Autotune

Turn on the radio and you will hear it, but you will not notice it. The fact is most people do not even know about it. What is it? The tool that makes anyone sing like a pro. But let me start at the beginning.

Back in 1998 Cher released the song "Believe". It was a great song but more importantly it had this weird robotic effect to it. That effect was a result of a program called Autotune and it was the first time the world heard it. It was such a new technology that the producers denied it's existence, instead claiming they used vocoders to create the effect. So how does it work?

Autotune is basically a pitch correcting software. It can alter the pitch of the human voice and even instruments. It's clever because it identifies the pitch and "snaps" it to the nearest note. It can even be programmed to snap the notes to the correct scale. It can either be used in automatic mode (hence the name) or, for fine tuning, the notes can be corrected manually on a graph. Now comes the interesting part....the tuning speed can be adjusted. No one can sing perfectly in tune; our pitch constantly varies when we sing even when we sing the correct notes. So with a slow speed the notes are corrected gradually thus maintaining the natural sound of the voice. However, when the speed is set to the max, it snaps the notes with absolutely no transition between them (a la Cher) and thats why you can make a voice sound robotic.

Great! It's an awesome, powerful tool, but is it not deceitful? Cher used it as an effect but what we are seeing nowadays is that every song is Autotuned. It's so well done that you cannot hear it unless you listen carefully. What if you were told that your favourite artist cannot really sing and relies on this technology to sound good? I would be pretty bummed. The truth is that 99% of songs being released now have had at least some Autotuning in them. My point is that it is deceitful and now getting really annoying. I mean nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying. Nobody sounds natural anymore! These techo-enhanced, robotic-sounding, pitch-perfect songs now just sound AWFUL. Make no mistake, I revere the software but hate the fact that everyone uses it ALL the time. 

I am a lover of music pre-1990s. I have just bought 3 vinyls which are amazing! But what is even more amazing is that it sounds so natural; you can HEAR the talent! On one of the albums, Chris de Burgh does not hit most of the notes correctly, but it does not matter! (Also listen to Kim Wilde's "Cambodia". Nothing wrong with the song, but she misses notes left, right and center....and who cares?)

It's time for the music industry to bring back good quality music with artists who actually HAVE talent! 

Here is a list of artists/songs where Autotune is very noticable and overused:

>T-pain

>Akon

>Usher-OMG

>The Glee Cast (Oh yes, MAJOR vocal processing!)

>B.E.P- Boom Boom Pow

>Lady Gaga (all songs but esp. "Starstruck")

>Taylor Swift

>Ke$ha (Ain't got not money in my pocket but I'm al-r-r-e-e-a-d-y here)

>Daft Punk- Around the world, One More Time

>Madonna- American Life

>Britney Spears (Autotune slut!)

>Sean Kingston (listen carefully)

It's a shame that such respected names cannot even hold a note. 

For a laugh, click the link to see the power of the program (the vid is funny as hell!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk4AEoARazg