I just keep reading articles about this, but there's a quote in this one that I thought the rest of you might appreciate:

Quote:
Simpson "has been made to be something that requires backing tracks to achieve," Hamilton says, adding that the controversy surrounding her "is a weird judgment on something that wasn't supposed to have soul in the first place. That's like complaining about dinner after someone hands you a Snickers bar."


The rest of the article talks about the over-use with auto-tuning and other tricks in the studio being brought to the live performance. Kind of interesting stuff, especially having just been through the recording process itself. What I learned was, BTW, was 1) auto-tuning is great, 2) everyone does it, 3) auto-tuning works great for backing vocals, 4) if you simply turn on auto-tuning for a lead vocal it sounds like crap, 5) tuning a lead vocal manually is almost an art form in and of itself, and 6) recording is very different from a live environment and much less forgiving- thus you have to use a few "tricks" to provide a product the audience will enjoy, only one of which is tuning vocals, none of which work if you don't actually start with something good as a base. All of that being said, while we did tune backing vocals quite a bit (for the sake of expediency- we didn't spend much time tracking them), it's key to get a good lead vocal line to start with and only tune a few places.

I'll also say that some of the "tricks" used in the studio require better musicianship than poorer musicianship- like playing acoustic parts two times in a row EXACTLY the same to give it a natural "chorus". It sounds very cool, and a lot more natural than just adding an electronic chorus, but it isn't easy making sure you play something the same twice in a row.

In the end, however, I think using so many "tricks" on a CD that you create unrealistic expectations for your live performance is not healthy. Sure we don't have all of the bells and whistles when we play live (B3 organ, string section, 3 guitars on some songs, perfectly tuned vocals), but we can play the songs well with what we do have and sing the vocals well. I don't think people are going to be disappointed that we don't sound exactly like the CD- it's just different. It may not be perfect, but it has that extra live energy you just don't get on a CD. Having to use tricks like auto-tuning and vocal stacking when you play live is just missing the point of a live performance, IMHO.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.