're way over estimating what is possible with pitch and timing correction tools. You can't polish a turd is still true as far as I can see.

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?

The word-to-word volume automation strikes me as an odd one to complain about. Meticulous engineers do that because it's better than leaving it to a compressor, if you've got the time and the skill. It's the absolute opposite of lazy cheating.

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.