I am personally against autotune, whether it's used excessively or even just a tiny bit because I believe it makes singers lazy and discourages good-quality takes. What are your opinions on metal bands, especially newer ones, touching up their vocal performances with this stuff? Is there any positive way to look at this?

That's where I disagree. In fact, I think it's the complete opposite.

There are more considerations than simply intonation. Singing everything in tune is comparable to having the guitar or bass in tune when tracking. Using autotune allows using the best-sounding takes even if there are some small intonation flaws. Whether the take is genuinely good or not should be determined by more factors than simply intonation. If that weren't the case, the best singer in the world would be a vocal synth, because it's always in tune, right?

I don't really see anything wrong with it. It still won't make a crappy singer sound good - it just allows good singers to get better tracks in some situations. So basically, being against autotune is when you're fine with hearing intonation flaws in vocal tracks, and also accept that some producers will choose a track with better intonation over a track with better singing. Personally, I'd rather they get the best sounding take, and fix it a little if they must.

THAT SAID, I'd much rather they didn't use it excessively. I'd much rather hear vocal tracks with some small intonation flaws, than something that's polished to the point of sounding completely unnatural and weird. Not really metal (heavy music nevertheless), but for example, this Deftones song isn't made better by the overzealous autotuning. Judging from the singer's performance on other records, this kind of approach wouldn't have been necessary to make him sound acceptable, and is more of a stylistic choice. Not approved.

^^^ Basically. Speaking as someone who doesn't like doing editing like that, it's still beneficial, and using sparingly, there's nothing wrong with it. If a singer delivers a perfect take in terms of delivery, timing, and energy, but there's a note or two that aren't quite right, you can pull up a tuning plugin, nudge the notes, and move on. This is especially useful when a vocalist is having issues with a part. We're 20 takes in, and they get one that's just ALMOST there. We could spend another 30 minutes on another 20 takes, or crack open WavesTune and be done with it.


As long as most of the work is being done by the vocalist, as a way to fix what would otherwise be a good performance, then IMO, it's fine. When it's used to create a performance, on the other hand, I don't think it's alright, but I'd take that up with the band, not the engineer, because the engineer does what they have to in order to get a passable performance. You could do a poll of audio engineers right now, and I guarantee the majority of them would be just fine if they never had to tune another vocal ever again. It's tedious, but you do what you have to.

When you can hear autotune, there's too much of it. But if it is used sparingly, I don't really see too much of a problem with it. If you have otherwise perfect vocal take with couple of irritatingly flat notes, fixing them is usually ok.

I use autotune sometimes. I'm not a good singer, but singing one take and autotuning it to robotic perfection and then making the real vocal tracks while listening to the in-tune guide track is easier. Following my own voice feels easier than following the same melody by some instrument. And sometimes really autotuned backing vocals can work when they are treated more like a synth than normal vocals and mixed accordingly.

I assume you mean the T-Pain kind of autotune and not manual tuning (which if done well is not noticable). I think there's a lot of elitism by "tr00 musicians" about this who disregard the intention of the music in question.

If you're looking for recommendations, Sybreed use heavy post-processing effects on the vocals quite nicely:

Trash. utter trash. if you aren't in tune vocallly you need to go work on your fucking vocals. if you aren't in tune musically as far as instruments like Ilwhyan described you aren't ready to record. it's a crutch. everyone who says otherwise is actual garbage and don't listen to them. or listen to them and be garbage as well.

Fucking trash. Stop making it easier on yourself if you do you will never achieve any worthwhile success.

Couldn't have put it better myself.