Auto-Tune is not always evil
I have a problem with musicians that are 100% anti-Auto-Tune. (It looks like Death Cab For Cutie is now among them; no, I’m not just bitter with Ben Gibbard for proposing to Zooey Deschanel.)
For those that aren’t complete music geeks like me, Auto-Tune is the tool that studios use to adjust the pitch of vocals to the correct note. It has also been used as an effect by everyone from Cher to Kanye West to create that “robotic” warbly electronic vocal sound.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I am all for stopping vocalists from using the tool to fix bad vocals when doing another take would not only suffice but actually sound more natural and thus better. My beef is when people whine when Auto-Tune is used as a creative effect to build the tone and style of a song. It’s just another tool at a musician’s disposal to make a song sound how they want. Taking it away makes as much sense as taking away a guitarist’s distortion pedal.
Alright, rant over. I needed to get that out.
Im with you man. I actually find that using a touch of auto-tune helps everything sit better, but using auto-tune everywhere like on the backing vocals, it can actually thin the doubling effect. This is an artist preference, some people like vocals sounding crisp, some rich and full. Neither is wrong.
Another consideration is budget. If you are in the studio at $140 an hour, and theres a couple notes you arent crazy about, I see no harm in using it.
If everyone had unlimited time, and unlimited budget, then we could spend as much time as we wanted getting the perfect take, but since its very difficult to make money as a musician anymore, we just don’t have that option.
For “sparingly” used auto tune : check out my url.
Great rant
Comment by dion roy — February 14, 2009 @ 10:18 amI don’t like DCFC and I like them less now, thanks.
I’d say leave the bad notes if you can’t sing, I see absolutely no artistic value in using auto-tune.
Then again… that’s just me.
Comment by Jason — February 14, 2009 @ 12:46 pmJason – ur blog url is bad! Whats the GOOD one…:)
-dion
Comment by dion roy — February 14, 2009 @ 8:28 pm