The use of digital pitch correction software on vocal recordings

@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.

Auto tune sounds very stark to my ears.

I think it was Buble” that was recently popular in pop and he sounds plastered with it to my ears.

Wasn’t it this piece of pop which made folks consider they were being lied to?-

https://www.google.com/search?q=kesha+no+autotune&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:6115e6e6,vid:GVjy2zyQ7Oo,st:0

@tylermunns 

I was drawing a distinction between Pop made in the past that utilized band members or sidemen playing actual instruments and today, where producers combine samples in ProTools slather them in further effects and call it good.

If that's too broad of a generalization, well I'll admit I'm guilty of finding music I hear utilizing the latter approach utterly soul-less and vapid. 

I only read english and never spoke it and i  had read only  science or philosophy with their limited abstract vocabulary then i miss half the time any good humor...

Thats explain sometimes my hot reaction... 😊

@mahgister , no need for apology.  I think you missed my attempt at humor (with a bit of sarcasm which was not meant for you).  All is well.  Regards.

@mahgister , no need for apology.  I think you missed my attempt at humor (with a bit of sarcasm which was not meant for you).  All is well.  Regards.

Autotune has its place, witness what it has done for this masterpiece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxTNhD5jTyQ

Now, think of what it would do if Yoko Ono had access to same:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsgMbxyDmCY

I am really sorry if my comment had mute your opinion... It was not my goal... Only to put some humor.... Please feel free to speak anytime... I like reading your posts as much as i liked the OP arguments in his thread... I am not a distinguished musician then i learn reading your comment and the OP is a singer then for me it is interesting...

...

I am pretty sure the OP like also discussing ....And anyway if he is not ok with the answer he will give his arguments...

For sure it is a sensible matter that can engender hot tempers...but only arguments has weights...And we are all gentlemen...

My best to you...

@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.  

Notes of pitchyness? Has "American Idol Speak" invaded the lexicon? I'd say listen to any good singer and you will hear ZERO off pitch singing.

As always, you rise above the fray and take the high road.  You are a true gentleman.  As tempting as it is to do otherwise, you force me to abstain from further showing the error in the ways of others 😊.

Any processing of music will decrease some spontaneous vibe in the expression...

The fact that we like the singer or not is beside the point...

The central point is the loss of integrity, meaning in the expressive gesture itself...

This is how i read the OP thread... It is not about taste or about a useful tool in some case in my not so humble opinion ...😊

It is about the essence of this emotional micro dynamic in the human voice that can move us ....My experience is that the greatest singers in any genre are not "perfect" or "imperfect" so much as they had learn how to control the fine line between these two zones...

Processing their voice to adjust it will degrade their performance and not just their integrity even if the final product may seems more appealing in the short time...

Maria Callas will never accept any correction to improve his performance nor Marian Anderson nor Billie Holiday...

Am i wrong ?

It is my notion of what true artistry is... Once this said as anybody here i can enjoy a corrected or processed piece of music as everybody here without even knowing it... A product can be appealing even with NO ARTIST, an A.I. composing and singing it for example... 😊

But Art is not a mere electronic craftmanship so perfect it could be...

And dont look for someone pompous, it is not the OP neither our friend frogman , everybody knows here it is me the philosopher of the north american territory... 😁😊😉😊 I plan to keep the title and the adjective associated to it...BEWARE  any contender for pomposity master title ...I will keep it...

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

Perhaps I’m ignorant, but my impression is that one is most likely to encounter this in contemporary Pop. As such music is heavily processed to begin with, why would this be a concern to its fans?

I have difficulty envisioning Classical or Jazz vocalists going this route but given the accelerating pace of technology, who knows?

@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.

Two YTbers I follow, Rick Beato and Fil of Wings of Pegasus, have videos talking about auto tune ( others too ). Very enlightening and educational, if so interested. Our recordings that we listen to, are vastly manipulated by the folks involved who are making the recordings. To name the many characteristics I am speaking of, would be another area to examine and research, on the net. For those who have spent time in a recording studio, know of what I am speaking. But the point of it all.....if you enjoy the end result, this is all that matters. So, Enjoy ! My best, MrD.

And there is auto tune.

If auto tune were to disappear tomorrow, an entire genre of todays popular music would disappear with it.

Perhaps a topic for another thread?

The OP is Ahab and digital pitch correction is...  We know how that story ends.

What @tylermunns says sounds like a perfectly reasonable statement to me and bothers me not a jot. 

