"If I'm a professional singer, I don't want to say, 'Hey, nice to see ya. I've got this thing on my sound board that makes my voice sound a little more accurate,' " Mr. Adams said.
Alex Andronache manages a roster of record producers for management agency Worlds End Canada.
He said he first noticed the use of autotuners a few years ago when he took his daughter to see Britney Spears in Toronto.
He couldn't help but notice three Antares tuners lined up in a row at the engineer's sound board that evening. But he said he couldn't say for certain they were there for her vocals. They could also be used to tune backup singers or their instruments.
The driving force behind this trend has been the fans themselves, who now have a more educated ear and can tell if something is off-key, industry experts said.
To attract concert-goers, artists will do whatever it takes sometimes to please demanding customers, who often pay upwards of $100 a ticket to hear their favourite musicians.
The presumption that autotuning is somehow cheating is just that, proponents argue, since the technology won't transform a bad singer into a good one.
"If you're a bad singer and sing out of tune, it'll turn you into a bad singer who's now singing in tune," Antares's Mr. Alpert said.
Until recently, autotuners or pitch-correction tools have been mostly used in the recording studio. Most albums nowadays are made using the autotuner, which is also found in computer-based recording systems to fix flat notes and off-key vocals or to create an entire performance by digitally cutting and pasting numerous takes. Its ubiquitous presence has courted criticism sometimes from the very people who use the technology.
"I think it's abused," said Daryn Barry, who has mixed or engineered music for Blue Rodeo and the Weakerthans and has used the autotuner in an album he is producing with Toronto singer-songwriter Lindy. "But I think like any tool that's fairly new that people will hopefully get sick of [it]."
Mr. Barry said he relies on the autotuner when a musician's performance is nearly flawless except for that one flat note "that's going to drive everyone crazy" or when there are time constraints. In the old days, it would take months to make a record.
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Article comments
1 - andy
Don't knock it completely though. It has it's purpose. I used it on my last album for the horns. I forgot to buy a new reed and my sax kept going out of tune. Thank God for auto-tuner then!
2 - Mark
"Toronto's National Newspaper"?
A better wording might be "Canada's Toronto-based National Newspaper", lest someone think that Toronto has become a nation.
3 - TDavid
I love to play music, have written and composed many songs, but am resigned to the fact that I will likely always be a lousy singer.
I would go for something that would take my vocals and make them tolerable ;) Not necessarily so that I could have a lottery's chance of becoming "a star" myself, but so that my songs could have a chance of being seriously heard, reviewed and possibly of use to professional artists someday.
Isn't that every creative person's dream? To be recognized for their work?
These autotoners, if affordably priced of course, could do wonders for sites like mp3.com where amateurs go and post their music.
As for major acts like say Ozzy using an autotoner? I wouldn't mind. The guy is getting up there in age and part of the thrill of seeing him is, well, seeing him and it would sure help if he could sing in tune :)
I can see why other people are challenging the legitimacy of artists who use these from the get-go though.
4 - Craig Lyndall
I don't really care what people use in pop music. There it seems like the latest tricks are always being employed including weird effects for Cher's voice, etc. Once I hear that it is getting into rock music it pisses me off. I could even allow it in a studio setting, but I want to hear the little imperfections live. That's what it's all about. It should sound a little different every time.
5 - Ed Driscoll
Jim,
I actually wrote an article based on Field's comments for Tech Central Station, which Eric kindly linked to it a while back. As I said in TCS, I think auto-tuners have their place, especially for people heavily into home recording (as I am).
I know lots of people complain about technology like this in music (as they have in past with electric guitars, synthesizers, and drum machines), but they're not going away. To me, the goal should be how to use them to make better--or at least more interesting--music. it's easy to say they're a crutch, or that the artist no longer has to perform, but people said that about the electric guitar when it first appeared as well.
And frankly, auto-tuners are still in their infancy. They can salvage a track that's a little off pitch, or replace a note or two that's out, (or when maxed out, generate "the Cher effect"), but they won't transform a poor singer into Marvin Gaye or Aretha Franklin. Believe me--I know!
As far as using them live, I can see why some people could have a problem with them, but there's always been a tension in popular music between what's possible live, and what's possible in the studio--it's what caused the Beatles to retire from performing live and concentrate on recording in the studio. It's also what caused The Who to use backing tapes and outside musicians when they toured.
