Stop tuning, start singing
Artists should stop using the Auto-Tune or the "T-Pain Effect" in their music
Ethan Walker
Issue date: 4/28/10 Section: Editorial
If anyone has listened to pop music recently, one might notice that many artists seem to be grade-A singers. These singers owe their thanks not to a great singing coach, but to musical software known as Auto-Tune. In the last few years Auto-Tune, or Photoshop for the voice as Time Magazine's Josh Tyrangiel puts it, has taken the music industry by storm. However, Auto-Tune has been around for a lot longer than one might think. Artists have used Auto-Tune to help create a pitch-perfect voice since 1996 and they all have Andy Hildebrand to thank.
After retiring from the oil industry at age 40, Hildebrand decided to take his autocorrelation machine that helped locate potential drill sites by sending sound waves through the ground and turn it into a voice-tinkering box. After a few months of work, the Auto-Tune was born. Not too long after that did the atrocious single "Believe" by the pop diva Cher begin playing on the radio. This was the first major hit to feature the Auto-Tune and its effects. The Auto-Tune created a robotic sound that later would be known as the "Cher Effect" (oh so clever) and now, after the monstrous success of T-Pain, renamed "The T-Pain Effect." Now, with artists ranging from Britney Spears to the rap/punk rock band Brokencyde using Auto-Tune (whose horrific and frequent use of Auto-Tune on tracks like "Freaxx" and "Get Crunk" make me want to vomit and whimper in a corner), has the industry become too reliant on this incredible software?
Of course they have. There are a select few (T-Pain, The Dream, Owl City, etc.) that have utilized this ubiquitous technology to make themselves sound unique and original. However the number of creative artists like that is very small. There are others, like Tim McGraw, Miley Cyrus and the great Billy Joel (if you don't believe me YouTube: Billy Joel national anthem) that have used the Auto-Tune to help correct off-pitch singing. The real crime is that many of these artists don't need to correct their pitch.
After retiring from the oil industry at age 40, Hildebrand decided to take his autocorrelation machine that helped locate potential drill sites by sending sound waves through the ground and turn it into a voice-tinkering box. After a few months of work, the Auto-Tune was born. Not too long after that did the atrocious single "Believe" by the pop diva Cher begin playing on the radio. This was the first major hit to feature the Auto-Tune and its effects. The Auto-Tune created a robotic sound that later would be known as the "Cher Effect" (oh so clever) and now, after the monstrous success of T-Pain, renamed "The T-Pain Effect." Now, with artists ranging from Britney Spears to the rap/punk rock band Brokencyde using Auto-Tune (whose horrific and frequent use of Auto-Tune on tracks like "Freaxx" and "Get Crunk" make me want to vomit and whimper in a corner), has the industry become too reliant on this incredible software?
Of course they have. There are a select few (T-Pain, The Dream, Owl City, etc.) that have utilized this ubiquitous technology to make themselves sound unique and original. However the number of creative artists like that is very small. There are others, like Tim McGraw, Miley Cyrus and the great Billy Joel (if you don't believe me YouTube: Billy Joel national anthem) that have used the Auto-Tune to help correct off-pitch singing. The real crime is that many of these artists don't need to correct their pitch.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 2
F. Lombardo
posted 4/28/10 @ 4:15 PM CST
Your statement that Billy Joel used an auto-tune while singing the national anthem at the super bowl is patently false. This misinformation has been repeated so often that people now accept it as fact. (Continued…)
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