@tylermunns , oh, please! Take a chill pill and relax, man. Obviously, I struck a chord (😊) with you. It should be obvious why I used the phrases that I used. “Pompous”? Really? Read your own words to see pomposity.

I’ll make it short:

The use of pitch correction and its possible attack on musical integrity is a matter of the degree to which it is used. It seemed from many of the responses (including yours) that the use of this electronic tool is considered objectionable in all instances and not only when there is a gross reliance on it by the “artist”. Used very sparingly it can be very useful and not objectionable, imo. That was my point, nothing more.

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

Pomposity, anyone?

It is precisely the vulnerability, fragility and relative imperfection of the human voice, even trained, that give to it his diverse and individualized expressivity potentials and power...

It is the reason why the human voice is the root and grounding musical instrument in speech as in singing which anyway are merging everyday unbeknonwst to us... ...

You can tune a piano externally or/and mechanized it , but the human voice is integral part of your body and  could not be regulated externally save at the price of loosing its specific unique power...It seems to me that saying all that, i am very "down to earth"; as much as tonal rythmic basic speech gesture are down to earth and are imbued with physical and spiritual meanings ...There exist even a specialized field studying it in linguistic .. 😁

Suppressing this individualized always perfectible BUT never perfect gesture by regulating it by external standardized means and tools is killing art and transforming it in marchandise,like perfect Mcdonald fries, and replacing the root and fruit of the expressive tree by artificially genetically modified seeds.... It is the same act...

I think your observation is right OP...

"Imperfection is the peak" René Char...

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.

@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.



 

A little electronic tweak can fix an otherwise wonderful performance. So terrible? So artistically objectionable? I don’t think so.

For sure you are right it is not objectionable ...😊 Why will it be ? We are no purist nor snob..

But the main point as you observed and judged it yourself is the gesture integrity and individuality of the artist versus a manufactured results and versus an artist as a manufactured product...

All this discussion could be perceived as one about the number of an angels on a pin point, but we humans are confronted not only with sophisticated tools that increase the distance between the spontaneous natural gesture of an artist and the end result but by his replication soon and hyjacking by A. I.

Is nature exist ?

or is it a matter of consumers choice, nothing else...Corporations think so...

Is a work of art a spiritual and body expression at his root or is it only a manufactured product ? Corporations think the second case is the crux of the matter ...

Corporations will disapear and even A.I. one day...Musicians will stay at the root of civilization integrated in Nature...😊

Let’s bring this discussion “down to earth”. A little reality check, if you will.

I am as much of a “purist” as anyone else; probably even more so. There is no question that the use of electronic processing in the music recording industry has become pervasive and excessive. It has given rise to many popular, so called “artists” that are nothing more than “product”. The product of producers who maintain a very low artistic bar. These performers are not “artists” at all. They lip-sync when performing live and when recording rely entirely on processing tools such as pitch correction. In fact, it could be argued that it is the producers who are artists…if one can find artistic merit in the ability and skill to appeal to music consumers who, themselves, maintain a very low bar in their appreciation of art. We all know who these performers are. Pretty pathetic.

HOWEVER, consider the truly talented artist who on a given day, for whatever reason and on a day when the recording studio has been rented for the recording of their next album, is having trouble with that last high note note of a phrase. Maybe didn’t sleep well the night before, or maybe ate a little too much phlegm-causing ice cream the night before. A little electronic tweak can fix an otherwise wonderful performance. So terrible? So artistically objectionable? I don’t think so.

What does Christ have to do with digital pitch correction? Didn’t realize there was a theological aspect to it.

It is because i condensed deep matters in few lines..

I will help you...😊

Art is an expressive gesture controlled or uncontrolled , it is training related, and linked to the FREE WILL interiorization of the meaning which is at the same time produced and also perceived and expressed by the individualized fine tuning of the rythmical gesture ( for example speaking or singing with the WHOLE body ) ...

Then it is very important for esthetic and ethical reason to know if FREE WILL exist or better said can be created increasing the seed of consciousness on a higher level ...Art and spiritual life are based on free will and born from free will seeds ...

