Why autotune

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There is a lot to be said for the unadorned human voice. So Auto-Tune is really like any another effect. There is nothing wrong with using it judiciously.

In fact, it can save a lot of time and money in the studio. Rely on it too much, and you risk sounding kind of ridiculous. Either way, Auto-Tune is here to stay. That is, until the next big game-changing piece of technology comes along. Is Auto-Tune a useful tool? Is it an effect?

It can be all of these things. It is to be used by the audio engineer, and it is up to the listener whether they accept the use of Auto-Tune as a parlor trick or amazing effect. Auto-Tune has become mainstream, and maybe in the future, artists and audio engineers will advertise that it was not used. Dr Seuss told a story about the Sneetches and how when one Sneetch got a star on their belly, they were unique.

Then every Sneetch followed suit and got a star on their belly. The reverse happened and those not adding a star to their belly became the unique ones.

While it is designed for pitch correction on a small and subtle scale, it was used much more aggressively at the cost of transparency from pretty much the start of its history. The heavily affected pitch of autotuned vocals in pop music has led to much controversy among musicians and listeners.

Singing, what was once a skill could be done by pretty much anyone now, pitch-perfect. People argue that autotune removed all the skill from singing as well as destroying the minute inaccuracies that were the soul of many songs. The slight inaccuracies that are so very human about music were now gone.

Pop music, an already over-processed genre now had robotic-sounding vocals which became harder to relate to due to their unnatural sound. Some musicians such as T-Pain took it a step further and pioneered his sound using the extreme aggressive setting of autotune, completely removing any life from his sound. Pop music during the late 90s and early noughties took on a very childish sound.

Especially as the industry was trying to figure out the use of the effect, it became a dark time for pop music.