What is Auto Tuning?
Ever wondered how someone sounded amazing on record but not that in live performance. The reason is Auto-Tune, a pitch correcting software designed to smooth out any off-key notes in a singer’s vocal track.
In 1998, “Believe” by Cher became a worldwide hit smashing all the records and with that the first rising to prominence as a 1960s folk artist, the 52-year-old Cher was once again climbing the charts. And the song became her best selling record ever.
“And I can’t break through. There’s no talking to you.” — “Believe” — Cher
It happened exactly 36 seconds into the song — a glimpse of the shape of pop to come, a feel of the fabric of the future we now inhabit. The phrase “I can’t break through” turned crystalline like the singer suddenly disappeared behind frosted glass. That sparkly special effect reappeared in the next verse, but this time a robotic warble wobbled, “So sa-a-a-ad that you’re leaving.”
Who developed Auto-Tune?
Before Harold introduced Auto-Tune to singers, he worked at Exxon Mobil for 17 long years looking for oil. He makes finding oil easy with the help of sound.
Ok, let me explain how?
Exploration crews would set off underground dynamite charges, and then, using a technique known as autocorrelation, they would measure the pitch of returning sound waves and use the data to pinpoint oil-rich areas. Traditionally, oil companies discovered oil at the end of a drill bit. Exploration crews would roam the seafloor and the countryside, repeatedly boring into the ground until they struck something interesting. With Hildebrand’s innovation, they could now get a good idea of the subsurface long before breaking ground.
Exxon Mobil saved $$$ with this technique, and Harold earned $$$.
After leaving Exxon and returning to study music in 1989, Dr. Hildebrand founded Antares Audio Technologies.
Auto-tune was born and first made available in 1997. Released as both software and hardware, audio engineers could purchase and install a plug-in or get the rack mount known as the ATR-1.
Finally, Auto-Tune made it to Music Industry đź‘“
There was a time when singers rarely get perfect vocals in one go, traditionally studio engineers obtained clean, polished vocals on a song by making the artist record the vocals dozens of times — then, they edited the best parts together.
And with the Auto-Tune coming into the market and with fast pace engineers were getting hands on it. Now engineers don’t rely on endless re-recordings to obtain perfect vocals. And they were like:
The singer’s last note was a little flat?
The engineer simply calls up the full performance on a computer screen and, using a mouse, digitally “nudges” wrong notes into the right key.
The new program saved time and money, and, according to Hildebrand, it made for better music. Here’s what Hildebrand told the Seattle Times in 2009:
“Before Auto-Tune, sound studios would spend a lot of time with singers, getting them on the pitch, and getting a good emotional performance. Now they just do the emotional performance, they don’t worry about the pitch, the singer goes home, and they fix it in the mix” [source: Matson].
Auto-Tune and the CONTROVERSY âť—âť—âť—
There were two groups, in this case, one in favor and others who called it a way to cheat. Cher and T-Pain are two pop singers who gifted Andy’s invention amazing popularity and both of these singers made great hits of their whole career, so it was a win-win till now.
On the other hand, Jay-Z was against the use of it. He gave D.O.A (Death Of Autotune), hitting the digital craze.
“I know we facin’ a recession, but the music y’all makin’ gonna make it the great depression … get back to rap, you T-Painin’ too much.”
In interviews, Jay-Z claimed Auto-Tune was becoming a musical crutch that was spoiling otherwise good tracks. “I just think in hip-hop, when a trend becomes a gimmick, it’s time to move on,” he told a Chicago radio station.
VERDICT: One of the more annoying properties of inventions is that you can’t uninvent them.
You can always pretend they don’t exist by banning them, but knowledge is clever stuff and will easily outmaneuver such dull thinking.
Take the nuclear bomb. Creating the technology that has the capacity to obliterate us might seem, in hindsight, a bad idea. And no matter how many non-proliferation treaties the Western world’s lawyers rustle up, we will forever live in the sinister shadow of a nuclear armageddon until somebody invents a device to erase our collective memory — one that isn’t a nuclear bomb.
Back to our topic, I think Autotune should not be considered as cheating. A singer’s voice is just another instrument that has already been enhanced by the use of technology over the years. Almost nobody minds when a microphone is used to capture a singer’s sound and then regurgitate it through a set of speakers, an amplification process that interferes with the purity of the natural voice.
So what’s the problem with another addition to the musical technology that can improve the audience’s aural experience?
Thank You 🙂