The will free itself and INDIVIDUALIZE itself when the thought content produced by the brain and filtered by it is UNDER CONTROL of the conscious intent in producing it and only it, in a word when an act is learned and repeated revealing an individuated intent ...The simplest example is a geometrical phenomenon perceived by the brain as a universal and at the same time individual content created by it : drawing a circle for example... Or the difference between hate which is an externally DETERMINED REACTION , an unconscious one; versus forgiveness which is a FREE act born from the internal third environment as distinct from the social environment and distinct from the physico-biological environment, this thirs environment is an internal CREATION not something given , it must be learned in a very different way than gesture are learned in the social environment by mere imitation ...Hate is a programmed reaction in a way forgiveness is not... To understand all history in this perspective read the book of the great sociologist Pitirim Sorokin among many others ...

Do you get it ?

😊

The interpretation and perception of an artistic gesture, as singing for example, ask for the more honest, integral , purest , body/brain/soul gesture not artificially boost nor recreated as a manufacture product but as a pure SPONTANEOUS expression of free will by the whole body/individuality...I spoke here about the most basic expressive art : body dynamic in speech/singing which act is at the origin of human evolution ...

Christ or Buddha or a sufi singing or A taoist expressive gesture are some examples of pure expression of truth and beauty ...It is also the same for a singer be it Billie Holiday or a Byzantine prayer...

An act of discourse in language develop itself on many IRREDUCIBLE levels simultaneously, (at least 2 levels which are the musical-poetic level and the prosaic-conventional level and all intermediary one extended in time and space ) to be conscious and free we must then  re-enact and interiorize these complex gestures on many levels ...

It is called education and art... This is very different of the manufacturing process whith a DSP of an artificial voice with the only goal to sell it...

All of what i spoke about here has nothing to do with taste for a manufactured  product ...

I hope i am clearer and you are now being able to guess what is at play in music or in  any art and why free will matter ...

What does Christ have to do with digital pitch correction? Didn't realize there was a theological aspect to it. 

The craftmanship is in the integrity of the work itself, not in his appreciation... This integrity in the case of singing is a trained gesture which is so specific for each voice that his "nuances" define the art itself versus a commercial product designed to be an artificially polished marchandise...

I doubt sufi singers, Indian traditional singers or classical singers or Billie Holiday will use this DSP for voice... They consider their gesture so "imperfect" it could be an ethical and an esthetical gesture not a product to be sell first and last...

Soon the "soul" of a person , his voice will be perfectly imitated and sold as a manufactured product by A. I. As the genes of any living being can already be sold... As seeds can be patented... This is not civilization, this is technocratic hell...

Saying this and criticizing all that it is not judging and condemning each consumer or those who eat the patented seeds, it is stating a very meaningful and powerful fact related to humanity future choices journey.. We must become conscious of what we eat and hear as of what we think...

I listen a philosopher this week who claim that human had no free will and i realized that this thinker i admired had no idea of what is free will ....He was confusing free will with the determinism acting on our choices... He was not conscious that we create our freedom , the question is not knowing if human had free will or not, the question is : which thought content will i put in my mind , in my most intimate home, this thought content is MY OWN FREE WILL CREATION and i will observe it , if i create hate i will stay a slave and if i created forgiveness i will liberate myself of any determinism...

Thinking is freeing ourself...Thinking is a real free or unfree gesture in the world it is a seed which will produce fruits...i can be posessed by my emotions and by another will than mine, or i can liberate my thought process in a complete free way as Christ and Buddha did and many others... Prayers and geometry are the same free will meditations...

We are free when we decide to be free not before...Even tortured and crucified we can be free, Christ did ...

I think my post is gone too far...

Art is a spontaneous and trained at the same time free will act not an artificial product but it can goes in this direction ...I can like some artificial product it does not means that i am wrong... But there is consequences to my free or unfree will choices...As i pick an object i pick my thought as i pick my thought i pick also a real object ...

😊

Consciousness result from the act by which we observe our own thought process and content AFTER we had produced it, then we can say it is me who think this ... Free will is born from this seed and the fruits coming from it ... 

@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.
 

All the people who love this music will say that there is both human expression and that it's valid enough. So, nothing has been negated for them. Only for you.

Thinking about your phrase "totality of the human expression," we would have to say that the initial vocalization was processed by a microphone, cord, mixer, digital tools, and more. So, it's already been diminished in "validity," to use your term. The fact that there is now pitch correction on top of those other adjustments seems to negate the "validity" for you, but this standard is idiosyncratic and, one has to imagine, quite arbitrary, especially to all the people who love the music and find expression in it.

@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.

"thereby negating the human expression and negating the validity of the pretense."

And all the people who love the recordings are...wrong?

