cheating???

sidler72

sidler72

Inspired
so the other night me and some buddies who are also musicians were drinkin a couple of cold ones discussing music and one of them was saying how his band used a vocal harmonizer.well the other guy told him how that was cheating and not really music and how he was not helping the music scene.now the same person who made the lecture on real music is the keyboard player in our band and i thought about the songs when he pressed one key and played a harmonized horn section or press a key and a whole symphony played lol.so i thought it would be an interesting thread to hear peoples opinion on what they consider cheating in the music industry whether it be composing,recording or playing live.
 
I consider a general disregard for essential paragraphing to be cheating a language steeped in a rich heritage. ;)

No but seriously, auto tune has its place in pop and "manufactured" music, but real musicians need no such tools.
 
There are no rules. I hate it when some musicians think they are above others and can state rules. Like f.ex. many people call triggering drums and autotune cheating when most of their favorite bands do it all the time. They have sadly become an industry standard. Whether it's Paramore or Green Day or especially heavier music.

However I do prefer real backup vocals but if the other guys are too shy or can't hold a note I'd rather hear something nice. :)
 
Modern tech can be viewed as modern instruments

Whether that sits well with you or really grinds is an entirely subjective thing :)
 
To me it's just another tool that has become popular for someone that likes music and ether doesn't have a tone of talent or a pool of talent to pull from.
 
My thoughts are that using augmenting technology is fine, and will continue, we can't stop it anyway, but I believe there is a line:

IMHO - If you use this technology (example: auto-tune/harmonizer) to make music - because you can't sing, period - perhaps you should rethink why you're doing this.

IMHO - If you're using this technology to make the music BETTER (example: playing Bohemian Rhapsody live, adding harmonies with you as the source), then that's probably okay.

Again, all IMHO. Disclaimer: I used to play with a band that used a sampler to augment Bohemian Rhapsody (hey - Queen did it live). I would rather hear it performed live through harmonizers than sampled. In the latter case, it really doesn't even need to be you as the source musician.
 
I think plyall put it pretty well. All I can add is that there are probably people out there who think that getting monster tone at modest (or zero) volume is somehow cheating.
 
They are all just tools for expressing yourself.

You either have something to "tell" or you don't.

(It's kind of funny to read these comments on the most powerful guitar-effect's forum.)
 
I saw nickelback live a few years ago. At least half the songs were lip Synced. How did I know, because they actually used the exact live recording of "photograph" at the end of their album with that song on it. If anyone has it youknow that, That particular album has a few live songs at the end. Every scream was exactly the same. I can't believe they would lip sync let alone use a live album version that everyone who bought their album has probably heard. So friggin stupid
 
I am pretty lenient on stuff, but lip syncing is where I draw the line. The vocal harmonizer is a great tool if you don't have backup vocals in your band. Auto tune is a standard at this point for any professional album. Tracks are pretty much necessary because you're not going to tour with a string quartet unless you're a huge band.

The other thing I can't stand is editing out every nuance in a recording session. If you can't play the line, go home and practice. There are a billion edits on our album and it drove me nuts. The engineer wanted every section to be its own section. About 15 takes into a song I finally said "I can't do it like this. Can i please just play the whole song and redo sections if we need to?" Cut the rest of the album tracks in a few hours including solos. It's so counter intuitive to cut it up.
 
Your job is to entertain. Are you doing your job better by using technology and giving people a better show? Is NASA cheating by using computers instead of doing calculations by hand? Seems like he's just making himself worth more with the tools he has at hand to me.
 
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