I see accusations flying around about auto-tune but what caught my attention was a reference to "live auto-tune". Somehow I'd missed the "auto" part of auto-tune and just imagined someone fixing a vocal after it's been recorded, but obviously, when everything is going through a soundboard, there no reason why it can't also go through some software to "fix" pitch problems.

I read a good article on auto-tune here.

What started me on this was a comment against a recent youtube video of Don Felder singing Already Gone. I'd noted that he was on-key (as far as I can tell) but sounded a little odd, maybe too consistent. Now I'm wondering if that commenter was right.

The next "Eagle" I've seen an auto-tune accusation made against is Glenn and his After Hours album. After learning that auto-tune can be applied selectively and more subtlety, this seems possible. I can hear lots of imperfections in the vocals but occasionally it sounds so sweet and so good that I wonder if it's been doctored in post-production. We know that back in the 70s, Eagles vocals were composed from different fragments, even down to a syllable and I've heard Hawk Wolinski mention that Glenn moved towards fixing things "later" when recording in the 80s, so I don't see why he would be against using the latest technology so long as the results sounded natural.

My inclination is that the Eagles don't use live auto-tune. I've seen recent mention of how when they hear something wrong in a show, in the next rehearsal/sound-check they try to fix it. I do think that having so many singers, they are able to support each other when one has vocal problems - there are a lot of songs where there's at least one other person singing along with the lead.

Sorry for the long ramble. I'm adjusting from the idea that auto-tune is always bad to the idea that nearly everyone is using it to some extent.