The technology available to musicians in the studio has multiplied tenfold since then. And it's got to be a challenge for any act to reproduce their material live in a way that sounds acceptable to an audience used to hearing how the artist sounds on a record.
Regards,
Ed
6 - The Theory
i agree with Craig... who cares what pop musicians do to create their sugary sound? your 13 year old daughter (or sister or whatever) won't care when she goes see NSync. The kind of people into the kind of musicians who would most profit from that kind of thing just don't care. "As long as it sounds good".
7 - Jim Carruthers
I want to make it clear I have no objection to technology in making music. I love it. Anything which can enable people to make music more easily and cheaper, I'm all for it.
Which is why I referred to "celebrities". The downside is the increasing number of acts who are putting out records without any talent at all, other than huge amounts of ambition.
This is why I refered to "Singin' In The Rain". If you recall the shrill Lola Lamont had her voice dubbed in her talkies and musicals. Then at the climax it was revealed to the public that she was a fraud and sham.
That's what I object to, the purposeful deception and fraud, it is emblematic of the short-term thinking which is destroying the record business. How many rock acts could build a career if every one of their albums was the result of studio musicians? I know some bands on their debut who didn't play a note, and they never made a second album.
The increasing demand for spectacle in large scale concerts means every drop of spontaiety is being squeezed out of them. Or so I've heard, the last big concert I heard was "Down From The Mountain" I don't think Ralph Stanley was using an autotuner.
8 - Jim Carruthers
I should add that I know in "O Brother Where Art Thou?" the Soggy Bottom Boys were actually dubbed by others.
However, it was Dan Tyminski who went on tour, not George Clooney, and Clooney never claimed he did the singing.
9 - Ed Driscoll
Jim,
Lola Lamont is a good example of the limits of auto-tune. It might make her sing a little more in tune, but it can't round off the roughness of her voice's timbre. (Although technology such as TC-Helicon's VoiceOne can change the timbre of a voice: I used it on this song to create a third vocalist. But even it has its limitations!)
I think the other issue that people don't often take into account is that new technologies often play themselves out. In the mid-1980s, it seemed like it was impossible to hear a pop recording without a drum machine, a Yamaha DX-7 synthesizer, and an electric guitar smothered in effects such as chorus and phasing.
Those elements became such a cliche in popular music that the public eventually got bored with the slickness of it all, and Guns & Roses and Nirvana, with their rougher hard rock sound became hits.
That doesn't mean that drum machines, synths and chorus pedals aren't being used any more, it just means they're no longer featured elements in and of themselves, but have joined all the other musical technology before and since as tools available to a musician or producer.
The same thing will happen with autotuning. The Cher effect is burning itself out with the public even as we speak, and more subtle use of the autotuner will be to clean up recordings, not smother an artist with it. Or, as I said in the TCS piece, allow someone recording a demo at home to polish his vocals, or bring in an additional voice or two to flesh the song out.
And for every weak singer who uses it as a crutch, there will be singers with training, pipes and talent who won't need it--and they'll shine.
Ed
10 - Ed Driscoll
Jim,
By the way--great topic! It's great to see the pros and the cons about this technology in the comments section.
Ed
11 - The Theory
Jim, I don't think ANY of us wanted to hear Cloony singing that... *shudder*. Leave it to the professionals, eh?
12 - Eric Olsen
I'm back, been setting up a new computer the last several hours.
Actually my friends it's "Clooney" and if it's Rosemary I'm all for it.
13 - Mark Saleski
Clooney never hid the fact that he didn't do the singing....i saw him interviewed and he did say that he took a bunch of voice lessons...but then when he'd finish a take in the studio he knew it wasn't good because nobody would make direct eye contact with him! heh.
14 - Mark Saleski
oh ya, about the pitch correction....in pop music i really couldn't care less. i mean, if they construct the stuff in the studio and pro-tools the life out of it, who really cares it they do it live.
15 - Ryan
I was actually hoping to see where to purchase tc helicon autotune but this page has no link to such. So my comment would be that obviously the demand for this is out there big time. I want it for the same reason as "TDAVID". I write songs, play guitar, drums and some keyboard however can't keep a tune. The autotuner would give me the opportunity to share my songs and style with others confidently.