Auto-tune: What You Need To Know

The technological craze that has taken over the music industry for longer than a decade known as "auto-tune" has been a point of contention for many artists. Nowadays, some artists will even go out of their way to state that their album wasn't created with auto-tune, while some artists will even use it in live performances. Here we discuss the origins, uses and impact of auto-tune.

Auto-tune was created in the early 2000s using earthquake detecting technology. The software takes any "out of tune" notes and nudges them to the closest "in tune" note. What some people may not realize is that although auto-tune does make you sound in tune, you do have to sing "okay" initially for the software to work properly. If not, there will be a weird warbling effect, which many artists do on purpose anyway.

Auto-tune can be very useful in a studio setting where time is money. If your singer does a great take but messes up on just one note, instead of taking the time to rerecord everything, you can auto-tune the one wrong note, saving time. Ethically, however, it can play a factor into understanding the actual skills of an artist. Before auto-tune, a performer had to sing in tune, all the time, no excuses (or face sounding terrible). Nowadays, performers have an unparalleled luxury of not having to worry about singing in tune. Is this ok, or is it detracting from the integrity of artists who don't use auto-tune?

This may be an extreme example, but it is one of the many reasons music teachers don't like to teach pop music (in my opinion anyway.) There's nothing wrong with liking the music, but I wouldn't want my students idolizing someone who needs severe help singing in tune! As you can see, auto-tune does help in the big picture of a recording, but it may be detracting from hard working, talented singers who don't use the software.