If you’ve got half an hour to spare, this is a fascinating piece by Simon Reynolds. Appreciate Auto-Tune may not have a lot of fans here, but it’s a detailed exploration of how it works and is utilised by all sorts of different artists.
https://pitchfork.com/features/article/how-auto-tune-revolutionized-the-sound-of-popular-music/
atcf says
>>>>>>>>>
Paul Wad says
I shall read that at bedtime. Before reading it I’d say that in the right place it is effective, but the other 95% of the time it’s just grating. It’s totally overused in hip hop. From what I hear of my daughter’s records it’s used on them all! I’ll let you know if Reynolds sways me, if that’s the point of his article.
Arthur Cowslip says
He didn’t sway me. I think he’s basically being open minded about it (although he does use the term ‘rockist’ for anyone who has a reductionist approach to ‘authenticity’ in pop music – a teeny bit insulting, I thought).
I can perhaps tentatively agree that auto tune only sounds unnatural to my ears in the same way slap back echo would sound to the ears of someone used to pre-Elvis music…. but but but…. my heart tells me it’s just not comparable. I FEEL like I’m generally against auto tune and I feel in the right for being so – modern pop production (of which auto tune is a big part, but see also quantisation and compression) just sounds self-evidently less vibrant and dynamic.
Or maybe I’m just a rockist and I can’t recognise my own prejudices.
Barry Blue says
Excellent piece, cheers atcf. Doesn’t make me want to hear any more autotuned twaddle, mind.
Paul Wad says
No, didn’t make me want to listen to any of the pop poppets or any of the chart pop rap. As I said though, in some cases it can sound good. I think Kanye West uses it to good effect.. But whole albums of it from artists that don’t have tracks as good as Kanye West (I was expecting to hate his music, but actually quite like it) can be very grating.
But I guess it’s like plastic surgery, i.e. It works best when you can’t really notice it’s there (see Cheryl Whateverhernameisnowadays).
Black Celebration says
Does Around the World by Daft Punk count as autotune ?
minibreakfast says
I think that makes use of a vocoder, or maybe a talkbox.
Moose the Mooche says
Or a ROBOT!
Moose the Mooche says
In the good old days if you couldn’t reliably hold a tune, you double-tracked your voice in the hope that at least one of them would be in pitch. Hello Ian Brown.
Sniffity says
Heard an interview with Charlie XCX the other day – she considers Autotune to be a vital studio tool, in fact, she wouldn’t record any vocals unless she can twiddle around with them (on account of having a tuneless voice, by her own admission).
Moose the Mooche says
Something tells me that if you can’t sing, then maybe you should be doing something with your life other than being a “singer”.
Otherwise it’s like an athlete who insists on going round the track on a moped.
Other maungy old bloke opinions are available.
fishface says
Thanks Moose….I now have coffee on my tablet.
Mike_H says
I suppose it could alleviate a difficult situation for someone who can write good music and lyrics but isn’t much of an instrumentalist and has a duff singing voice.
Moose the Mooche says
Well, just keep that to the demos – then the only people who have to hear it are nerds listening to it buried in some 20th anniversary box set.
fentonsteve says
When my daughter was at an age where she listened to Charli XCX, I came to appreciate her talents for writing and producing a catchy tune. If she was an ugly bloke, possibly with a beard, she’s be a back-room producer. But she’s a pretty lass who looks good in a short skirt, so she gets to go front and centre. She’s got her head screwed on, takes no crap from anybody, and is a positive role model for young girls.
She’s still only 26, so she has a potential career in songwriting and production to look forward to when the crows feet hit.
Leicester Bangs says
I hate it. I hate the sound of it. And anything that allows that Catch Me Outside girl — Daniella whatsername — to make a record must be 100 per cent evil.
Twang says
I hate it as an effect, mind you I generally hate the genres it’s used in so I’d probably hate those tracks anyway. I agree with Tracy Thorn in her book where she talks about this and makes the point that if you do a great vocal with one or two wobbly notes, why not fix them rather than do it over and over again until you have a technically perfect but soulless vocal. Fair enough. But there are a load of people who shouldn’t be making records at all because being able to sing matters. Which probably opens up the discussion about whether being a pop star really requires singing ability amongst all the other things – posing, prancing about in underwear etc.
Pre-autotune engineers would record around 5 passes through the song and do a comp taking the best lines from each take to get a good compiled vocal. Or indeed “dropping in” the odd word or phrase. Is this any different? Does anyone think what’s on a record was all perfect single takes?
