Watching the video, I'm not convinced that the band were the ones applying the vocal-tuning to this performance. Speaking from a music-production standpoint, I'm not inherently against tuning the vocals on a recording.. If my choice is between encouraging a vocalist to get really into their performance (to the emotional benefit of the delivery), with the caveat that I'll likely have to go in afterwords and fix any distracting pitch issues vs. having the vocalist re-sing the parts until the pitch is perfect but they're emotionally bored of the lyrics.. I'll absolutely go with the tuning option every time.. but the tuning is always performed after the fact, because the process is more accurate that way and would definitely distract the singer / pull them emotionally out of the performance if done live. Also, it would make no practical sense to record potential tuning mistakes when a pure capture is more advantageous. That being said, in any live situation on the scale of Rock in Rio, the sound is going to be split at least three ways from the stage. All of the lines from the stage will be fed into a common snake which will then split separate feeds to the monitor engineer for the band's in-ears, the Front of House engineer mixing the show for the live audience, and in the case of a broadcast, a third split would be sent to a sound-truck to be mixed for broadcast/recording. The sound/mix that we hear on the broadcast or recording of a live performance (from anything: MTV, a late-night show, an awards show, a DVD, or a big outdoor festival) is not the same mix that the audience hears (or did hear).. which brings me to my point: I would find it hard to believe that any singer would be un-phased or un-effected when the note they are singing isn't the same as the note that they are hearing back. In the video, Chester doesn't seem to react to the pitch-weirdness at all, which leads me to believe that he isn't hearing the tuning in his monitors. Now, I can't say with any certainty that the audience wasn't hearing it, but there's an equal if not slightly more probable chance that the tuning was added by the broadcast engineer rather than from the stage (especially considering that, as stated earlier, it appears as if the unit was improperly set for the key of the song. Something that simple would have been dealt with during rehearsals).
I don't know if auto-tuning was used or not, I'm not exactly an expert on these things, but if it was: who cares? I think Chester is an amazing vocalist. We've all heard him sing without a mic (LPU Summits, LPTV's) and he still sounds great. If auto-tune was used on GATS, then maybe it's because he's not used to singing the song live yet and the auto-tune will be dropped later on.
that doesnt make much sense, chester is indeed a great singer, and thats another reason why he shouldnt use autotune, using autotune live is cheating. its very unlikely that they would use it because chester is not used to the song, its an easy song after all. using autotune means that they are not that good live... otherwise they wouldnt need it.
Honestly speaking, I went back and tried listening to the performances again and I cannot find any autotune. I'm inclined to agree that Iridescent's gang vocals might be pre-recorded since they sound perfect all the time. If someone could point it out where exactly in which performance did they think LP used autotune, I'd be thankful.
lol did LP's facebook account got hacked?? They are posting stuff like "The Worst Girlfriend Text FAILS (34 Photos)" and other stupid shit http://thecomputerpedia.blogspot.in/2014/06/linkin-park-official-facebook-page.html
I can't say for sure whether or not Chester hears the pitch-corrected vocals in his IEMs (depends on their signal chain and what he chooses to have in his personal mix - generally singers don't have vocal effects in their monitors though), but it's definitely not just something that happened on the Rock in Rio webcast. You can hear the same Auto Tune glitch heard on the webcast at 4:25 in this audience video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFegbqP0NP4 So that rules out that it was a webcast-only thing, and the audience did hear it as well. Also, check out 3:21 of this video from Tucson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elnyiZKjqZ4 Same thing, just not QUITE as prominent. I think they may have tweaked some plugin settings between Tucson and Lisbon and turned up the sensitivity on the Auto Tune. Evidently, they overshot it and toned it back down a little after Lisbon, because the St. Petersburg performance sounded much more natural. It's also possible that, knowing this show was going to be aired live with soundboard-quality audio, they may have elected to use the Auto Tune more liberally for this show specifically, for the sake of presenting a better-sounding product to a live Internet audience. If they were recording a performance for a live CD for example, they'd certainly go in and fix stuff like that after the fact (fun project: compare the DSP recording of Milton Keynes 2008 with the Road to Revolution DVD and see how many fixes you can spot!), but with this one being a simulcast, they had to do it all in real time. LP has been using pre-recorded backing vocals on certain tracks since A Thousand Suns. Songs that have them: Burning in the Skies ("ohh" part in the chorus), When They Come For Me ("hey hey" chant in the outro), Waiting For the End ("ohh" harmonies in the chorus), Wretches and Kings ("hey hey" chant in the pre-chorus), Iridescent (gang vocals), Lost in the Echo ("ohh" harmonies in the chorus), In My Remains ("one by one" gang vocals in the last chorus). http://www.lpassociation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40568&page=2&p=1310402&viewfull=1#post1310402 - "Every time Chester sings those C# notes in the verses ("think we should" and "do what you" in the first verse, and "hands are un-" and "cannot be" in the second verse), the Auto Tune plugin mistakenly "snaps" those notes up to D, because it thinks the C# notes shouldn't be there." Referring to the verse of Guilty All the Same, most easily heard on the Rock in Rio webcast.
I am sorry but I don't think GATS is autotuned at all. Have you seen the newer performances? Chester literally scream sings those verses. It's just how he is singing it.