The use of digital pitch correction software on vocal recordings

@fuzztone my use of the term, “presented with (blank)…” is just a way to say,  “a person listening to something.”  
The product itself (in this case, a vocal recording) is what is “presented.” 

@javaruke I’m sorry, but would you please clarify what a “pension fund concert vocal” is?
I don’t know what that is.

Your inquiry as to whether or not digital pitch correction may be used in live applications is not a “hijack” at all, but a great question.
The answer is, yes, it is common these days for pitch “correction” software to be used in live “singing.”

“…how hard it is…to record a great vocal track.”

With all due respect…please…spare me.

I’m a singer.  
I sing on pitch.  
How else does a singer sing, but on pitch?  
Barring a certain punk-rock, Patti Smith/Lou Reed/Randy Newman-type approach, how does a singer take themselves seriously if they can’t sing on pitch?  
What is that?
Live or on record (obviously there’s no excuse on record)?

Exactly how “off pitch” are we talking here?  
I have perfect pitch.  
I know what off-pitch sounds like.  
I’ve listened to countless vocals by countless artists on countless recordings that gave me goosebumps and aroused tears.  
If I wanted to, I could scrutinize all of them and show many, many instances of less-than-perfect pitch, here and there, in each performance.  

Was I “faking it” when those vocal recording caused me to feel profound emotions?

Unless it sounds bad, it doesn’t sound bad.

I’ve never felt profound emotions with a vocal recording that used digital pitch correction.

Humans aren’t machines.  
The human expression that occurs when a human sings is what we want to hear when we want to hear singing.  
If we want to hear a synthesizer, we can listen to a synthesizer.  
If the artist gives me a Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, Daft Punk-type thing, I know what to expect.

If a person’s inability to sing on pitch is so problematic, why are they singing at all?
 
 

@mahgister 
“If you artificially created "perfection" you lose the expressive vulnerability and the power of this internal struggle in the artistic gesture.”  
Beautiful. Thank you.

There seems to be a fetid entitlement with artists these days. 
(imagine whiny little kid voice): “iT’s HaRd tO SiNg. iT’s rEaLLy hArD!!”   
  - You’re right. It is hard.    
“…bUt…bUt…bUt…i WaNNA bE a SiNgEr! iT’s….hArD!!”  
- Well, if it’s so hard, maybe it’s not for you.  
“…bUt…bUt…bUt…i WaNNA bE a SiNgEr! iT’s….hArD!!”

People act like they’re owed everything.  
They say, “iT tAkEs ToO LoNg aNd iT’s tOo eXpEnSiVe WiTh sTuDiO TiMe!”  
- Well, you can practice a lot before you go to the studio, thereby limiting your studio time doing tons of takes and limiting the monetary cost. That’s called, “being professional.”

They act like they’re entitled to crank out sheer PRODUCT with as much ease as possible.

What really gets me is that it doesn’t sound better, either. It sounds worse. 
Digital pitch correction is just bad. Full stop.
 

@hilde45 
The “pretense” is that the vocal recording was a human expression.

If the vocal recording was “airbrushed” by software before it hit the listener’s ears, the thing that ultimately hit the listener’s ears (vocal recording) was not the totality of the human expression that occurred when the vocalist moved air with sound waves via their singing.  

This is the meaning of the words you’ve scrutinized.

The adjudication of ”right” or “wrong” is not applicable to matters of subjectivity, but my opinion, as stated above, remains.

@hilde45 

I think we should be clear about language.

The validity of a person’s feelings is unassailable. Feelings just…are. 

The validity to this hypothetical statement, “this is me singing musical tones (‘notes,’ i.e. Gb, F, C#, etc.)” is indeed negated if that person’s record (or live performance as the case may be) is not that.  
Using the airbrush analogy again, that face and/or body seen in the photo does not look like that.  
The photographer/magazine editor etc. chose to essentially say to their consumers/viewers/readers, “here is what (so-and-so) looks like” when…that is simply not what that person looks like. 

Again, a person’s feelings regarding a vocal, with-or-without the use of digital pitch correction software, is unassailable.  
They may find it unpleasant, wonderful, or they may not really care either way. 

I’ll now describe two different things:
“Signal processing for the purpose of recording the human voice singing a melody,” and,
“actual human-sourced tone ‘correction’ via digital software at the recording stage while processing the signal for the purpose of recording the ‘human’ voice singing a melody.”

Two different things.

Of course “listening to a person singing in your living room sans microphone” and “listening to a vocal recording,” or even “listening to live vocals at a show” are not the same things.  
However there is also a clear difference between these two things:
- vocal—> mic—> signal—> mix—> master—> listen,
and,
- vocal—> mic—> signal—> application of pitch correction software to the human-produced tones themselves—> master—> listen

Outside of the intentional use of such software for dramatic alteration to the vocal (Cher’s ‘Believe’ in ‘98 & seemingly some 85% of hip-hop records the last 15-odd years), digital pitch “correction” software is not an effect like reverb, delay, etc.  

