we should also ban conolution reverbs and reverb in general.  if you want to sound like you are in hall, you should only olay in hall.  In fact, let's ban all processing  and require all recordings be live, unprocessed stereo takes.  if the levels were off when it wss played, people should hear that.  Let's remove valves from brass instruments.  Real players adjust pitch with just embochure!

Seriously though, did someone wake up to a hot cup of crotchety soup?

"It's necessary because people who can't play music think that that shouldn't be a limitation on being a musician, which is one of the problems. It's because of tools like Autosnap and Autotune that sucking actually isn't a limitation on being a musician these days, or pretending to be. I'm sure it's great for people who want to take money from people who can't play and making them sound like they can. It's not good for the music business or music itself. "

How do you know what everyone thinks?  With that skill you should go into high stakes gambling or espionage.  Many who use these tools are world class musicians on par with any who have ever lived.  The OP does not seem like a slouch and still finds these tools useful.  ANyone who has ever used audio snap knows that it is certainly not some magic tool that will make a lousy drummer sound good.  The same gfoes for autotune.  If you can't sing, autotune will not fix it.  Autotune is used more as an effect in pop music than the process it was originally meant to be, a method of taking slightly off tune notes and correcting them in post rather than doing a whole new take for one slightly off note or two.  Again, it does not work if the person is not even in thre ballpark. Instruments (voice included) are affected by an infinite amount of factors which cause them to drift slightly  Very few acoustic instruments, especially voice maintain 100% pitch accuracy throughout the course of a recording session. Autotune as an effect will pass in time just likke every other fad.  Peter Frampton helped make the talkbox popular but he obviously could do more than just use that.  He used it as simply one tool in his arsenal.

There are more talented musicians and singers than any point in history simply because more people than ever have access.  Yes, that means a lot more garabage too, but don't throw the baby out with the bath. The state of the music industry has nothing to do with which fad is hot at the moment anyway.  Long before autiontune, there was cheezy, lowest common denominatro pop and there always will be. No amount of kvetching is going to make classical music or whatever genre you have deemed to be so great the new pop. You can search youtube and find endless examples of remarkably talented people of all ages.  Just because they are not pop stars does not mean they don't exist.  That is more of a reflection of our socities consumer habits than the state of music.

droddey


Things like audiosnap should be banned. The music industry is already destroyed enough, let's not make it worse. It's gone downhill in proportion to the ability of people who never put in the time to learn to play to sound like they can. Be men and have the balls to put out there what you can actually do.

Not a comment to the original poster, just a general comment.

And what about people that market products for average people that make them think they're actually software engineers? I can automate my home by using a few simple tools? Brilliant. No need for those expensive and annoying IT professionals. Point, click, and it's all good.

Sigh... This has been over a hundred times before. There are things that *enhance* a great performance, and there are things that *create* a performance out of a substandard performance. Everyone should know the difference. The whole 'if you go an inch you've gone a mile' argument is silly. Using artificial reverb is NOT, at all, remotely, like fixing the timing and fixing the pitch and fixing the dynamics on a fine scale, things that are completely common place now.

And there are not more talented musicians and singers than ever before. The number of really great musicians hasn't changed. Some of them can now make music without comitting to a professional career. But, at the same time, there are vast numbers of people putting out music that they can't actually perform because they put more time into learning how to massage their crap than learning how to really write and perform. And they are saturating the market and heavily dilluting the value of the work of real musicians almost worthless.

If it was about really talented musicans and singers then there wouldn't be a market for products like auto-tune or Audio Snap.

And of course at the profiessional level those tools are being used to create music that is inhumanly perfected, so that real, human music has begun to sound amateurish. That's a pretty sick phenomenon, IMO, and is just another nail in the coffin of the music world.

tweed guy

droddey


Things like audiosnap should be banned. The music industry is already destroyed enough, let's not make it worse. It's gone downhill in proportion to the ability of people who never put in the time to learn to play to sound like they can. Be men and have the balls to put out there what you can actually do.

Not a comment to the original poster, just a general comment.

And what about people that market products for average people that make them think they're actually software engineers? I can automate my home by using a few simple tools? Brilliant. No need for those expensive and annoying IT professionals. Point, click, and it's all good.