Quite the burden of proof you've set for yourself. Abandon ship.

Well back in the the mid to late 60’s in an interview someone asked Jim Morrison (it was caught on video) where do you see you Rock Music going, he said in the future I see one person in the studio just pressing a button with machines all around him playing the music. He also said Who ever controls the Media controls the mind. Boy did he nail it.

Myself i need helium to fly and a vcoder to land in my living room with a voice...😊

...if all else fails, there's always the vocoders and helium.....

The sound of pitch correction has become a "musical" style by itself, especially in Hippity Hop. I don't listen to pop music much at all except accidentally as I'm too into what I like (mostly jazz), although once in a while a decent band comes along like the Landreth Brothers or somebody with good musicianship but still...meh...I've been a musician a long time and have known or worked with lots of remarkably great singers and none of them needed pitch correction. Guitar tuning maybe...even ol' Bob Dylan with his "barely there" croaky voice generally stays in tune. Am I worried about it? No. I mix small venue shows and you can get off the couch and hit a little club (if one exists near you) and hear some real singers...try that.

I cannot fault you at all , on the contrary i think you are right...

It is one of the reason i cannot stand most actual pop music : artificiality...

I did not know about this  digital correcting  tool you spoke about before reading your post... And you are a singer.... That explain a lot for me about what i could not realize being not in this industry nor craftmanship ...Thanks to you...

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.

@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.
 

Pitch correction allows supremely non-talented flops to proliferate in the pop music field.  Hacks like Post Malone and The Weeknd, who have no actual voices outside of what was concocted with a computer have no place in the annals of music.  Add to that the building superfluousness of live musicians in a recording studio, one sees the future of music as a computer-created corporate entity.  Very, very sad.

Very important observation for me...

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?

The moving pulse coming from an interpretation is located in this fine line or border between perfection and imperfection... If you artificially created "perfection" you loose the expressive vulnerability and the power of this internal struggle in the artistic gesture which is a tool in the artist body...If you dont master singing for sure "imperfection" as a constant state cannot be a transient expressive tool anymore used by the artist...

This pulsating borderline between perfection and imperfection is the key to the expression... This cannot be artificially created...

As said the great french poet René Char :

"Imperfection is the peak "

For recorded music I don't think it's an issue.  It's really not different than any number of other studio effects. 

@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.”

I have fallen in love with electronic music, so who am I to complain about vocal pitch adjustments. 

This post has made me recall a question that comes to mind every time I hear a “pension fund concert” vocal that that sounds much better than I (or friends and colleagues) would have expected. Recently this included Billy Idol and Stevie Nicks, among others. 

Not to hijack the intent of the post, but can auto tune now be used real time during live concerts?

“…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?
 
 

Anything that is recorded and reproduced by "mechanical" means, whether it be a photograph or a sound recording is by definition artificial. There are times when I've softened skin in portraits a little because my medium format digital camera and lenses are just too resolving for what the subject wants to see.

When it comes to recording, I prefer to punch in any parts of vocals that are sharp or flat. But that said, I'm not trying to get every single syllable to be within a cent or two of perfect pitch if it's going to interfere with the singer's natural expression. For clarity, I'm not talking about accepting a performance that is in any way obviously out of tune.

I don't listen to the type of music that uses auto tune to make voices sound like they were vocoded.

I'm a singer who's recorded many times. Unless you're a singer you wouldn't know how hard it is even for pros to record a great vocal track. 95% of the track can be perfect (though it might have taken 10-20 attempts) but there can still be one word- even a part of a word - that's "pitchy". Either the engineer can hunt around in the previous 10-20 takes to find that word sung on pitch or he can tweak that one word to get it on pitch (as long as it's only slightly off- too far off and it can't be corrected). Sometimes it makes sense to just fix the one word. 

When I'm listening to music I only care about whether it's enjoyable. How does it sound? Don't really care about why it sounds that way. 

I used to experiment with pitch shift/harmonization when I spent time playing guitar (years ago). Lexicon and Eventide made amazing studio rack mounts that enabled one to be very creative. 
I’ve never been crazy about with vocals though- a legitimate vocalist shouldn’t have to rely on this to fill the gap. I also can’t stand these “tunes” that come out were the process is used in the form of a vocal effect. Pretty much sucks!

@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.” 

I don't think it's a good development.  it's another step on the road to completely synthetic music.  Who needs artists?  They're such a pain in the butt.

Just another way to make music.