Auto-Tune is a proprietary[2] audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise off-key inaccuracies and mistakes, and has allowed singers to perform perfectly tuned vocal tracks without the need of singing in tune. While its main purpose is to slightly bend sung pitches to the nearest true semitone (to the exact pitch of the nearest tone in traditional equal temperament), Auto-Tune can be used as an effect to distort the human voice when pitch is raised/lowered significantly.[3]
Auto-Tune is available as a plug-in for professional audio multi-tracking suites used in a studio setting, and as a stand-alone, rack-mounted unit for live performance processing.[4] Auto-Tune has become standard equipment in professional recording studios.[5]
Auto-Tune was initially created by Andy Hildebrand, an engineer working for Exxon. Hildebrand developed methods for interpreting seismic data, and subsequently realized that the technology could be used to detect, analyze, and modify pitch.[3]
Contents[hide]
1 In popular music
2 Criticism
2.1 Artist backlash
3 See also
4 References
5 External links
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[edit] In popular music
According to the Boston Herald, "Country stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have both confessed to using Auto-Tune in performance, claiming it is a safety net that guarantees a good performance.[6] Sara Evans, John Michael Montgomery and Gary LeVox of the group Rascal Flatts also rely on Auto-Tune to compensate for pitch problems. However, other country music singers, such as Loretta Lynn, Allison Moorer, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Martina McBride, and Patty Loveless, have refused to use Auto-Tune.[7][clarification needed].
Auto-Tune was also used to produce the prominent altered vocal effect on Cher's "Believe," recorded in 1998. When first interviewed about this, the sound engineers claimed that they had used a vocoder, in what Sound on Sound perceived as an attempt to preserve a trade secret.[8] After the massive success of "Believe," many artists imitated the technique. It was evident in songs of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Some notable examples are Gigi D'Agostino's "La Passion", Jennifer Lopez Darkchild Remix of If You Had My Love, Janet Jackson's US #1 hit "All For You," among many others. After years of relative dormancy, the effect was revived in the mid-2000s by R&B singer T-Pain, who elaborated on the effect in contemporary popular music by making active use of it in his songs, a style that has since gone on to be imitated by numerous other R&B and pop artists.[9]
[edit] Criticism
Opponents of the plug-in argue Auto-Tune has a pervasive negative effect on society's perception and consumption of music. A 2003 Chicago Tribune reported that "many successful mainstream artists in most genres of music—perhaps a majority of artists—are using pitch correction".[10] In 2009, Time magazine quoted an unnamed Grammy-winning recording engineer as saying, "Let's just say I've had Auto-Tune save vocals on...Bollywood soundtrack albums. And every singer now presumes that you'll just run their voice through the box." The same article expressed "hope that pop's fetish for uniform perfect pitch will fade", speculating that pop-music songs have become harder to differentiate from one another, as "track after track has perfect pitch."[11][12] Timothy Powell, a producer/engineer stated in 2003 that he is "even starting to see vocal tuning devices show up in concert settings"; he states that "That's more of an ethical dilemma—people pay a premium dollar to see artists and artists want people to see them at their best."[10] In 2004, The Daily Telegraph music critic Neil McCormick called Auto-Tune a "particularly sinister invention that has been putting extra shine on pop vocals since the 1990s" by taking "a poorly sung note and transpos[ing] it, placing it dead center of where it was meant to be".[13] The American television series Glee has become famous for regularly using the system in its songs. E! Online's Joal Ryan criticized the show for its "overproduced soundtrack", in particular, complaining that many songs rely too heavily on the software, noting: "For every too-brief moment of Lea Michele sounding raw—and lovely—on a "What a Girl Wants," or Monteith singing a perfectly credible REO Speedwagon in the shower, there's Michele and Monteith sounding like 1990s-era Cher on "No Air," or Monteith sounding like the Monteith XRZ-200 on the out-of-the-shower version of "Can't Fight This Feeling".[14]
[edit] Artist backlash
As early as 2003, the CD Miss Fortune by singer-songwriter Allison Moorer was released with a sticker stating that "Absolutely no vocal tuning or pitch correction was used in the making of this record".[10] At the 51st Grammy Awards in early 2009, the band Death Cab for Cutie made an appearance wearing blue ribbons to protest the use of Auto-Tune in the music industry.[15] Later that spring, Jay-Z titled the lead single of his album The Blueprint 3 "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)". Jay-Z elaborated that he wrote the song under the personal belief that far too many people had jumped on the Auto-Tune bandwagon and that the trend had become a gimmick.[16][17] Christina Aguilera appeared in public in Los Angeles on August 10, 2009 wearing a T-shirt that read, "Auto Tune is for Pussies",[18] but when interviewed by Sirius/XM, she stated that auto tune wasn't bad if used "..in a creative way", noting that her album Bionic uses the technology and highlighted "Elastic Love" being a product of it.[19]
[edit] See also