Pro Tools Expert - July 2016

We recently posted a shoot out of three popular audio pitch correction software applications; with Antares AutoTune, Celemony Melodyne 4 and Synchro Arts Revoice Pro 3. We also left the untreated original vocal recording. 

Whilst the results are of some interest the most interesting one is how few preferred the original performance. The performance was chosen because of the note drift on some notes and whilst not perfect it was not in the realm of bad singing by any stretch.

This seems to indicate that despite all the negative rhetoric often seen written in forums and on social media about tuning software it seems 9 in 10 preferred a tuned vocal in this case.

Have we become normalised to pitch perfect vocals? Is it possible to put out a track these days without using tuning software? If it's so much part of the modern production process why are so many artists so adamant about admitting to using it in the studio?