Sigh again... If you think it works that way, you've never tried it. Automation software like mine is like a tape machine or a DAW (without all the cheating tools.) It enables the process, but it still requires real work and understanding to create something of high quality. If my software could do what you say it could I'd be very rich right now. The number of people willing to really take on that task is even smaller than the number of people who are willing to take on learning how to create top notch content without cheating in the DIY music world. At least the music world you can have the delusion that it's going to make you famous.
 
And if I made software that allowed people to sound like they can play when they can't, and get those delusions of fame without making the effort to learn how to perform and record, then imagine how well that would sell.
 

"If it was about really talented musicans and singers then there wouldn't be a market for products like auto-tune or Audio Snap. "

you do lknow thta marketing and image trum;ed talent i nthe world of pop music long before the digitsl age? I don't know about you, but growing up, I went to church wit hat least a dozen people who could sing circles around the most popular stars of that particular era.  If autotune was banned today that would still not change.  You are attacking the symptom instead of the disease.  I'm curious how much experience you have with audiosnap, because it is far from this instant talent tool you see mto think it is.  The amount of work it takes to get the results you want are not likely to be accomplished by someone who does not have a decent amount of skill to begin with.  There is no magic software that makes you sound like you can play when you can't.  Even poular whipping boys of the old man "they dont make good music anymore" crowd like rappers hire musicians when they need actual music in their songs.

i find it hypocritical that you seem to conveniently draw the line at the things you use.  I would like to hear some examples of someone creating a great performance out of a substandard one.  I have heard mediocre performances given somewha tbetter timing but nothing that took something from bad to great.  In fact, the worse you are as a musician, the more robotic and amatuerish the final result usually sounds when these tools are ppalied.  You are simply spouting bitter rhetoric withotu any evidence to back it up.  my statement about there being more talented musicians than ever before was based on raw numbers and not ratio. It's simple math.  if there are more people with access to play it will increase the amount of good players as well as bad. My son's school orchestra program does not sound any worse than when i was his age.  You see mto imply that somehow having more tools equates to mandatory drop in skill instead of simply an optional enhancement.   Do you think the OP's use of audiosnap made him less of a musician or decreased his ability one bit?

Your stastements also beg the questions:

1) When were things soooo great in the music world? Artists have alwaysd been screwed.  I can find examples of gresat musicians in every deacde in the last 70 years who were horribly screwed.  Once music became big business it becamse just that.  Even the classic rock stars who went on to make millions yearsd afte rthey stopped making hits did so because they finally ended up on the right side of the business equation and are exception rather than rule.  Pop music is not going to ever be a requiem on talent.  Never has been and never will be.

2) Do you have anything besides rehtoric on the doom and gloom of music as we know it to support your death of music?  From where I stand, your death of music sounds more like a reduction in popularity of music that you particularly like.  We are al lmusic snobs to some degree.  We think wha twe like is good music and what others like is nto so good.  I can't say I'm a big fan of most of todays pop, but I am sure back in the50's people my age then thought the boybands of their era were garbage and that music needs to go back to the buig band heyday.
 
3) My other question and probabloy mos tsignificant...Do you have extensive examples of any of these tools makign someove devoid of talent suddenly seem like they have it?  i have yet t ohear someone go from sounding bad to great.   Good musicians will always be needed regarldess of technology. That's not going to stop the rise of genres tha tdon't require so much musical ability as much as technical ability.

Queen ambush @ d4

Pok'e Mon marathon on CN

Maybe smoke some crack

If some music sounds good - bearing in mind that music is made up of, like, sound - but it was made using "cheats", as you call them, does that mean it's not good? Like good sounding bad sound? I'm not sure I can see how that works.

John T


If some music sounds good - bearing in mind that music is made up of, like sound - but it was made using "cheats", as you call them, does that mean it's not good? Like good sounding bad sound? I'm not sure I can see how that works.

You're not supposed to see it, you're supposed to "hear" it.

I wonder what happens if you really like something, but then you find out it was autotuned. Do you automatically stop liking it? Or do you have to make yourself dislike it?