Fine lines etc.
dai says
It is different because using different takes or dropping lines in is still using the artist’s natural voice, not a variation of it using a computer.
Sniffity says
Hmmmm
Fun fact: that set-up surrounding Winslow is a real synthesiser system, dubbed “Tonto”, short for The Original New Timbral Orchestra.
Moose the Mooche says
Daft Punk again.
minibreakfast says
I heard what I presume is the new Rod Stewart single on the radio today. It’s autotuned to hell.
mrxsg says
I’ve been using Auto-Tune for years.
It’s just another studio tool. I could tune a whole vocal track and you’d never know.
It won’t make a bad singer sound good but it will correct a great delivery slightly marred by a bit of dodgy tuning.
Of course, like any bit of kit, you’re free to use and abuse it in any way you like which is good. That’s how people come up with new sounds and ideas.
However, in overzealous hands, it can turn a vocal into something so perfect and sickly that it makes you feel nauseous. Think Michael Buble.
davebigpicture says
I heard Buble sing live briefly yesterday. Perfectly in tune.
Arthur Cowslip says
Yeah. Don’t burst the Buble.
mrxsg says
Have you listened to the production on the records? Saccharine.
Moose the Mooche says
You have different taste in music from Gerald the Gorilla.
mrxsg says
I’m sadly unfamiliar with most of Johny Mathis’s work.
Moose the Mooche says
I only know his feet.
Moose the Mooche says
…well I thought that was funny…
davebigpicture says
Some of you with time on your hands may find this interesting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01shwkq
Mike_H says
By about 2/3 the way through the article I got too bored with it to continue.
However:
First point. Why should the human voice be prohibited from being altered in certain ways but not in others?
It’s okay to add echo, reverb, compression, multi-tracking even phasing but not alteration of pitch?
Second point. Just about every other musical instrument’s sound can be and often is put through devices that do all kinds of things, including pitch-alteration, either live or after recording, but voices are not?
Third point. Just about every known musical and non-musical sound, including sampled voices, can now be programmed via software to be assembled in any chosen pitch, key or sequence into a track of music, without anything being performed live during that track’s creation except the construction itself. Adding a live Auto-Tuned vocal track on top could be the most “real” thing on it.
As with everything else in music, it boils down to personal taste. I don’t like to hear it used gratuitously or just to lazily follow a trend, myself. I’m sure it gets subtly and undetectably used in lots of recordings and I don’t mind that at all.
mrxsg says
Well said, Mike.
The Good Doctor says
I hate the grating, rasping tone of autotune and I’ve hated it ever since I heard the bloody awful Cher record. It’s boringly ubiquitous and I think it just sounds fucking rubbish and gets an instant turn off from me if you use it on your song- just my personal taste. Maybe some people hate the Vocoder. Maybe some hate Reverb, Echo, Chorus, Flange, Phasers and Fuzz pedals too. I love all those.
That said, in some ways it’s no different to the way 60s producers would deliberately speed records up to get a more urgent feel to the track, or Lennon would insist on double-tracking all his vocals to get that slapback effect and no doubt the Beatles would have gone to town on it if they’d had it 1967 – imagine what Joe Meek would have done with it?!
I’ve no doubt it’s been subtly used on a lot of records I like. Worse though is when it gets used like this, not clear whether it’s to tidy up the wayward vocal or add some sort of modern pop gloss to an old tune but – fucking hell. Don’t watch this.
Moose the Mooche says
Who could hate flange?
I personally can’t get enough of it.
retropath2 says
I should have listened to you, DV, I should. By all that is holy, ain’t that the most flatulent piece of rodent poo ever placed on my mind’s ear of a great song. And I don’t even mean the shitty auto-tune we are directed to, it is all the whooping and self-revering priapic onanism of this entire travesty of and by Love. Cripes, if I were Al or Brian I’d kill him, glad that Dennis and Carl would never have to bear witness thereto. I presume Bruce was there somewhere, but I didn’t see him, maybe doing his initials in his pants with embarrassment. Hell, if I was Mike Love I’d kill myself. No wonder people don’t like the Beach Boys, presented with this evidence that gives them due credence.
Here’s a live version from 1979
count jim moriarty says
Wasn’t that Bruce in the red and white check shirt? I reckon so, although the camera carefully avoids him. He’s spent so long as Mike Love’s lickspittle that I don’t think he has any shame left.
retropath2 says
And a spine tingling one from it’s author and his daughters.