It’s not hard to understand why artists flocked to it, but what is the allure to listeners? You can’t sing along to auto-tuned vocals and many of the songs employing it sound like generic mechanized copies of each other. Do record labels push it on artists because it edges artists one step closer to redundant? Who can distinguish between artists if they’re all auto-tuned?
Latest offender - Rock that body by Blackeyed Peas. Godawful song, the woman sounds like one of Alvin’s chipmunks.
To be honest, I couldn’t tell you without comparing the two versions, which was auto-tuned. Maybe because I sing in choirs where being in tune is crucial, so I’m just more comfortable when things are in tune…I do notice when someone has trouble with a pitch, so maybe I just don’t notice auto-tune because nothing jumps out as “wrong”. People on this board are always complaining about auto-tune on Glee, but I never seem to notice anything horrible. What should I be listening for to recognize when it is being used?
Now if their voice is distorted like Cher’s was in the Wiki example…that I’d notice. I haven’t heard the Black-eyed Peas song you refer to.
I think it’s kind of like tattoos/piercings/hair dye, etc. There seems to be more of a desire to modify one’s natural appearance fairly radically these days. I don’t see why that attitude wouldn’t also carry over to singing voices. Also, if you put a natural-sounding, naturally recorded voice up against the massively over-produced pop music of the day, it doesn’t hold up to it as easily as the jacked stuff.
Auto Tune, like all special effects, works best when you have no idea it’s been used. It’s easy to point out when it’s been used badly, but I’d venture to say that 90% of the recordings made in the last decade have some use of it, generally so subtle that you don’t notice it.
Of course, it’s also possible to intentionally “over-use” it as a sound effect, rather than to correct a pitch. I’ve heard a few uses of it like that that I think sound neat, but generally it’s just not my style. And there’s something wearying about that kind of use, for my ear. I hear too much of it and I just feel twitchy and worn out. I don’t know if there are natural frequencies lost or what, but it’s nearly physically painful to listen to too much of it.
kittenblue, it’s just a “metallic” sound if it’s done poorly. I don’t know any other way to describe it. Perhaps a sound engineer can enlighten us as to what’s actually happening to the sound sample when Auto Tune is used.
I also think it’s making for lazy singers and presenting an unattainable ideal to young people who think that it’s possible to actually do some of the singing they hear on the radio, and may think they “can’t sing” when they can’t match it. So that’s my curmudgeonly reason for not liking it much.
To quote Cristina Aguilera’s T-shirt, “Autotuners are for Pussies!” Look, if you can’t hit the notes, why are you a professional musician to begin with? Plenty of underemployed vocalists would love to take the spots of hacks who limp along with these things!
Oh, crap. I misread the title, I thought it was “Why don’t people like auto-tuned vocals.” I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean to threadshit.
What I think is funny is that in the Wikepedia article on it, it states:
“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.”
Like it wasn’t a gimmick to start with? Sure it was, when Cher first used it.
I like it. Couldn’t really tell you why, except that it’s simply pleasing to hear. I like that metallic tinge. It can be overused and used poorly, but I can’t tell you how many times I listened to Cher’s song just to hear the few lines where it really stands out, and I am not a Cher fan.
But then, I like modern architecture too, which is universally reviled here, so take my opinion for what it’s worth.
Wait, why can’t you sing along to autotuned songs?
Go ahead…try. 
(4:15 is where the Auto-Tune gets going.) Of course, this singer actually hit all those notes, but not in that order or at that speed. Auto-Tune (or a similar program) was used to put them together in a chain that the human larynx is just incapable of. That, in my book, was a **great **use of Auto-Tune.
I love that scene from that movie!
This^^^
Autotune is one of the reasons that Glee makes me all stabby stabby. The worst example was the “Defying Gravity” sing-off in which one of the characters “cracks a note” - but can’t really because the autotune corrects it!
Cher, rather her massive hit Believe, brought autotune from a trade secret to a known fact. They used it as a gimick in that song.
People don’t like to admit they use gimicks. But this is just another in a long tool of voice altering tools.
Like Diana Ross and her massive take/splice it recordings. Ross is known to make many takes of a song and then have engineers splice them together. I read Billboard that both songs “Upside Down” and “Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)”
there isn’t more than 10 seconds worth of one take in either song. The songs are many takes all spliced together.
What’s interesting is if you listen to songs by old time singers like Dinah Shore and Jo Stafford, sing live on radio then listen to their recorded studio versions, the songs are very close if not for all purposes the same.
But now-a-days you rarely find any singer who can match their live vocals to studio vocals. Which isn’t always fraud. Sometimes it’s just a matter of training. Singers of today don’t have to train their voices like they did in the past.
well unless it’s fake, i guess someone did try. :eek:
Pretty darn close, I’m impressed. But lots of scooping* and a few flats, and she doesn’t make the lower register work well, IMHO. Still, it’s *very *impressive!
*Sliding from one note to another, instead of finishing one and breaking it off before starting the next. That’s what the human voice does when the music is fast; the Auto-Tune gives a clean break - an actual microsecond moment of silence, making each note distinct.
i think i broke a few blood vessels between my eyebrows just watching her.
You’re under the mistaken impression that singing along has anything to do with matching the melody.
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Autotuning doesn’t bother me, not that I listen to much music. It’s just another vocal style.