Yes, some effects added to the vocal may have an effect on pitch, but the effects are so noticeable (as intended) that it is still a different thing from a person saying, “listen to my singing on this record” and then presenting a sort of underhanded misrepresentation of their actual expression of tones (musical notes) themselves.
 

@wolf_garcia 

Just because you never heard someone use the word, “pitch-y” until you watched American Idol does it mean that some panelists on some 21st century Fox confection invented that term.  

@frogman

I thought the conversation was cruising at a very reasonable altitude.
People having a civil conversation.
If I may ask, how did this conversation, in your mind, necessitate being “brought back down to earth?”

“A reality check, if you will.” Frankly, there is a pompous tone to that statement.
A “reality check”…thank heavens frogman is here to “educate” us.

I don’t characterize this issue as being about “purist” vs. “non-purist.”
As I said in the OP, it is about honesty.
To an artist/producer that releases vocal recordings, or performs “live,” (very intentional use of quotation marks there) under the pretense that the vocalist is…singing…I have a request, “don’t pee on my shoes on tell me it’s raining.”

It’s false advertising.

I love Kraftwerk. Love them.
They, and artists of a similar type, tell me right out: “these vocals are a certain way,” and I know what I’m getting. and it’s all good.

Some kid with an acoustic guitar, wanted me to buy their music, is telling me something different from what the Kraftwerk-type artists are telling me.
They’re saying, “listen to my singing! Buy my record!”
Well, I’d be happy to, kid, but your end of the bargain means not lying to me.

If the “bad part” of the performance is such a tiny segment of the performance, then they can easily punch in that 4-second part and be done with it, and have a vocal recording that actually is the thing they’re advertising: a human expression of vocalization.

It is just lazy and disrespectful to the buyer to do the DPC thing.

Often, the “bad note” wasn’t “bad” at all.

We’ve all heard vocal performances from the past 100 years that caused us to feel deep emotions, all of which had moments of pitchy-ness. All of them.

Pop, opera, all corners of the musical universe…non-perfect pitch is a matter of course with vocal performance, and we all, rightfully, love it.

Personally, I find the vocal performance that was shoehorned into digitally-dictated pitch to be aesthetically ugly and bad-sounding, which makes this practice all the more maddening.

If it actually made vocals sound better, we could have a real argument here.
It doesn’t.

Please, Planet Earth, I beg of you…stop using digital pitch correction software.

I would say a normal person only notices “pitchy-ness” when it’s particularly egregious. Obviously, that is not acceptable in a professional situation, and needs to be remedied.
The idea that such a remedy must be via digital pitch correction software is pure bunk.
The apologia that comes into play at this point, i.e. “recording is too expensive, so we won’t call the singer back in to re-take”….BS.

It’s enough to cause me to wonder if we should actually have a label on the release: “Vocals recorded with digital pitch correction software,” should the proprietors want to be honest.
I’m being semi-serious with that last bit, but I think I’ve made my point.



 

@stuartk May I ask what you mean when you say, “…contemporary pop…is heavily processed…” ?

@frogman

Here is a result of a 5-second use of the Google search engine:
Definitions from Oxford Languages.
adjective: pompous
- affectedly and irritatingly grand, solemn, or self-important.

I consider someone introducing themself to a conversation with this,
“Let’s bring this discussion ‘down to earth.’ A little reality check, if you will,”
to be assuming a somewhat pompous tone.
It’s not like this conversation became so grossly off-topic as to be silly and worthless or anything like that.
Thusly, that intro was unnecessary and, to me, sounded kinda pompous.
I see that introduction to insinuate that the speaker (introducing themself with a self-important tone) has knowledge of “reality,” and the other participants in the conversation are babbling glib nonsense.

Here’s my comment that you scrutinized the way a child when chastised by an adult authority figure (‘bUt…bUt…I wAsN’t bEiNg MeAn!! HEEEE - pointing finger at the other kid - wAs bEiNg MeAn FIRST!!!’):

“I have perfect pitch. I know what off-pitch sounds like. I’m a singer.
I sing on pitch.”

I am a singer who sings on pitch (an innocuous statement akin to a mechanic saying, ‘I’m a mechanic who knows how to use a wrench’) and have perfect pitch.
I certainly don’t wish to be patronizing or didactic, but, if I may, “perfect pitch” is a commonly used term to describe the ability to recognize tones by hearing.
A bit of genetic “luck” (nature) and long-term commitment (nurture).

My dissemination of this, aside from merely being a statement of fact, was to show that I’m not talkin’ out my rear end when I say, “I know what off-pitch tones sound like.”

You have, thusly, incorrectly accused me of showing pomposity with those statements.

You are correct that, as a matter of course, I find the use of digital pitch “correction” software to be objectionable in all instances, for the reasons I stated.

@johnnycamp5   

I think Bublé’s actual voice just sounds like it’s been run though digital pitch correction software 😆

He might use it as well, which just compounds it.