| Autotune is handy to have... certainly, people have been manipulating pitch of vocals in all kind of ways before autotune came around. It was just more tedious.
One of the great things about the technology that was available in the early era of rock was that it was more common that a great deal of the song was recorded by the players actually playing at the same time! There was less opportunity to mash out the feeling of capturing a moment in time.
I am a fan of the fabricated reality approach to recording. I am also a fan of recordings that shoot for the sound of capturing a real performance.... The current default style of modern recordings tend to make tracks that don't really sound like they ever happened. When I turn on the modern pop, rock or rap stations, the music is just ALL ON all the time, no peaks and valleys.
Some of the masters of highly produced stuff seem to make sure that their productions retain a feeling of forward motion... the feeling that each part of the song is pushing forward to the next. The more you erase the human elements, the harder it is to achieve that.
I am definitely not bagging on highly tweaked stuff, because I love it, I am just saying that there needs to be some yin to the yang. |